Antec Three Hundred Two: Stay Cool, Budget Enthusiasts
by Dustin Sklavos on January 24, 2012 7:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Cases/Cooling/PSUs
- Antec
- mid-tower
Conclusion: Performance, No Compromises
Antec's Three Hundred Two seems to be designed with thermal performance first and foremost on its agenda. When you're dealing with sub-$100 cases, it's always going to be a balancing act between acoustics and thermals, and for the Three Hundred Two, Antec has opted to swing the pendulum towards the performance end of the spectrum. The included fan controls for the TwoCool fans give the end user some leeway and honestly I prefer the simplified two settings instead of the three on the old TriCools, so if you do want to quiet the Three Hundred Two down, it's within your power.
I honestly find the exterior of the Three Hundred Two to be a little on the bland side and kind of chintzy, and I can't help but hope that the $79 MSRP doesn't persist. The basic black plastic lacks the spitshine of BitFenix's lineup, and while the Three Hundred Two is a pretty smartly designed big steel box, it still looks like a big steel box. Between the iffy looks and the mild assembly issues with the interior, though, the only major knock you can take at the Three Hundred Two is noise, and even there you have the option of silencing the enclosure some in exchange for a little more heat.
That price tag is justified in a couple of different places, though: the toolless mounting systems used for 5.25" drives and 3.5" drives are smart and convenient, the side-removable air filter for the power supply is a nice touch, and native USB 3.0 support is still having some trouble trickling down. Still, at $79 this isn't quite the homerun I'm looking for. At $69 it'd be a good deal, and at the $59 the current Three Hundred sells for, it'd be a steal. If you're an enthusiast on a budget, though, the Three Hundred Two should be on your short list.
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Eridanus - Tuesday, January 24, 2012 - link
The curves on the front edges simply don't fit the rest of the design.GuyIncognito_ - Wednesday, January 25, 2012 - link
They are hideous.Azsen - Tuesday, January 24, 2012 - link
The 2.5" slot at the bottom of the case does not work at all. I got the Antec 200 v2 recently and an Asus motherboard with SATA 6G cables that bend 90 degrees and look like this:http://techinstyle.tv/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/p...
So you can't fit your 2.5" SSD in the bottom and use the 90 degree connector because there's no room because the bottom of the case gets in the way. Then you can't just swap the connector ends around and use the straight connector on the drive because on the Asus motherboard the system panel pins (PWR, HDD, LEDs etc) get in the way so you can't use the 90 degree connector there either.
So my choices were
a) Abandon the 2.5" slot down the bottom, or
b) Buy a SATA 6G cable with two straight ends.
In the end I ended up screwing it into a 3.5" slot from one side and it's suspended there. Probably going to snap off with the weight soon so I'll be forced to shell out for the 3.5 -> 2.5" converter.
Burticus - Tuesday, January 24, 2012 - link
At first I thought this was taking the original Three Hundred and changing what I consider to be the achilles heel.... the hard drive mounts. They re-oriented them to face outwards instead of inline which is awesome. USB 3 is nice.Front these pics and the ones on Newegg, it looks like they got rid of the front 2 120mm fans and the removable filter. The front filter is still there, and they added a power supply intake filter. But they did away with the front 2 120mm fans and made them "optional". So be prepared to pick up a couple extra fans. Honestly on my original Three Hundred I replaced the 120mm fans anyway because they were a little noisy.
http://www.antec.com/Believe_it/product.php?id=NzA...
FYI this is $69 at Newegg right now, so I think we might see some sub $50 sales in the future.
bnolsen - Thursday, January 26, 2012 - link
Side mounted hard drives are vastly inferior for cooling. The brackets block half the air flow even if no hard drives are installed. Additionally it looks as if they got rid of the spacing between the drives.From the drive cooling and general airflow this case is a big thumbs down compared with the 300 which is an excellent case for small raid arrays.
zero2dash - Tuesday, January 24, 2012 - link
I'm a fan of Antec and have been for years. Loved the P182 (even though it was too big), love my 300, loved building in a 100 a few months ago for a customer.That being said - why would anyone buy this over a 300 let alone a BitFenix Outlaw for $49?
If I'm case shopping, the Outlaw is the case to buy in the sub-$100 market.
Antec seems to have become fans of redundancy. Forgetting about the Outlaw for a minute - the 100 has a good feature set and a decent price point; the 300, slightly better in both regards. Is Antec's new objective to over-saturate the computer case market with Antec enclosures that are $10-$20 different in price than all their other enclosures, with a minor upgrade here or there? Has Antec really done anything sub-$100 other than take the same case frame, churn out a modified outside, and sell re-hash after re-hash?
I guess in Antec's world, there is no BitFenix Outlaw (or any other lower end, cheap, high feature-set case....Nzxt Gamma also comes to mind). I guess in their minds, Antec only competes with Antec.
JarredWalton - Tuesday, January 24, 2012 - link
I'm pretty sure the Three Hundred will be discontinued now and Antec will only make the Three Hundred Two going forward.bnolsen - Thursday, January 26, 2012 - link
i bought all my antec 300's for $49. I haven't seen this case before, the door is bad, blocking proper air intake. It seems microcenter carries these, i'll probably go take a look since the 302 looks to be a major downgrade.rodrigu3 - Tuesday, January 24, 2012 - link
Buying this case was cheaper than it would have been for me to replace my 6 case fans that have started to die after many years. Seems like a good build.Arbie - Tuesday, January 24, 2012 - link
"Anyway, though I do think AnandTech does some of the best reviews on the net when it comes to cases, I'd love to see them start using the fanbays in these cases. "I agree with this. And it would be great to see more discussion of motherboard fan controls, which are the other part of the equation. Mobo reviewers almost always use an open test bed, and either ignore or only briefly mention the hardware and (BIOS) firmware supporting thermal sensors and fan speeds. Some companies (eg Asus) do a far better job of this than others (eg Gigabyte) but get no credit for it on the review sites.
Personally, I'd much rather have a thorough set of sensors and controls (which I will absolutely use) than a second graphics slot which will just sit empty. And I think that in reality most DIY folks would be better served that way. But fans and cooling are a lot less glamorous than graphics boards, so any mobo built like that would get killed in the press.