Antec GX700 Case Review: Just What You Can Get For $59.99

Noise and Thermal Testing, Stock

As is customary when reviewing any case with a fan controller, the Antec GX700 was tested with its fan controller at both low and high settings. Note that the control switch actually has a middle setting, but that middle setting turns the fans off entirely. That may not be a bad thing for some users, but for the sake of the testbed's longevity, I opted to test with just the low and high fan settings.

Ambient temperature when testing at stock was low enough that it may have slightly affected fan speed results; it's a remarkably cold winter here in California, and ambient temperatures hovered around 21C.

Thermals for the GX700 are competitive at low and frankly pretty awesome at high. At high the GX700 is producing temperatures competitive with Antec's Eleven Hundred, currently one of the best cases we've tested, anda it's doing so at $40 less.

Fan speeds may have been affected by the low ambient temperature during testing, but the GX700 still has some thermal headroom regardless. Our stock configuration just doesn't push it that hard.

At the low setting, the GX700 is also one of the quietest cases we've tested, while the high setting is still mostly competitive.

What we have with the GX700, at least at stock, is essentially a good balance between acoustics and performance, and the fan controller allows you to prioritize one over the other. It's a good demonstration of what I've often said about cooling in general: a good airflow design and multiple fans running at low speeds can often do a better job than any acoustic padding ever could.