Antec ISK 110 VESA Case Review: Just About As Small As It Gets
by Dustin Sklavos on August 31, 2012 12:01 AM EST- Posted in
- Cases/Cooling/PSUs
- Mini ITX
- Antec
Conclusion: Good Deal, If You Need It
When you're talking about the Antec ISK 110 VESA, it's important to note-and I've stressed this over and over-what you're giving up. Even for a Mini-ITX system, you're sacrificing a lot to hit a form factor this small. That's not necessarily a bad thing; the ISK 110 VESA isn't intended for full-powered or even compact-powered systems and Antec makes no bones about it on their product page. It's meant for kiosk and basic lightweight corporate and personal use.
I'd argue that for those purposes it's actually more than adequate. It's very easy to make it a quiet system (just use a quiet heatsink), and as long as your expectations are properly adjusted, you should be perfectly happy with it. Antec charges a competitive price for it, too.
With all that said, though, there are still definitely a few places where Antec could improve the design. Ease of assembly is always going to be an issue with a case this small, but the ISK 110 VESA is more difficult than it needs to be. While I'm not an electrician I find it hard to believe that the power board needs to be laid out as clumsy as it is; the caps are just too tall, and the precarious way it's mounted makes it needlessly difficult to remove and replace. The power leads on the separate cable are fine for the most part (a sheath around the cables would go a long way), but the AUX 12V line is just plain too short.
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Antec could also make plugging headers into the motherboard easier by employing completely removable cables similar to how BitFenix handles them in the Prodigy. These wouldn't actually take up much more space than the existing black plastic box, either, but would again go a long way towards making the case easier to assemble.
Finally, the panel on the underside just plain needs to be ventilated better. As the case is designed it does run the risk of cooking 2.5" drives housed there, and there's no reason not to increase the ventilation.
Whether or not USB 3.0 connectivity should be added in an update (or a reset button for that matter) is going to be a matter of some controversy. I see the pros and cons for going either way, so I can't hold it as a strike against the ISK 110 VESA. I'm also wondering just how difficult it would be to switch to a 120W power adapter instead of the existing 90W; the case has enough thermal headroom to it that I don't think it's out of the question to try putting a standard 95W processor inside.
All of that essentially leaves us with a case that's pretty good at what it does, but definitely has room for improvement. This is a fairly old design from Antec, too, so it's ripe for updating. Let's hope they do it.
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DanNeely - Friday, August 31, 2012 - link
I'm a bit surprised they didn't go with something more like a pico-psu in general. Just using 12V in instead of 19V would allow for a significantly smaller board since you'd only need to make small amounts of 3.3/5V internally and not large amounts of 12V as well. Dropping the additional conversion should also boost total system efficiency and lower wall power as a result.Lonyo - Friday, August 31, 2012 - link
Yeah, the power circuitry based on the pics looks like a lot more than I would expect to be necessary given the size of a PicoPSU (I'm using on on an ITX system with G620T and HD6450, as well as 3x3.5" HDDs with no problems).If it's an ITX system with just 2.5" drives, there should be no issues with a low power PicoPSU instead of whatever they went with.
Alex_N - Friday, August 31, 2012 - link
I built three identical systems using this case, used i7 3770S (65W quad core) for the CPU and Intel's reference mini-ITX ivy bridge motherboard. I use them for a small CPU-heavy compute cluster.Pros:
-assembly was pretty easy. I was able to fit the motherboard in without removing the PSU.
-very low power (I can run them all off one power strip)
-very low noise... can't hear them running over the AC and my desktop, even with my head next to the case and at full load (obviously depends on your CPU fan, I'm using the stock cooler fan)
-very space efficient (the other mini-ITX cases are 3X as large)
-CPU runs cool at load
Cons:
-PSU runs very hot at load. Could be partially due to the tough cable management.
-one of the PSUs was dead out of the three. Replaced it with a PicoPSU, which was much smaller (and maybe runs cooler, too, but haven't checked closely)
It's been about 4-5 months and I'm very happy with them. Quiet compute cluster, low cost, low noise, low power consumption, fast boot times (SSD + new style BIOS - UEFI?). I'd consider building these for friends/relatives who need a non-gaming PC, as well.
fic2 - Friday, August 31, 2012 - link
I am curious as to what PicoPSU you replaced the PSU with.EnzoFX - Friday, August 31, 2012 - link
I love these things, but I don't understand why they can't do proper length cables, or include cables that would just fit well, as opposed to something at standard length. Furthermore, why cant' they make some custom connectors or adapters. It must be possible, for them to create maybe even a new standard to keep cables to a minimum size and length in these type of cases. The power is only going to so few devices that it should warrant custom cables perhaps? The ease of assembling and better airflow would be worth the marginal extra cost, surely?jhoff80 - Friday, August 31, 2012 - link
...but with most new mITX boards having a mSATA slot, I'd absolutely love to see a case with 0 drive bays but that still has two PCI expansion slots (preferably with a riser) to support a dedicated GPU.Wardrop - Friday, August 31, 2012 - link
Just a shame that Antec cases are always so ugly... or maybe out of date is a better description. Would have looked awesome back around the turn of the century, but otherwise, I think Lian Li are the only one's making attractive cases of this size (or a little larger).Scannall - Friday, August 31, 2012 - link
I agree, it really does look bad. I used a Wesna case for my HTPC.http://www.shop.perfecthometheater.com/HTPC-ITX2-B...
Looks far better.
Wardrop - Saturday, September 1, 2012 - link
That Wesna case is pretty nice. Thanks for the link.Anosh - Wednesday, November 7, 2012 - link
Expect it gets to warm