Antec GX700 Case Review: Just What You Can Get For $59.99
by Dustin Sklavos on January 17, 2013 10:00 PM EST- Posted in
- Cases/Cooling/PSUs
- Antec
- ATX
In and Around the Antec GX700
Antec's design for the GX700 is pretty much coming from the same place as Corsair's Vengeance C70; there's a military-inspired styling to it, and it takes the ostentatious gamer enclosure off in a new direction. Antec uses a baseline two-tone of black and olive green, spicing things up with red for some of the switches. There's also a yellow-black-striped decal for the cover over the fan controller. I'm not a fan and some of you won't be either, but my answer is going to be pretty much the same as it ever was: at $59, assuming the case comes through on performance, who cares?
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The front of the GX700 is something the rep was pretty proud of. Antec uses clamps to hold solid metal drive bay shields into place, opting for an "ammo case" motif. Beneath the four drive bays (technically three, but more on this later) are the red power button, a recessed black reset button, and a metal grate held into place with four thumbscrews that hides the bottom two fan mounts. The rest of the fascia is black plastic; the price had to come from somewhere.
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When you move to the top, you can see the fan mounts are slightly extruded. I've seen a couple of cases (Rosewill's Armor Evolution, for one, which has a review due soon) that have taken a similar tack to the top cooling. It's not the most attractive solution, but it does make a feature out of the cooling system, and it actually adds a little bit of headroom for mounting radiators to the top of the case.
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The rest of the body of the GX700 is black-painted SECC steel with a plastic flip cover for the expansion slots, and honestly, this is where they cut corners. The plastic and steel they've used for the GX700 is pretty chintzy, and the front fascia isn't held on particularly securely. I've assembled and moved dozens of cases, but when I went to move this one from my work area to testing, the front actually popped off and the case fell, damaging one of the feet and warping the rails for the fan filter so that it won't stay in place. Most users first instinct is going to be to grip from the front and the back, unfortunately.
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Thumbscrews hold the side panels into place, and they employ the same notched mounts we're accustomed to on these less expensive cases. When you do get inside the GX700, it's pretty business as usual. The five 2.5"/3.5" drive sleds all use trays, while the 5.25" bays enjoy snap-on clamps. There are cable routing holes throughout the motherboard tray, a healthy cut out for CPU backplates, and smartly, the tray itself is slightly recessed with a cabling channel to the right. This is a good way to cut down on case size while still offering a healthy amount of space for routing cables.
Honestly, the big deal with the GX700 is again that it includes a lot of features at a low price, but note that build quality is a little bit iffy. The steel is easy to dent, and the plastic used throughout the case isn't the greatest. What we have is a weird melange of building materials, none particularly great, but together they do help to hide just how cheaply built the case actually is. We're still not in the realm of a $30 bargain bin bleeder, though, which is good.
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Hrel - Friday, January 18, 2013 - link
It looks like a Tonka Trunk. Not even a good one, a cheap one. that's literally my only complaint with this case. If they release one that's just black, no other colors anywhere. Then that's a case I can recommend to people. Honstly just change the colors to all black and it's "good enough".For my personal use I wouldn't buy it because the lines are wrong AND the colors are ugly. I like the sleek industrial look. I'm also willing to go up to 100 on cases.
Bottom line, I'm impressed they built a case that performs THAT well and is tooless AND has a fan controller that's actually effective. Those are some damn good acoustic levels. Simplify the lines, get rid of the unnecesary ditches around the 5.25 drives, cover the top one with a temp readout maybe, make it all black, add some dampening foam and charge 100 bucks. I'd buy it.
alyf - Friday, January 18, 2013 - link
The "botherboard" tray? :)jabber - Saturday, January 19, 2013 - link
When can we get a grown up case that reeks of style and sophistication?HardwareDufus - Saturday, January 19, 2013 - link
hideous at any pricemapesdhs - Saturday, January 19, 2013 - link
Reading this kind of review convinces me all the more of the wisom of my obtaining used
Antec 300 cases whenever I can. Half the price, better IMO. And when I say used, I just
mean eBay; some of the ones I've bought have been sold as new/unused, so even better.
Ian.
nwarawa - Saturday, January 19, 2013 - link
I've been waiting for a case to de-throne the HAF 912 for some time now in the $50-$60 range... looks like I will keep on waiting. If CoolerMaster could release a HAF 913 with USB3.0 support... maybe also add a few for 2.5" doo-dads for the growing prevalence of ssds... that would be awesome. But even as is, I have yet to see another case come close. The modular HDD bay is just awesome, cooling options are top notch, and the lack of flimsy steel just seals the deal.dj christian - Monday, January 21, 2013 - link
"The drive trays slide in from the rear of the botherboard tray instead of above like most cases"What do you mean? How can you slide them in from above?
Hrel - Thursday, January 24, 2013 - link
if you have the case laid on it's side, like you would if you were installing things.chrome_slinky - Thursday, January 24, 2013 - link
I really do wish that people [especially reviewers] would quit assuming that they know what it is the public wants -To wit - " We don't need four 5.25" bays anymore anyhow (we really only need two at most these days)."
This is not true for many, and especially the "high performance" crowd to which this is supposedly addressed.
I love the build quality of the older Antec cases, and what has kept me from buying again, but instead buying Cooler Master, is exactly that there are not more open bays in the case.
I still use a floppy on occasion, have 250MB internal Zip drives, and do my copying of optical stuff directly from one drive to another - that accounts for four, and does not make much room for a fan controller or a display of some sort.
I fully realize I am not the norm, but, after taking a quick survey of about 20 friends, I am not in a SMALL minority either. Most people I speak to [and come in contact with daily, as part of my job - selling, repairing, and maintaining computers] think that 6, my favorite, is excessive, also think that 3 is too few.
D1RTYD1Z619 - Sunday, January 27, 2013 - link
And I bet you could find an 1100 at about this price on sale, after rebate or both. Now if only they made a decent mitx case that takes a standard psu and a gtx 680 sized card.