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Antec Twelve Hundred Gaming Chassis
Final Glimpse
One final look at this beautiful case. First with the power off. You can easily see the sharp features from these photos. |
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Now with the case on and the room darkened. My pictures don't do this case justice, I encourage you to check one out in person if you can, or see the pictures on the front page that Antec took and touched up to make the case easier to see. The Twelve Hundred is made for a darkened room, but cameras aren't.
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Conclusions
Overall, the Antec Twelve Hundred is the best designed case I've ever interacted with. There was a lot of thought behind every element or component. The extreme attention to detail can be seen on everything, from the 200mm fan in the back all the way down to the vibration reducing hard drive attaching brackets.
This case is clearly aimed at high performance gaming, if you're not interested in showing your rig off to your friends and bringing it to LAN parties this case is not for you. It is well built and is slightly pricier than most cases, but the extra expense translates to extra features and a superb design.
My only real complaint against the Antec Twelve Hundred was how difficult the floppy drive was to install. Given that most people don't even use a floppy drive these days, my complaint against the case is trivial in most circumstances.
With that one flaw I see in the case came a number of ingenious design features. The first that caught my attention was the large fans. Antec chose not to use smaller (and louder) 80mm fans and opted instead to use 120mm and 200mm fans, which can move more air while still spinning slower, making the case very quiet. The case comes stock with all the fans you should need (room for 2 more 120mm fans if required) and has an intuitive air flow design with the large 200mm fan being used for an exhaust. The other feature that really stood out to me was how the case at every corner tried to reduce vibrations, any place where there was a moving part there was a large amount of effort put into isolating it.
These are two of the features that I think Antec really went above and beyond on, this is naturally in addition to all of the features that make a standard gaming case (large number of bays, smart power supply stand, sturdy construction, many expansion slots, fan controllers, etc). These are all up to par and there is little room to excel in these.
All in all, I was highly impressed and would recommend the Antec Twelve Hundred to any, and all, computer enthusiasts.
Pros:
The list price Antec gave me was $209, but newegg.com had it for $214.95, shop around or wait for newegg to do a combo deal with this case to get the best bang for your buck.
This case is clearly aimed at high performance gaming, if you're not interested in showing your rig off to your friends and bringing it to LAN parties this case is not for you. It is well built and is slightly pricier than most cases, but the extra expense translates to extra features and a superb design.
My only real complaint against the Antec Twelve Hundred was how difficult the floppy drive was to install. Given that most people don't even use a floppy drive these days, my complaint against the case is trivial in most circumstances.
With that one flaw I see in the case came a number of ingenious design features. The first that caught my attention was the large fans. Antec chose not to use smaller (and louder) 80mm fans and opted instead to use 120mm and 200mm fans, which can move more air while still spinning slower, making the case very quiet. The case comes stock with all the fans you should need (room for 2 more 120mm fans if required) and has an intuitive air flow design with the large 200mm fan being used for an exhaust. The other feature that really stood out to me was how the case at every corner tried to reduce vibrations, any place where there was a moving part there was a large amount of effort put into isolating it.
These are two of the features that I think Antec really went above and beyond on, this is naturally in addition to all of the features that make a standard gaming case (large number of bays, smart power supply stand, sturdy construction, many expansion slots, fan controllers, etc). These are all up to par and there is little room to excel in these.
All in all, I was highly impressed and would recommend the Antec Twelve Hundred to any, and all, computer enthusiasts.
Pros:
- Sturdy, sharp looking, and well thought out
- Air filters for incoming air
- Only large, quiet fans with a nice blue glow
- A lot of room for large video cards and many hard drives
- Modular design for hard drive bays
- The case lends itself to good cable routing
- Heavy
- Every connection requires screws, some of which were non-standard
- Floppy drive connection method counterintuitive
References
Real Time Pricing: