NZXT TEMPEST
If you can’t beat ’em...ANTEC THREE
HUNDRED
A fraction of what
the company’s Nine
Hundred offersLook familiar? That’s the fi rst thing we said when pulling NZXT’s
Tempest out of the box. Save for a few minor modifi cations to the
chassis, this case is a carbon copy of Antec’s Nine Hundred chassis.
It’s built like the Nine Hundred, performs like the Nine Hundred,
and even glows like the Nine Hundred, thanks to its front- and
side-panel blue LED fans.
Rather than scorn it for its uncanny similarities, we see a certain
wisdom in knocking off a popular design, shaving $50 off the price,
and relaunching it as your very own. For what it’s worth, we experi-
enced no diffi culties whatsoever installing a modern-day system into
this no-nonsense chassis. There was plenty of room to manage cables
around our huge 8800 GTX card, and the case’s eight hard drive bays
come with screwless rails preinstalled—
you pop them off , attach them to a
drive, and slide the whole deal into
place. The two 12cm front-panel fans
take care of the cooling eff orts.
Unlike Antec’s Nine Hundred
case, the two 14cm top fans and
one 12cm rear fan around the
Tempest’s motherboard area run
at a constant speed. They chug
along at a low rpm to pre-
serve your hearing, but we’ve
grown quite fond of the Nine
Hundred’s customizable fan
speeds. It’s a simple solution
that this clone sorely lacks.
But honestly, it’s one of the
very few ways this sweet
case falters.We fi nd ourselves wondering
how a company like NZXT
can do a better job of creating
a budget version of Antec’s
gamer line than Antec itself.
That’s not to say the Three
Hundred is a bad case; it just
has little that’s special.
Case in point: You get no fancy
lighting eff ects, no side panel win-
dow, and no screwless way to mount
six hard drives or three 5.25-inch
devices. The case barely fi ts an 8800
GTX card as is—a problem we also
encountered with its greater sibling, Antec’s Nine Hundred chassis.
The case comes with a 12cm and a 14cm fan around the mother-
board area, and both use Antec’s familiar switch for setting the fans to
high, medium, or low speeds. We’re curious why the normally fan-crazy
Antec opted out of including fans for the case’s six hard drive bays—
there’s space for two 12cm fans, you just have to bring your own.
The case’s cables wrapped around to our motherboard inputs
quite nicely, although there’s not much to connect: Front-panel sup-
port on the Three Hundred consists of a mere two USB slots and stan-
dard audio jacks. That’s pretty spartan, given the Tempest’s eSATA
and FireWire options.
But it fits the murky profile of this nondescript case. Where
other chassis in this feature have tried and fallen short, Antec quit
at the starting line by offering little more in the Three Hundred
than what you can find
in a $20 enclosure.Spinning the Three Hundred’s
fans at high speed brings to
mind the hurricane-like din of
its Nine Hundred sibling.The Tempest supports the
holy trinity of front-panel
connection options with two
USB slots, a FireWire port,
and an eSATA input.58 | MAXIMUMPC | JUL 08 | http://www.maximumpc.com
VERDICT$60, http://www.antec.com^5
ANTEC THREE HUNDREDNZXT TEMPESTNZXT TEMPESTNZXT TEMPESTNZXT TEMPESTNZXT TEMPESTNZXT TEMPESTNZXT TEMPESTNZXT TEMPEST
econo
- closures
VERDICT$100, http://www.nzxt.com^9
NZXT TEMPEST