Antec back to their TRASHY roots!

[Crashman]

<A HREF="http://www.tomshardware.com/howto/20041020/case-01.html" target="_new">Take a look at that back panel</A> Notice it doesn't even have inset card slots. This is the type of construction typically found on $30 cases. Brings me back to the days before Antec's True Power, when even their power supplies were all crap (compared to quality brands).

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[etp777]

Inset is not always a positive, have had many cards that barely fit in such cases, primarily video cards, due to plugs butting up against one edge or other of case(as video card manufacturers jam more and more connections into a single slot). Don't have this particular case, but another one of theirs setup same way in back, and like the setup a lot. My 9800 pro, which had said fit oproblems on another case with inset slots, works fine on this one, and the external cover over teh slots lets me have a quick place for all my hardware, which isn't as important at home, but sure nice to ahve the spares easily accessible at lan parties.

 

[Crashman]

One purpose of inset though is to protect those connectors. Now I can see how if you had a connector very close to the inside edge, some cases could have so large a lip as to interfere, but that's due to a design oversight rather than insetting the backpanel itself. After all, there are cases where the entire slot is exposed all the way to the tab holders.

Moreover, it cost a lot less to produce cases without the inset back panel, so this is almost always an indication of cheap construction overall.

It almost pains me that the cheapest LOOKING design, the foxconn, was probably the best constructed steel case in the review. Dragons and such are almost always an indication of "fuction follows form".

<font color=blue>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to a hero as big as Crashman!</font color=blue>
<font color=red>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to an ego as large as Crashman's!</font color=red>