Don Marti

Sun 17 Apr 2005 08:33:51 PM PDT

Antec SLK 1650B

(update 1 Jun 2009: tearing down and re-using this case for another project. Hooray for making one case last two builds.)

This is a high-quality, reasonably-priced mid-tower case that has a good work-inside design as well as some nice touches for quiet PC aficionados.

The company calls it a mini-tower, but if you get 3 5.25 in. bays and you can see the top of the motherboard without removing the power supply, I call it a mid-tower.

The 3.5 in. drive cage has three sets of rubber grommets for the drives, along with special screws to mount them.

There's a hole in the side panel over where the CPU usually is, with an 80mm duct attached. You can attach an 80mm fan to the inside of the panel and re-mount the duct. This might let you get rid of a fan on the CPU heat sink.

To open it up, remove two thumbscrews, slide off the top panel, and lift off the side panels.

It comes with a big 120mm fan in back below the power supply, and there are places for two 80mm fans -- the side panel one mentioned above, and one more in front at the bottom.

Unusual feature: three, count 'em, three, hard drive LEDs.

And it's not Dumbass PC Beige. Hooray!

(The same company does a fanless PC power supply.)