Antec Overture Case: Good solution for HTPC's
Written: Jun 06 '04
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Sleek design, quiet fans and system.
Cons: Not ideal air flow design; no system hangs, however.
The Bottom Line: Sleek design for HTPC users; blends in with entertainment system decor, and more economical than the competition.
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| ivplay's Full Review: Antec Overture ATX Desktop Case |
I recently decided that I wanted to build an HTPC, or a Home Theater Personal Computer. This is the first review in a series that will detail the software and hardware that I chose to put into this endeavor…
What is an HTPC?
No, this is not off-topic, as this case is specifically designed for those individuals who want to build an HTPC. The fact that it also looks like a nice desktop is a good side-benefit, and probably has netted Antec a few extra sales…
An HTPC is essentially a PC that is used in place of several components in your typical home theater setup. My particular HTPC performs the work of a TIVO, cable TV tuner, and Stereo system. I have decrypted and shrunk all of our DVD’s to a hard drive, and from there can play each and every movie on any television in the house with the help of a video converter in the cable line. I have all of our CD’s on the hard-drive as well, and can play these through the interface into the stereo speakers. If we had never purchased the DVD player, Stereo system and CD player, this would have saved us a lot of money. As it is, we already own all of those and now have another box in the entertainment center to deal with!
What is in my particular HTPC?
Just so you can understand what it takes to make an HTPC (and so you know what reviews to look forward to) I have included the component makeup of my system.
Antec Overture case
2.4a Prescott family Intel Pentium 4 chip
512MB (2X256MB) of PC3200 Corsair Value Ram, running in Dual Channel
120GB Seagate 7200RPM Hard Drive w/2MB cache
160GB Seagate 7200RPM Hard Drive w/8MB cache
Cisco Aironet 350 Wireless 802.11b PCI card
ATI 9600 AIW video card with ATI Multimedia Center Software
Microsoft Windows XP Home edition
Cyberlink’s PowerCinema 3.0 software
What is this case?
The case is an Antec Overture Piano Black Quiet Media Case. The case is designed to fit in well with your other various entertainment system components, as it comes with a polished black finish on the case body and a brushed aluminum look to the face. The case is designed to fit either a micro-ATX or full ATX motherboard, and comes with a removable I/O shield to facilitate use with any motherboard of your choice. The case sets on a flat surface, similar to the desktop-style cases of yore or the current design for the entertainment center’s amplifier, etc.
The face of the case has two 3.5” external bays and two 5.25” external bays. In these slots you can install floppy drives, media reader drives, optical drives, sound card control panels, and on, and on and on. I personally only have one optical drive, which is my Plextor 708A, installed in one of these. No need for a floppy, and certainly don’t want to load the case up with miscellaneous stuff, as it will cut down on air flow and increase temperatures.
For front connectivity there are two USB 2.0 ports in the front case along with a 1394 Firewire port. The wires extend into the case, so assuming you have a motherboard which is compatible and you hook up the wires, you can use the ports to download pictures, video, etc. Two audio jacks round out the ports on the front, and the only thing left to mention is the power button. The button is round and constructed of plastic illuminated by a blue LED. Very classy! If you would like to see this case from all sides, copy and paste the following link into your browser:
http://www.newegg.com/app/Showimage.asp?image=11-129-142-01.JPG/11-129-142-03.JPG/11-129-142-05.JPG/11-129-142-04.JPG/11-129-142-02.JPG/11-129-142-06.JPG/11-129-142-07.JPG
Specifications:
Specifications, for a case? Yes, even the case can and will have some specifications associated with them. First of all, the dimensions and materials of construction are very important for an HTPC case. This particular case is 5.25” in height, 17” in width, and 19.25” in depth. With just the case, power supply, drive cages and fans taken into account, it weighs in at 19 lbs, or 8.6 kg. You can deduce by the weight that it is constructed of steel, as the aluminum cases would be lighter and dissipate heat better.
The case appears to have been redesigned based on complaints of overheating, as the pictures on the box as well as on the web show only one fan in the system, and it is placed at the rear of the case and set up as an exhaust. There is an additional fan on the right side panel with my case, also set up as an exhaust. The power supply sits in the front left corner with an air intake to the exterior of the case with an air filter in place. The two fans in question are SmartCool Plus 92mm and 80mm case fans, and the rear exhaust has a temperature sensor that allows it to spin up when needed and remain quiet otherwise. This helps to keep the HTPC quiet when not under load, and only become louder as necessary.
The case comes with a removable chassis to install three 3.5” drives internally, for up to three hard drives. This chassis attaches to the case with a slider connection on the bottom and two screws in the top. Be sure and take this out and install your hard drives prior to installing the motherboard and processor! The processor’s Heat Sink Fan (HSF) combo along with the side exhaust fan will keep you from pulling this out to install the drives. (I just took the side panel fan off and slid the chassis out the front to get it out) This chassis comes with rubber grommets and special screws to dampen the noise produced by the hard drives spinning up. It is surprising that they did not also include rubber grommets for mounting the optical drives, as they spin up rather loudly as well. Watching DVD’s from disk will be somewhat louder without the grommets, but not unacceptable.
The 3.5” external drives are mounted on a tray which sets on top of the power supply in the front-left corner of the case. I do not use any 3.5” external drives, so I cannot say how effective this is. There are 7 slots for expansion through the back of the case into the motherboard. You should be able to hook up any type of motherboard and PCI/AGP cards that you would like.
Finally, the power supply which accompanies this case is an Antec (surprised?) 380W TruePower Power Supply with Quiet-Enhanced technology. The Quiet-Enhanced technology reportedly makes this power supply up to 80% quieter, and I do not notice it over the processor fan, so it must be working! The power supply has individual circuits for each voltage rail, which is very nice and something you do not see in the cheaper units. The tolerances are /- 3% on the supplied voltages, and this should protect you from undervolting your board, etc.
My impressions
I really do like the looks of the Antec, and it has performed well for me so far. I have played some graphically intensive games on the PC through my TV, and you will notice the fan spinning up louder and louder as you play. I have not noted any system hangs at all, and this is probably due to the second fan that was installed to exhaust the heat of the PC.
There is one ‘humorous’ item of note with this case. The Antec 380W power supply comes with two 4-pin connectors labeled Fan Only. This is becoming standard with several of the Antec power supplies, and I have not noticed a problem with it in my other cases. However, in the box with the case comes a piece of paper which warns: ”Do not use the Fan Only connectors with the supplied case fans.” At first I thought this was ironic, or humorous. I have come to realize that this meant that I now had two completely useless plugs in the case, and it mildly irritates me now. I say mildly as this is an HTPC, which means that I will probably not be plugging a whole lot of stuff into it anyway…
I would recommend installing as little in the case as necessary, and leave the rest to another case over a network. You can load this case up, as it has ample room and slots, but it will increase the heat necessary to dissipate and reduce airflow. I would also highly recommend investing in a good set of round cables, and get the longer cables, as it is not easy to route to the hard drives. You will not be able to get the hard drive and the optical drive on the same cable no matter what, so pick up two cables while you are at it. Don’t forget to use the stand-offs below the motherboard, as screwing the board right to the case bottom can cause shorts and failure of the board.
The only thing I would change would be to add a heat pipe HSF to the processor so the heat could be directed to right in front of the rear exhaust fan. With the design of the ATX boards, it is impossible to place a fan directly in line with the processor, as this would place it right where the I/O shield is… You could also place a fan in the top of the case, but the wires would be difficult to keep out of the processor fan, and you would end up with clearance issues. A heat pipe and block would help this out, although I have not had problems with lock-up at all.
I have read a few reports from folks that didn’t like the blue LED that shines around the power button. Personally, I think it adds some class to the case and is not overly bright. However, if you find the LED too bright, there is a quick solution: Unplug the power connection to the LED! I know that is a novel idea, but rather than complaining about it, take care of it… In any case, we don’t think it is too bright.
The case is large; check the dimensions of your entertainment center prior to buying. It was supposed to fit in our entertainment center, as we checked the dimensions prior to purchasing. However, we didn’t take into account the distance that the wires stick out of the back of the computer, such as the Graphics card, sound card, etc. This along with the swinging door on the entertainment center caused us to move the unit to the top of our entertainment center, where it currently resides. In the future we will transfer the VHS tapes we have over to the hard drive and then probably replace the VCR with the HTPC, on a shelf right above the television.
The competition for this Antec case is manufactured either by a newer company named Silverstone, or by AHANIX. Both of these manufacturers produce cases that are smaller in dimension and constructed from aluminum as opposed to the steel of the Antec Overture. However, where I picked this case up for $96, the Silverstones and Ahanix’s generally sell for ~$210-220. This case meets all of my needs and does not cause heat problems, so I would recommend it for you as well.
Overall
If you want an HTPC, this is a very nice case for the application. With the new design and two case fans, it does dissipate heat rather nicely and allow for some moderately intense graphics without system hangs. You can watch DVD’s all day without heat issues, although the quiet fans will spin up, becoming louder as the system heat increases. The fan on my 2.4a Prescott chip also has speed/temperature compensation, making this a fairly quiet system most of the time. This is a nice looking case that will fit in with the décor of your entertainment center. I would highly recommend this for your HTPC needs!
Other reviews of interest
This HTPC is connected via the D-Link wireless router to my gaming/productivity system:
Pentium 4 system
Abit IS7-E mobo
P4 2.6c processor
Corsair PC4000 TwinX XMS 1024MB DDR memory
eVGA.com 5900SE
Western Digital 80GB SE Hard drive
Seagate 120GB Hard drive
I hope this review has been helpful for you in your purchase decision, and if you feel so inclined leave me a comment and a rating. Thanks,
Jason
Recommended:
Yes
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