Excellent case for my first PC building project!
Written: Aug 22 '04
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Easy to build. Pretty quiet. Good quality overall, especially for the price.
Cons: Fairly generic appearing from the front. Inexpensive plastic appearance.
The Bottom Line: Good case, especially for the price.
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| danmoch's Full Review: Antec LifeStyle Sonata ATX Mid-Tower Case |
I first bought a Shuttle SFF case for my Athlon 64 3200+ project. It overheated (70+ degrees C). I returned it and bought the Sonata. Building the unit was easy and now I am enjoying a reasonably powerful, quiet PC that definitely does NOT overheat (max 45 C when heavy gaming). My full setup:
Sonata, with included 380 W PS.
ASUS K8V SE Dlx motherboard
Athlon 64 3200+ (Newcastle 754 pin, 2.2 GHz)
2 Patriot PC 4000 CL3 Memory 512KB
2 WD 74 GB Raptors in Raid 0.
ATI brand Radeon 9800 Pro 128 MB.
SB Audigy 2ZS Platinum (not pro)
Zalman 7000 Cu CPU cooler.
An additional 120 mm case fan by the hard drives.
Mitsumi CD-R/DVD ROM drive.
Teac FDD.
Building the unit was easy. The mobo was reasonably easy to wiggle in. The disk drives mounted on subcarriers, then slid in from the open side.
The power supply is adequate for the setup I have. The system is stable under gaming (UT2004.) I'm sure that I would NOT try to install a NVidia GeForce 6800 Ultra card in the system without upgrading the power supply! From what I've read, I should be able to upgrade my video card to the Radeon X800 series however.
The case finish is a semi-gloss to almost gloss black paint, but really doesn't qualify as "piano" grade! The surface is a little too rough to be that. The front of the case and door are plastic and none to fancy at that! Nonetheless, for $110 at my local computer store, it was absolutely a good buy.
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
danmoch
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Reviews written: 10
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