Antec Nine Hundred Two: Second Generation Gamer Case
by Christoph Katzer on February 13, 2009 3:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Cases/Cooling/PSUs
Inside
Two thumbscrews secure the side panels, providing easy access to the internals. As stated earlier, the interior is painted black, making this the perfect case for any Goths. This isn't really a huge deal, however, and you really can't see much of the interior once all of your components are installed and the side panels are back in place. Still, it does add a little something extra when you're looking through the window into the lit up interior.
Similar to many recent high-end cases, the power supply is located at the bottom of the chassis. There are four small rubber grommets at the bottom where the power supply will be installed, which can help reduce case vibrations and noise. There are also two rubber covers on the back that are useful for anyone looking at using external water cooling. You can pass tubes through these holes to an external radiator and/or reservoir.
The case includes two hard drive cages, each supporting three drives, initially installed in the middle and bottom locations. The bottom cage includes a 120mm fan, and you can install an optional 120mm fan on the other drive cages -- although it's probably not necessary from a cooling standpoint. Note that if you want to use more than three optical drives (Ed: Umm… why?), you'll need to remove one of the drive cages. That shouldn't be a problem for most users, unless you want to start up some sort of CD/DVD/BRD duplication factory.
Overall, the Nine Hundred Two is pretty close to actual ATX case specifications. Other than the power supply not being at the top, the cooling arrangement is pretty much standard fare. Air enters through the front of the chassis (passing through air filters) and cools the graphics cards, hard drives, etc. The top 200mm fan and rear 120mm fan serve as the exhaust, providing what should be more than adequate cooling. If you need or want more case fans, you can add a 120mm fan behind the second hard drive cage, along with another 120mm fan above the expansion slots.
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JeBarr - Saturday, February 14, 2009 - link
This might have made sense on the full size 1200 and I suppose still useful for some, but still seems like a waste for the targeted audience. Thanks for the nice photos I don't always get that here and is appreciated.CZroe - Saturday, February 14, 2009 - link
Many people mount their HDDs backwards in Antec 900 cases. It certainly looks cleaner and it solves the problem with clearance behind the graphics cards. My older 900 required me to Dremel some holes under the motherboard to route the wires but Antec caught on quickly and pre-drilled them in later 900 cases. I'm sure that they didn't forget when making the Nine-Hundred Two.jjj - Saturday, February 14, 2009 - link
It's nice to see that you guys try to test cases with high end parts but I wish you would use some bigger CPU coolers too.I'm farely sure a TRUE on a DFI LP UT X58 or EVGA x58 wouldn't fit because there isn't enough space above the mobo.7Enigma - Tuesday, February 17, 2009 - link
That does seem like an omission. If you are going to go with 3 freaking GPU's in tri-SLI I would assume you would have a Tuniq Extreme or something on there that is massive.Mr. Katzer, please at least test this in the future to make sure large cpu coolers will fit. I understand you want to keep the setup the same for comparison purposes to previous reviews, but just pop a larger cooler on to make sure clearance issues don't cause problems.
Christoph Katzer - Thursday, February 19, 2009 - link
I am currently building a second system (i7) and Noctua sent us two different coolers that we can test different setups. First ones tested with two systems are the Thermaltake ElementS and Antec NSK4480II.poohbear - Saturday, February 14, 2009 - link
u guys say:"The drawback of course is that you can only fit a maximum of nine hard drives"
wow, so, their target audience might need more than 9 hdd?! lol that's hardly a drawback man. jebus.
yacoub - Friday, February 13, 2009 - link
Using dictatorial software, eh? :)
7Enigma - Tuesday, February 17, 2009 - link
Ha I wondered what that meant, now I just read it phonetically and see how Dragon misconstrued that. :)strikeback03 - Friday, February 13, 2009 - link
Glad to see they added a side filter to this. I built a system for by brother in law in a Three Hundred and we ended up having to tape cheesecloth to the inside of the side panel behind the side vent to filter dust. Has the standard fans at the top/rear, and a 120mm blowing in through the hard drive cage, all fans at slow.ianken - Friday, February 13, 2009 - link
...that's a pretty sloppy cabling job there guys.Alos, this might make a nice server box. Nine bays up front, I could fit three four disc traless hotswap cages there.