Wednesday, December 31, 2003
Kudos to David Ehn for building a comprehensive comparison of the leading grpahics cards on the market today. This is great!
Sure, you could use the phonebook to lookup the zipcode for Nowhere, USA. But it wouldn't be nearly as cool as this.
Even though you can go buy a decent PC for sub-$500 these days (and have been able to for quite some time), I've always built my own boxes. It takes me back to the days when you built your own for the challenge and because you could save a lot of money.
So, what's my point? Well, in all the time I've built my own machines, I've never focused a great deal on the case. The case is the ugly thing it all goes it. "Get one that's cheap so you can spend more money on the video card!", was always my thought process. Well, sitting at my desk on Sunday, I decided that I couldn't take it any longer. Not only was the darn thing ugly (functionality over form, mind you!) - it sounded like a jet engine at the hands of a lead-foot pilot. I run AMD processors, so cooling is a bit of a concern for me. The 3 case fans were just too much. I wanted something QUIET.
And I found the Antec Sonata.
What I write on this blog cannot do this case justice. It is by far the BEST looking, most functional and QUIETEST case I have ever seen or used in my life. Start with the look - a high gloss (automotive-like) black finish. Then open it up - room for 4 internal 3.5 inch drives, 2 external 3.5 inch drives and 3 external 5.25 inch drives. The HDD bays are mounted so that the "butt end" faces you - this allows for easy access to plugs, cables and jumpers. There is a slick-looking front access panel for USB, FireWire and Audio ports. The external devices are protected by a locking door - my 2.5 year old can no longer reset my PC whenever he wants. :-)
And did I mention this thing is quiet? Everything about this case was designed for low noise. The power supply is a special build with one fan and auto speed adjusting fan. The case fan is a big one - 120mm. The concept - bigger fan, less RPMs, same airflow - less noise. The HDD rails have rubber grommets to keep the HDD noise to a minimum. I can barely hear the thing run. The fan on my external hard drive drowns out the sound of the PC - and I have two HDD drives, a NVidia Ti4200 and 3 optical drives crammed in this thing. And the heat? I was very worried I'd run into problems - the thing runs cooler than the old case!
I couldn't contain myself. I had to tell someone. Pics coming soon...