Antec Eleven Hundred: The P280's Gloves Come Off
by Dustin Sklavos on April 9, 2012 12:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Cases/Cooling/PSUs
- Antec
- mid-tower
Assembling the Antec Eleven Hundred
Though it may share the DNA of Antec's Performance series, the Eleven Hundred is thankfully far easier to assemble than many of its predecessors were. Antec's engineers took care to make sure the Eleven Hundred was easy to work in, and by and large they were successful.
The motherboard tray comes with standoffs preinstalled, but not so tightly that they were impossible to remove and move around for our Micro-ATX test board. Our I/O shield also snapped easily into place, and the board took just the right amount of pressure to line up and install.
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Just about every peripheral and other component was easy to install, too. The optical drive is installed by first popping off the front fascia of the Eleven Hundred (easier done than said), then twisting out the metal place holder. Apply a healthy amount of pressure, and the optical drive will pop into the toolless mechanism and lock into place with very little wobble (the wobble-wary can also use screws to secure the optical drive). 3.5" drives are just as easy; the rails Antec uses snap into the sides of 3.5" drives. These rails are simple to install and remove despite being remarkably secure while in place. Finally, 2.5" drives slide into a dedicated cage just above the 3.5" drive cage. They're secure enough there, but I'd probably think twice about using a mechanical drive; this cage was clearly designed for SSDs with no moving parts, as there's definitely some wiggle room.
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Expansion cards are installed by removing thumbscrews and ventilated expansion bay covers; slot the card in, then replace the thumbscrews. Finally, the power supply is bottom-mounted and as long as you use a unit that's 180mm or shorter, there's access to a hole in the tray for routing cables behind the motherboard.
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It's mostly very easy to route cables in the Eleven Hundred, but the 2.5" drive cage design continues to be somewhat problematic. Simply put, the back of the drive isn't deep enough and the cage design isn't secure enough to make cabling the 2.5" drives as easy as everything else is. This is probably the only black mark on the cabling design of the Eleven Hundred; the case fans get plugged into a molex-powered hub that has four three-pin headers on it. There are a few gripes I could make about the hub, but it's nonetheless a convenience that I appreciate. I just wish four-pin molex would die already; would it be that much harder to replace this with a SATA power lead?
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All told, though, complete assembly of the Eleven Hundred is very easy and probably the equal of any Corsair enclosure in that regard. This might actually make a good beginner enclosure, as it's pretty simple to put together but has some room for a burgeoning enthusiast to experiment with assembly. My only real complaint is that you can't mount a 240mm radiator to the top of the enclosure; theoretically you could put one in the interior front or even on the left side panel, but not in its usual home. I don't see this being a major issue for most users, but it's worth pointing out.
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Stahn Aileron - Monday, April 9, 2012 - link
Would it be too much to ask that you actually place the ambient tempurature during testing somewhere on the graphs themselves so we have a readily accessible reference point right there on the graphs? It would also work as a reminder to readers what the conditions are.Dustin Sklavos - Monday, April 9, 2012 - link
The ambient temperature is going to vary from test system to test system, that's why I switched to listing the delta.Rick83 - Monday, April 9, 2012 - link
You did check, that the delta is a constant over ambient temperature though, did you? It may not be for every case. Also, of course, fan speeds will be impacted by ambient/internal temperature.If you can, you should probably run two series of tests, one in the morning and one in the evening, and then either average that or use one measurement, but at least comment the other. At least for noise, we need ambient temperature, as otherwise that value is completely without base for comparisons.
kandrtech - Monday, April 9, 2012 - link
Those familiar with thermodynamics, and the equations utilized, would agree that the delta approach is the best. Variances of a few (or 10) degrees on ambient will not appreciably change the delta results. By appreciably, I mean you'll see differences out to one or more decimal places . . . .niva - Monday, April 9, 2012 - link
Are you talking 10 deg C or F?Ideally your ambient temperature should be somewhere in the +/- 5 deg of 70 deg F. These are the normal temperatures most households are kept at. There may be a significant difference between the noise produced by components at 65 deg F, and someone's house which may be normally kept at 85 deg during the summer daytime because of lack of AC?
And I'm talking about idle situation here...
The point was valid, just include the temperature in your test data.
bobbozzo - Monday, April 9, 2012 - link
The article describing their new methodology for case testing seems to indicate that ambient temps are maintained between 71-74F.http://www.anandtech.com/show/5709/introducing-our...
ShieTar - Tuesday, April 10, 2012 - link
But those familiar with modern PC design are aware that fan-control systems generally try to achieve a constant CPU/GPU-temperature. Thus when you raise the ambient temperature to somewhat higher levels, CPU/GPU fans tend to speed up, giving you lower Delta-T values at increased noise.Thus it is important to still run these tests at comparable ambient temperatures, and if this is indeed checked at each test, it should be no problem to change the title of the temperature graph to read "Delta over ambient at 20+/-2°C". Or whichever is the range that is controlled and accepted by the tester.
O8h7w - Saturday, April 14, 2012 - link
I feel perfectly good about showing the temperature as delta above ambient instead of absolute temperature. But it seems many readers would like to see the ambient temperature at the time of testing reported as well, and I have to agree.The way of doing this that would make perfect sense in the graphs is to modify the labels to look like this:
Antec 1100
@ 23°C ambient
Lucian2244 - Monday, April 9, 2012 - link
Good review, i was wondering how it would look with a mATX in there.Is it just me or their cases get uglier and uglier ?
Iketh - Monday, April 9, 2012 - link
It's not you... this case is ugly... AND stupid...Enough with filterless side vents already! Why even have side vents? That's a damn 80's design, speaking figuratively...