Antec Aria

A small form factor case from Antec.

Price: £63.17

Manufacturer: Antec

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Verdict

Pros:
Space for three hard drives.

Cons:
Could do with the inclusion of a cable management kit.

Verdict:
A well designed case for those who want more flexibility than the standard SFF case allows.

Simon Crisp, PC Magazine 01 Jun 2004

Small form factor (SFF) PCs are turning up more and more as the basis for mainstream systems. However, for some people they aren't big enough to take all the expansion cards they use. Antec's Aria is not only bigger than the usual SFF cases but unlike all the others it is not a barebones system - it's just an empty case.

Antec makes some of the best built cases around and the Aria follows that trend. Part of the Lifestyle range of cases that includes the popular Sonata and Overture cases, the Aria is large enough to accept microATX motherboards, which makes it a lot more flexible than the normal run of SFF PCs. While it is the same height as AOpen's XC Cube, it is some 50mm wider, mainly to accommodate the AGP and three PCI slots of a microATX motherboard.

Build quality is high, as we've come to expect from Antec, and it looks stylish, with a silver and black finish.

The chassis is made from aluminium, with removeable side and top panels allowing full access to the insides of the case. The side panels are made from two skins of aluminium with a plastic panel sandwiched between them, while the top panel is a single aluminium layer with a plastic panel, all of which keep the case weight down to a respectable 4.75kg.

The rear of the case is dominated by the 120mm cooling fan and the power supply, both of which are part of Antec's quiet component range. The large fan spins more slowly, thus reducing noise levels. The 300W power supply means that there's plenty of power for a Pentium 4 Extreme Edition or Athlon 64 and a powerful graphics card.

Antec also includes one of its Cyclone blower fans in an empty expansion slot, to aid internal cooling further.

One of the major plus points of the Aria is that it can take up to three 3.5in drives. At first glance, the one-piece aluminium removeable drive housing looks like it can accept only the usual single 5.25in drive and 3.5in drives, but there are screw holes for mounting one more 3.5in drive vertically on either side of the larger bay.

The top rear of the cage has a couple of rubber pads to aid in the reduction of case vibration from the drives. The larger of the two bays has a sprung dropdown door to hide any optical drive, so you don't have to match the colour of the drive to the outside of the case.

Built into the front of the case is a seven-in-one card reader that connects to a USB 2.0 header on the motherboard and is accompanied by two USB 2.0 ports, a 6-pin FireWire port and two audio ports.

The Aria is well designed and impressively built case, ideal if you want to slim down your tower PC but are put off by the lack of flexibility offered by most SFF cases.

Contact Perfex (0870) 874 0074
www.overclock.co.uk

Specifications: