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Antec Sonata II ATX Case Review

Cases & PSU/Cases by SidneyWong @ 2005-10-06

AMD or Intel; ATI or Nvidia; Water Cool or Air Cool; Huge heatsink or Normal size; it does not matter here; we are talking about a new Sonata II ATX case from Antec. Unless, you are one of those fanatics who doesn't need a case at all. Armed with 1x120 mm fan and room for one more it comes with unique fan duct. Can Sonata II be a quiet case?

The Recipe & Installation

The Recipe:

I intend to move what is in the Chenbro Xpider II into the Sonata II. Before hand, I took the some important data for comparison.

Sonata II Versus Chenbro Detail Recipe
CPU	P4 Prescott S-478 2.8E @3.43 GHz 1.485v Vcore
Mainboard	Asus P4P800 Deluxe
Memory	2*256Mb PC3200
Other	ATI 9600XT 351/600 mem setting Two Optical drives in Chenbro - One Optical drive Sonata II 120 GB SATA Hard Drive Leadtek TV Tuner LSCool X-500 heatpipe sink and 92mm fan cooler Kool Solutions Chill Vent CCV-28 versus Sonata II Air Duct

The following screen shots which will turn into data for comparison were taken hours before the move; ambient temp will be maintained within 27° C thru out the test. (CV = Chill Vent)

Vital temperature using Prime95 for Chenbro with CV

Vital temperature using Prime95 for Chenbro without CV, failed Prime95 at 63°C

9600XT reported high/low GPU and environment temps after one victory of BattleField 2 with CV

9600XT reported high/low GPU and environment temps after one victory of BattleField 2 without CV

I also recorded sound level reading using CEM DT-8850 digital sound meter with internal calibration, which has the range of 35 to 100 dBA.

Chenbro case has 1x120mm exhaust and 1x92 mm intake; Thermaltake 420 Watts PurePower PSU.

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A shot before the transplant

Installation

I am slow; so 30 minutes later -

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Nothing peculiar to report, the installation went smoothly with the following notes:

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To install the 92mm CPU/air duct fan and the 80mm/graphic card fan requires removing the panels with screws attached.

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Special screws are provided to mount the hard drive from the bottom; there are 16 screws enough for 4 hard drives. I noticed the SATA connector wires are too short, a few inches longer will make it possible to route the wirings behind the cage with room to facilitate installation "easier" for large hands.

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I noticed the front 120 mm mounting requires the use of rubber mounting plugs which are only applicable for fan with "open" thru holes. The Speeze 120mm fan I have does not meet the requirement. Hence, you see the use of rubber band with knots which yields the same result.

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After mounting the air duct, there is not much clearance despite the use of low profile heatsink & fan.

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There is little room in between the ATI 9600XT and the air duct, so what out for those "tall" and heatpiped graphic cards.

It's time for the fun testing ->

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