Athenatech A3701BB Media Center Chassis

Rating

Impressive quality and for my first time assembling a PC it was straight forward and easy. One feature that wasn’t noted was that the entire front panel can pop off via a side hatch. Removing the front panel affords easier access to mount the power supply. Some assembly steps that I learned: 1. Remove the top, bottom panels first 2. Install power and hdd with screws provided. 3. I easily added a 3.5” multi card reader in the front 3.5” bay which is accessible by touch latch door. 4. Remove the front panel to mount the optical drives with the easy sliding brackets provided - they install through the front. Lesson learned: my DVD trays would get stuck on the flip door when retracting but removing one spring per flip door while the front panel was popped off did the trick (be careful not to stretch the springs). While you have the front panel off you can adjust the case’s DVD open buttons to align with your DVD open buttons. 5. Install the mother board using the standoff screws and sockets. 6. Attach all data and power cables and you are done. This case has so many quiet fans that I am not worried about it overheating, not to mention that the power box you install will probably have a fan, along with your GPU and CPU too. You can always buy an extra fan or a liquid cooling kit at your computer store. The construction is ridged and made of steel also the front panel is brushed black aluminum. The Evo logo was a bit much for me so I removed it with nail polish remover and I must admit that this case looks amazing alongside other AV components.

Rating

The look of this case is second to none; anything that looks at home alongside your DVR or Receiver or DVD Player is worth checking out. Unfortunately, in your potential quest to produce an unorthodox-looking computer, you'll come up short in the logistics department.The biggest problem with this case lies at the fundamentals of its construction. The placement of the power supply is actually at the front (behind the EVO logo), which means your cables are going to come out right on top of your motherboard. In my case, I actually could not mount my graphics card because the cables got in the way. Unless your power supply has modular cable connections (so you don't have to worry about the cord-cluster), this case is going to be cramped full of cables and potentially turn the whole thing into a ticking time bomb of overheating, fan-jamming, or any of several other computer maladies.To make matters worse, while the placement of optical drives and a card reader is obvious, where the Hard Drive goes is actually kind of a guessing game. Logically, the only space in the case it fits into (sideways and next to the two optical drives) seems far too cramped and may lead to some overheating issues, provided that's even where you're supposed to put the drive in the first place.I ended up returning this case. I wanted to like it and it certainly looks cool enough, but it's just not right for my components, and given how commonplace those are, it probably won't be right for yours, either.

Rating

Super buy. A great case for the money. Assembly was very easy. One comment is the Asus board I used has the SATA on the side. The cables had to be installed first then the board installed.