In our recent hands on video preview of the Antec Eleven Hundred Chassis, we took you through every part of the case. And like many of you, we were impressed with this one a whole lot more than we have with any Antec case that has come out in the last couple years. This case really gets Antec caught up with the pack. Along with the recently released P280, the company has really shown strong focus in building something that maintains the signature elegance of their line, but doesn’t shoe horn today’s necessities as an afterthought.
Now that we’ve had ample time to let the honeymoon phase wear off a little, it’s time for us to report back and give you our findings on what we think of this case. Since we’ve already gone into detail in the preview, we’re going to get right to the nuts and bolts. We’ll touch on parts of the case that we thought deserved a more detailed look and most importantly, let you know what we really think of it.
A Closer Look at the Antec Eleven Hundred
One thing that immediately stood out to me was the lack of liquid cooling options. While there were a pair of rubber grommets in the rear for hoses and an external loop, there was nothing inside the case to mount anything larger than a self contained 120mm liquid cooling system. Anyone looking to mount at least a 240mm radiator or larger is out of luck on this case without modifications. But what it is built for is a high performance air cooler.
With a good number of well placed fans, even extra spots for more on the back of the drive cages should you load them up with drives, and the fan bus at the top, it seems to support that assumption. It is unfortunate though that they only include one fan at the back of the case, which has a few issues that we’ll elaborate on shortly. I believe that every case should have the bare minimum number of fans needed for reasonable cooling out of the box, even if they are cheaper units that just do the job.
Antec has built this case with SSDs in mind. They providetwo 2.5 inch drive bays at the top of the drive cage. While there is sufficient pressure to secure two drives without additional hardware, you can pop a screw in the side easily to keep things more secure. Whereas many cases give you options to mount both 3.5 inch and 2.5 inch drives with the use of a specialized tray, some could argue that you’re taking away a 3.5 inch drive cage by creating a specialized 2.5 inch mounting space. On the flip side, you do gain two 2.5 inch bays in the space of a single 3.5 inch drive bay. With hard drive prices as high as they are and SSDs looking more attractive every day, I don’t think it’s an issue at all.
I mentioned in the preview how beefy the front panel connectors were. Particularly the headphone and mic jacks. Well, they are still beefy, but I discovered a couple of other things in the details. I found that the whole assembly is one separate unit from the case. What that means is that in case any of your jacks get damaged, you can replace the assembly with the removal of two screws and it’s easy to do. So instead of chucking out the case or doing surgery to replace a bent or fried USB port, you can just pop the whole thing out and put a new one in.
One thing that did come up was that the USB 3.0 ports are using the new front panel connector that many new motherboards are starting to come with. But if you don’t have that connector on your motherboard, you can’t use the USB 3.0 ports at all, even as a USB 2.0 ports. They sit around and do nothing. Luckily, Antec saw the need for an adapter at this price point and has volunteered to send any early Eleven Hundred adopters an adapter that will allow you to use them as USB 2.0 ports till you make your move to a new board. The adapter takes the front panel connector and turns it into a standard USB 2.0 internal header. Nice move Antec.
What’s In The Box?
As far as included accessories go, there isn’t much extra in the box. You’re going to get your motherboard stand offs, drive screws, rails for mounting your 3.5 inch hard drives, and additional hardware to mount fans on the plexiglass window and ones that mount fans to the two 120mm spots at the front of the case. A minimal number of zip ties are included as well as a basic instruction sheet. There’s nothing that really sets this apart from any other case on the market in this respect.
Test System Setup
The Antec Eleven Hundred is one of few mid-towers that is capable of housing a full XL-ATX board like the GIGABYTE G1.Killer Assassin. This makes the case a potentially interesting choice for a multi-GPU setup that is actually portable. We’ve used the following parts to assemble a system to weed out any installation and setup issues you may want to know about.
- Motherboard – GIGABYTE G1.Killer Assassin X58 LGA1366 Motherboard
- CPU – INTEL Core i7 LGA1366 960 3.2GHz CPU
- CPU Cooler – Antec Kuhler H20 620 Liquid Cooling System
- Memory – Kingston T1 Black Triple Channel 1600MHz 12GB Memory Kit
- Video Card – GIGABYTE GTX 570 Super Overclock Edition 1280MB
- Hard Drive – Seagate Momentus XT Solid State Hybrid 750GB Hard Drive
- Power Supply – Antec High Current Pro 850Watt Modular Power Supply
- Operating System – Windows 7 Professional 64 bit
This system represents a fairly typical high performance single GPU gaming system that should provide a good level of challenge for the build and should be a reasonable test subject for noise and thermal performance. But first, let’s see if we ran into any issues trying to put this rig together.
Setup and Installation Notes
Building with the components we listed allowed us to find areas where some installation issues may arise with the Antec Eleven Hundred.
One of the unique selling points of this chassis is the XL-ATX motherboard support. XL-ATX boards are built longer to hold more video cards and some also provide extra four pin MOLEX power connectors to supply more power to the PCI Express slots when they are all fully loaded. One of the issues we ran into when installing this board was that the lower four pin MOLEX connector was blocked by the power supply and there was no way to connect a conventional four pin connector to it on our G1.Killer Assassin.
There is SOME space between the board and the power supply so if you plan ahead, you may be able to purchase a 90 degree extension that may be able to fit into this space. We weren’t able to locate such a component at our local computer store so unfortunately, we weren’t able to check fitment. We estimate that another 2 CM might have been enough for the cable to plug in and make the turn over top of the power supply. If you’re using a regular ATX board, then this should not be an issue, but we were disappointed at this compatibility issue which takes one of the most popular XL-ATX boards out of the running if you want to fill up all four slots with GPUs. You should be fine with dual or single configurations or any XL-ATX board that has that connector mounted differently.
The other unique selling point of this case is the fan bus connectors at the top of the chassis. This allows you to connect all of your chassis fans to one area without making a mess of your board having to snake fan cables across it. It’s powered by a single MOLEX connector. It’s a great feature in theory, but without proper planning you can see some potential FAIL from the picture above. Yes, the 120mm fan and radiator assembly of our Antec H20 620 liquid cooling system has completely blocked access to the four connectors.
We did try test fitting the large Noctua NH-D14 as well, and was presented with the same issue for fitment. We did try using the smaller NZXT Havik 120 that recently launched but unless you have really tiny fingers, it’s still fairly tedious. If you’re going to use the fan bus, we recommend that you route all your 3 or 4 pin fan cables to it first before mounting your CPU cooler. This seemed to do the trick, but keep in mind that changing any of the fans out will require you to remove your CPU cooler first for best access. If Antec could figure out a way to mount it on the back of the motherboard tray, it would not only facilitate cable management, but would eliminate the issue totally.
Referring to the picture above, we also couldn’t understand why there was a gap in the case with a hole on either side above the radiator. Our only guess was that this was a locking mechanism that was left out of production. Considering that this is aimed at gamers, and gamers do love LAN parties, it might have been a good idea to include a lock loop so that the door could be secured.
Antec only includes a top mounted 200mm LED fan and a 120mm rear fan at the top of the case for cooling and ventilation. If you want to build any high performance gaming system, you will need to pick up another fan at the very least to go in the front of the case. Because we were using Antec’s own H20 cooling system, we decided to recycle the fan from the back when we removed it to install the water cooler. Unfortunately, that won’t work because the power cable for the fan is only just long enough to reach the fan bus at the top of the case. It’s maybe 3 inches long.
Our solution was to attach a 3 pin fan cable extension to the short cable to extend it long enough to reach one of the motherboard fan headers. It was a couple dollars for this cable, but some of the sleeved ones can be quite expensive at $6 – 8 bucks. Unfortunately, this cable was not long enough for us to reinstall the fan into the fan bus. Another solution brought to our attention was to perhaps swap fans with the one on the H20 cooler, but often times, the static pressure of the fans used for radiators is much higher so we would refrain from doing that to avoid reducing performance.
So altogether, we had to spend an additional $2 for a cable to recycle the included fan when using a basic H20 cooling system, or we’d have to add an additional fan for at least $10 if we choose to go with a decent air cooler. We feel that Antec should have included a basic number of fans to provide adequate stock cooling and included an extension to make the other fan usable.
On the bright side, I really liked how the hard drive installation worked on the Eleven Hundred. The included drive rails provided a good amount of tension and once the drive was snapped in place, developed very little wiggle. The same can be said for optical drive installation. Testing with a Samsung Blu-ray drive in our parts bin, we were able to install one in record time, but make sure you keep an eye on the force required to push the optical drive in. We almost lost it into the motherboard installation area. Removing it was no issue at all with the latch mechanism. It’s a lot more secure than the push button system or twist and lock system used by other case manufacturers.
Cable Management and Tidying Up
I tested cable management by not using a single zip tie in assembly. If the system can be cable managed properly without them, then the case has superior cable management. In our preview, I remarked at how much room was in and around the back of the motherboard tray and how much additional room was given by the bowed out back panel. Both of these features allowed this case to be cable managed without a single zip tie in a fairly basic but functional configuration. The door was also secured without hassle. I would say cable management is near perfect in this case.
Anyone, even a novice, should be able to build a system in this case cleanly and shove the mess behind the back door where it belongs. The best part is that there is still plenty of room for additional cables for extra hard drives and GPUs. With the right components and some prep, a system should be easily assembled in less than 30 minutes with the Antec Eleven Hundred and still look like you spent another thirty doing cable management.
Now that we’ve got a system built inside, let’s talk about noise levels, thermal performance, tie up some loose ends, and take it home!
Thermal Performance
Cases are one of the rare computer components where no matter what the thermal performance or noise levels of a system are, if one love the way it looks, there’s no tearing you away from your chassis. You’ll figure out a way to make it work. That being said, we should probably make sure that this case won’t roast your components to a crisp.
Stock thermal performance of this chassis is reasonable, but not brilliant out of the box. Particularly when you consider that we are only using one single cooling fan at the front of the case. Using Furmark to do a full load on the GPU and OCCT to fully load the CPU down, we proceeded to torture the system until we noticed that temperatures stopped rising. This took roughly 20 – 30 minutes and then we waited another 10 minutes just to make sure this was it (Max). Keep in mind, this is an absolute worst case scenario, but it seems the case can definitely handle it.
We’d still recommend an extra fan in front if you start adding hard drives and another one on the door if you choose to go with a multi-GPU setup. Idle temperatures were good as well (Min).
Noise Levels
The Antec Eleven Hundred isn’t a noisy case. But because of the way it is designed, with lots of holes and ventilation, it doesn’t do a whole lot to keep your components super quiet either. We took measurements using our noise level meter and found that between idle and load, the noise levels deviated by no more than 3 dB when measured about 1 foot away from the middle of the side panel. Both the front and top panel only increased noise levels by 2 dB. Clearly, the case doesn’t do much to insulate you from sound.
Just for fun, we pulled the the side panel off and measured at idle and at load again. We got no more than a 0.5 dB change in noise levels at idle with the door off compared to with it on and only 1.0 dB or less at load. If you start adding side panel fans, front panel fans, and internal fans (two more can mount on the back of the drive cages for additional air flow) you can see how this case can quickly become a little jet engine. We did do a little experiment where we covered up the fan mounting areas on both the plexiglass side window and on the rear of the motherboard tray with some basic foam cut outs. Surprisingly, we got a small, but noticeable drop in noise. While I don’t expect Antec to do this on their own, I did think it was interesting just how much noise leaked out through these areas.
Final Thoughts
The Antec Eleven Hundred is a win for the company in many ways. It’s the first case that we’ve seen in quite some time that is truly new for Antec. It’s not using the P18x bones like so many of its Performance Series and it’s not another recycled Antec 900 or 1200 like the Dark Fleet Series. It’s truly its own brand new design with its own personality and quirks. It’s also not just another proof of concept or statement case like the Skeleton or Lanboy Air that people love or hate. I do appreciate when a company reaches outside the box, however, you have to have some cases that are solid before heading out into the unknown.
While I can heap a bunch of praise on Antec for coming up with the Eleven Hundred, I can also say that it was about time. They needed this case and the P280 to show the PC enthusiasts out there that they weren’t turning into that company that made cases for “your dad”. This is where companies like NZXT, Cooler Master with CM Storm and Corsair are eating them for breakfast with a fresh definition of what the new standards of case design should be. The Eleven Hundred does catch up in a lot of respects, but it is still in need of some refinement to get it even keel with its biggest competitors.
At $129 MSRP, it does set itself apart by being a case that gives you XL-ATX motherboard support for multi-GPU setups, 9 expansion slots, a plexiglass side window with room for two optional 120mm fans, easily removable fan filters, and a fan bus at this price point. It’s also very well finished, black inside and out, and has such good cable management that it can be tidied up without a single zip tie (which are even included in the box). But it’s what is missing at this price point that hurts it.
Liquid cooling support on the Eleven Hundred is very basic. With the exception of entry level 120mm radiator based coolers, there is no hope of installing a 240mm or larger radiator inside. Speaking of cooling, Antec has not included enough fans to support a modest gaming system out of the box. One fan in the back is not enough, but we did find an extra front fan to be sufficient for a non overclocked system with a single GPU. I truly hope that Antec considers placing an extra fan in the box. These two points alone put it in shark infested territory with cases that are no more than $10 – 20 more.
There’s one more factor that should be weighed though and that’s cosmetics. The Eleven Hundred is tasteful and understated. It’s not over the top but it’s not so boring that it’ll put the guy next to you at a LAN party to sleep. Most importantly, it’s not so far away from its roots that it doesn’t look like it came from Antec. It looks like it’s here to get the job done and I think that for the most part, it does the job well. Especially with a full armament of your best parts and a high end air cooler inside.
At the $129 price point, it definitely has its work cut out for it against other cases right in this price range. But I think the overall combination of features does work, particularly if you are concentrating specifically on building a solid air cooled gaming rig and want something that has that “sleeper look” holding your Quad SLI gaming rig inside.
Pros
- A truly new design from Antec
- High quality Antec build inside and out
- Plexiglass side window for showing off your gear
- Near perfect cable management
- Very easy to build – A joy!
- Rare XL-ATX motherboard support
- Easy to clean dust filters
Cons
- Basic cooling not addressed (need at least one more fan)
- Limited liquid cooling options
- Fan bus is inaccessible once CPU cooler is mounted
Overall Rating: 8.8 / 10.0
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