System builders are always looking to shave a few dollars off of their costs, but without sacrificing quality or appearance. After all, system builders want their units to perform, look good and not return due to problems. Many of those system builders are turning to Antec, a case and power supply manufacturer that offers a plethora of options to assemble PCs or Servers for most any use. Balancing cost and quality has always been a challenge for most case manufacturers; here Antec has introduced their 300 series of cases, which are aimed at general PC users, gamers, business users and others seeking a low cost case that offers ample room, good cooling and not a lot of noise.

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With a retail price of under $60, system builders will get a lot for their money. The case includes 3 multispeed fans, 9 drive bays and integrated cable management. The 300 series is black in color and also features front mounted USB and audio ports. A welcome addition would be Firewire and SATA ports for those looking to plug in other external devices. System builders will appreciate the ease of access to the case, with just four thumb-screws, both sides of the case can be opened and a full size ATX motherboard installed quickly. The power supply mounts in the bottom of the case, which shifts the center of gravity down, making the case less prone to tip over and also helps to reduce noise. Antec offers many power supply options, but system builders can pick and choose most any ATX power supply for use in the case. The three fans are powered by standard power supply connectors, which prove to be adequate. An option to plug the fans directly into the motherboard would be a welcome feature, which would allow the operating system or bios to control and monitor the fans. The fans are virtually silent when set to their lowest speed, but may not offer enough cooling for over clocked or high end CPUs. The fans do generate a bit of noise when set to high, but also move a great deal of air making the high setting advisable for high end systems with lots of drives or multiple CPUs. The case offers enough room for system builders looking to use high end video cards and all of the connectors are labeled well. While far from perfect, the Antec Three Hundred series offers system builders an excellent compromise between price and features, while offering enough cooling, room and quality for even the highest end of CPUs, drives and peripherals. System builders can expect to receive significant discounts via Antec's channel program and can purchase the case from a multitude of distributors.