Price: Rs 4267
For most of us mere mortals who haven't yet moved on to using portable computing devices, a cabinet is simply a metal box into which an assembled computer is placed. However, enthusiasts and gamers have a completely different picture in mind for PC cabinets. To these, and understandably so, it is more about what functionality it supports, what additional features it incorporates, whether it has good ventilation, whether it is strong enough, and also how good it looks. That last point is more about bragging rights than about the functional purpose of the cabinet. Antec has been around since a long time and has got quite a range of products for the enthusiast community. The company has been gracious enough to send me for review, the GX700 gaming cabinet, which is a GX Series cabinet with an awesome military theme. I have tried my hand out at the cabinet. Read on.
Here are the specifications straight from the product page:
Looks And Features
As mentioned earlier, the GX700 sports a military styling. However, it doesn't shout the theme via camouflage paintwork. Instead, it comes powder coated with a front olive green face, while the rest is completely black, again powder coated. The finish is great with a matte finish and it appears to be remarkably scratch resistant. The overall construction is really strong as Antec has used high grade stainless steel. The panels may not be thick as more expensive cabinets and can twist a bit, but they are nevertheless adequately thick for any stress that they are required to withstand. The cabinet is sufficiently tall, wide, and spacious to allow for easy ventilation. This is a completely tool-less cabinet, meaning that you will not require any tools of any sort to use with it.
The front plate at the lower half is removable with perforations and an Antec dog tag riveted at the centre. This can be removed via four thumbscrews and reveals a dust filter, behind which, it is possible to mount two 120 mm intake fans (not included). A red power button is present just above this plate on the right of the cabinet. Power and activity LEDs are present besides this button and there is a black reset button on the other side, almost invisible because of its colour and also because it is set flush with the cabinet's surface.
There are four 5.25" drive bays inside this cabinet, and therefore there are four independent panels for these at the front. These are latched on to the cabinet via steel clips, allowing easy removal when you wish to place a drive in any of these bays. The topmost drive bay cannot be used because the wirings for the top mounted fans and USB ports partially occupy this space. Therefore, there are effectively three 5.25" bays available for use, while the topmost one is just a decoy.
The top of the cabinet is dominated by a pentagonal metal grill with two large 140 mm exhaust fans underneath. The fan housing is slightly extruded to make more space within.
You will instantly notice a small rectangular cover hinged at one of the short ends, sporting a yellow-black striped decal. When lifted, this reveals a two-speed fan sliding controller, much like a missile launching button as you might have seen in movies.
Two USB 3.0 and two USB 2.0 ports, along with 3.5 mm microphone and headphone jacks are present besides this controller.
The back of the cabinet has an inlet and outlet grommets to install a water cooling solution. A rear fan near the top is present for ventilation. The expansion slot covers are present below this, flanked on the right by a plastic flap that exposes the screws to hold expansion cards in place. A word about the expansion slot covers: Antec has chosen to go old-school with these, meaning that the user has to break them off before installing an expansion card, rather than achieving the same by simply removing a screw. Since this can lead to injury due to the sharp edges where the covers are supposed to be separated from the chassis, the user has to be careful while doing this. Also, these covers, once removed, cannot be put back when the expansion card configuration is changed and a slot is no longer being used.
Coming to the sides, both the side panels can be removed and are held via two thumbscrews each. The one on the left of the cabinet also needs to be removed in order to install hard drives. The right panel is the one that will be busier because it needs to be removed in order to install or remove anything within the cabinet. This panel also has a perforated area near the centre so that an additional fan can be installed.
Looking at the interior of the cabinet, it is powder coated on the inside too. It is good to see that there are no sharp edges or corners anywhere. There is yet another dust filter at the bottom near the front to install an intake fan. The dust filter can be cleaned without opening the cabinet as it is accessible by slightly lifting the cabinet from the front and it can be slid out towards the front. Space to install the power supply has been provided at the bottom rear portion of the cabinet.
There are five 3.5" drive bays with removable HDD caddies, which have screw holes to fix standard 3.5" HDDs as well as 2.5" SSDs and laptop HDDs.
As mentioned earlier, these plastic caddies slide out on the left of the cabinet, so the left panel has to be opened to use these, which can be a slight inconvenience.
There is enough space to install long graphics cards (up to 11.5"), but exceptionally long graphics cards may have a problem because the 3.5" drive bays are fixed and not removable. There is ample space to install three graphics cards if you really want to. Of course, it would be wise to install all the optional fans to keep the system running at tolerable temperatures. The width of the cabinet is sufficient to install tall heat sinks (up to 172 mm).
The cabinet legs are made of plastic, and they are not fixed tightly to the base as would have been normally expected of a quality cabinet. They lift the cabinet just enough to allow for the ventilation of a lower fan (if installed) to work. Ideally, it would have been better to have rubber feet to dampen vibrations arising from various moving parts in the PC, and thus to reduce noise.
Installation
Installation is very easy, thanks to the tool-less design. The only time you will ever need a tool is when you need to affix the motherboard, HDDs, or additional fans using a screwdriver. Black screws are provided to connect everything including the motherboard, expansion cards, and power supply, and also the brass standoffs to distance the motherboard from the chassis. This is a good thing because you will not have to go searching for these when the time comes to installing the computer within the cabinet.
Standard connectors are provided to connect the front panel, as well as the front USB 2.0, USB 3.0, and audio connectors. Plugs are provided to connect the preinstalled fans and these are all linked to a single 4-pin MOLEX connector, so all you need to drive all the fans is a single free 4-pin MOLEX connector. Cable routing holes are present to efficiently route the various connecting cables and keel the interior tangle-free and airy.
Performance
The system configuration in use for the test was as below:
Motherboard: ECS P55H-AK
Heat-sink fan: CoolerMaster Hyper 212 Evo
Memory: 2x2GB Corsair XMS3 DDR3 1600MHz memory at 1333 MHz
Graphics card: Galaxy GeForce GTX 460 768MB
SSD: Kingston SSDNow 100 UV 60 GB SATA 6.0 Gb/s
OS: Windows 8.1 Pro 64-bit
Cooling Performance
Temperature was measured using a digital thermometer in various zones within the system at stock (CPU 3.2 GHz) and overclocked (CPU 4.64 GHz) speeds. The ambient room temperature was 24°C.
Temperature was measured between the graphics card and the CPU heat sink (Zone 1), just near the SSD (Zone 2), and between the CPU heat sink and the fan (Zone 3).
Zone 1: Stock speed: 37°C, 32°C, Overclocked: 43°C, 36°C
Zone 2: Stock speed: 30°C, 27°C, Overclocked: 35°C, 31°C
Zone 3: Stock speed: 35°C, 30°C, Overclocked: 41°C, 35°C
Smoke test also revealed that the negative pressure configuration works really well and displaces a good amount of air.
Noise Performance
Lacking equipment to actually measure the noise levels, I decided to rely on the only other thing I can trust - my own ears. The system runs almost noiselessly when the fan speed is switched to low. Some amount of swooshing wind noise can be heard from a distance of around 1.5 m (the average distance any PC user would be usually located from a PC cabinet while using it), but it is hardly distracting if you are gaming or watching a movie.
My Verdict
The Antec GX700 PC cabinet performs as well as how it looks. The military/industrial theme goes well with the GX700 and the build is just as sturdy. Coming pre-equipped with three fans, it has a lot of additional fan options to ensure that the system keeps running cool even when overclocked. A stylish integrated fan speed controller helps control the speeds of all the ventilation fans. Even at high fan speed, the system remains surprisingly silent. Ventilation works really well, as was evidenced while testing, that the system temperature remained cool even while being overclocked. Being a negative pressure system, it should have been prone to collect dust, but it has managed to remain quite clean on the inside, thanks to the really useful dust filters. The GX700 is large enough to be able to house a 3-way SLI configuration in addition to a tall CPU heat sink. At its current pricing, there is really very little to complain about the GX700.
Pros: Great design, Good build, Good cooling, Silent, Spacious, Stylish integrated fan speed controller, Priced well.
Cons: Rubber bushing feet would have been better, Top 5.25" bay unusable.
Features: 4.5/5
Performance: 4.5/5
Ease Of Use: 4.5/5
Value For Money: 4.5/5
Overall Rating: 4.5/5
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