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Antec Sonata II


Date
: 08/19/05 – 06:44:57 PM

Author
:

Category
: Cases

Page 1 : Index

Manufacturer
: Antec

Price
: 129.95

The Sonata is a case many enthusiasts know about. In Latin, the word Sonata is translated to sonare, which refers to a musical instrument that you can play. In the techie world, we know of the Sonata as the quiet case. It's sleek piano black looks made it very popular to those begging for silence.

After half a million sales, I think we can say that the Sonata was a huge success. But it wasn't enough for Antec. Sticking with the original name, they released the Sonata II. The Sonata II utilizes very similar features to the Sonata and packages the deal with a 450 Watt SmartPower 2.0 power supply.

Page 2 : Package

After a long and lonely journey up from the states, the Sonata II arrived in decent condition. It had its fair share of bumps and bruises along the edge of the box; nothing that would result in damage to the actual unit.

On the front side of the box, we have a very simple look. A good chunk of the case is shown to the right and is contrasted by a very empty space saying "Silence is beautiful".

The backside of the box shows a lot more detail and will be a lot more useful to the end user. Here we get an overall layout of the inside with some specifications and features of the Sonata II.

The two sides of the box show some additional features. Note that the 3 year unbeatable warranty was printed on three of the four sides. Here are the terms of the warranty, link. Nice to know my LED is covered for a year! ;)

Once we crack open the package, we're greeted with the manual. This manual gives you the details on how to install your system in several different languages. Included with the manual is a warranty guide and customer survey to fill out, if you so desire.

The case itself is protected by a large plastic bag and is sandwiched between two large molded pieces of Styrofoam. The case is in the center of the box, and away from the sides where potential damage could occur. Before we pull out the case, we'll have a look at the specifications.

Page 3 : Specifications

We'll start this section off with the specifications provided by Antec.

The case sure sounds impressive, though it would have been nice for Antec to include both 120mm fans by default. The additional fan would cost you an extra $25 at the store, but would probably only have cost Antec a few more dollars to include one. The actual dimensions of the case are exactly the same as the original Sonata.

Here's what Antec has to say about the case:

Some extra features they like to boast on include:

Now that we know what we're dealing with, let's crack open the case and take a look at the contents inside.

Page 4 : Exterior

We start this section off with a quick overall picture of the case:

Everything looks to be in order; no scratches or dents from this angle. As we take a look at the side, we can get a view of the finish. It's very reflective, and so it does attract dust and finger prints. ;)

A closer look at the handle also shows the lock used.

Turning our attention to the back, we see a power supply with an 80mm fan, a 120mm fan and a large honeycomb stamped out meshing to the bottom right. We can also see that the top and left panels are riveted to the case. This means you won't be able to easily remove them. It also means no removable motherboard tray.

I'd like to point out that the fan is held into place with rubber tabs. The rubber absorbs any vibration caused by the case and fan interaction.

With a case finish this nice, either the side panels should be removable or a removable motherboard tray should be provided. Being forced to place the case down on its side leads to potential problems, mainly scratching, which would truly ruin this piano black finish.

Thumbscrews on the right…

Rivets on the left…

As we check out the top of the case, it's just piano black; Nothing special. The same can be said about the other side panel.

Looking at the front of the case, the Sonata II uses the same device to stealth the USB, FireWire, Speaker & Mic jacks.

The second lock makes sure uninvited guests don't steal the physical contents of your DVD drives or boot the computer without your presence.

If the door is unlocked, opening it is as simple as peeling the case door back. The little hinge will quickly release with little effort. Unlike the TX1088AMG where the door couldn't actually open 270 degrees, the Sonata II offers you the full 270 degree freedom. The advantage of this is that if your knee hits an open door, it will just swing to the side panel, doing little to no damage. I found that with the TX1088AMG, the hinge would lock at 235 degrees, leaving it to break if a strong enough force was applied.

With the door open, we can see what external expansions are available: three 5.25" and two 3.5".

The power button is a good size. It was easy to press with any finger. The reset button is just big enough to press with your fingers. Antec had a habit of making the reset button too small on some of their previous cases, but there's nothing wrong with this one.

Before we start tearing this case apart, we'll check out the bottom where the rubber feet and removable mesh are located.

When the case is on any surface, smooth or rough, these rubber pads made the case stick to the surface. It was very difficult to push the case across my table.

The mesh is discretely hidden. To remove it, just pinch in the frame and slide it out.

Without the 120mm fan at the front, I don't expect there to be a lot of dust building up on the mesh. This has both advantages and disadvantages, but there's no dust because there's no fan which means poor air circulation over your hard drives. If there is a lot of dust, it means your case is being ventilated. The only hassle then is actually changing the dust filter. It's positioned such that you
have
to pull it straight out. This means you either have to rotate your case over and rest it on the back or slide it over the edge of your table to pull out. The only way around this problem would be to have a filter that slides in from one of the sides.

With the exterior of the case covered, we'll go ahead and undo the two thumbscrews and open up the side panel with the door to get inside.

Page 5 : Interior

When we first open up the side panel, a third of the interior is blocked by the air duct system (Advanced Chassis Air Guide).

This system can be used to cool your graphics card and processor by bringing outside air in. The source of the fresh air is the bottom punched out area we saw earlier in this review.

There are two loose components inside the case: power cord and various mounting screws.

By removing several screws, you can remove the ACAG (Advanced Chassis Air Guide). The trickiest screw was the one between the fan and the vertical portion of the duct.

This section can be moved horizontally to place the ACAG in front of your CPU.

Without any pre-installed fans, the fresh air from the ACAG is brought in by the CPU fan itself. Here's another opportunity where Antec should have stepped in and tossed in two extra fans (92mm for the CPU and 80mm for the VGA) if you wanted to use them. The manual technically recommends using the ACAG without any fans, this minimizes the noise. While it cuts down on their profits when they include fans and increases the potential noise level, it'll be worth it to many end users. I'm sure many readers would be happy to pay an extra ten dollars for fans they may not use. Why? Because when they want them, they're there. The extra ten dollars when they first buy the case saves them fifty when they buy the fans retail.

Here are some profile shots of the ACAG:

Now that we have the ACAG removed, we can get a better idea of the spacing inside the case.
It looks as if the area isn't that much bigger than an ATX motherboard. There also appears to be just enough space to squeeze in a blow hole for those who are ready to chop up a perfectly painted case.

To gain access to the expansion slot screws, you need to unclip the remaining bit of the ACAG. Simply slide it up to the top of the case and pull towards the front.

All of the expansion slot covers are reusable and the 120mm fan included is Antec's famous TriCool fan. The default setting is low and you can toggle between low, medium and high. Here are the specifications:

Located at the top of the case is the SmartPower 2.0 Power supply.

It's always nice to be buying a case that comes with a
quality
power supply. This is another fully featured power supply. Check out the specifications:

This power supply costs $79.95 alone. Once again, when you subtract the cost of the power supply from the case, you end up with a $59 case. That's not a bad deal!

Moving across to the front, we see the space for three external 5.25" drives, two external 3.5" and four internal 3.5" drives.

We'll soon show you how easy it is to install drives with the Sonata II. Before we get to that though, we're going to remove the front bezel and show you what the base of the front looks like. Taking off the bezel requires a bit of arm bending. You need to feel for all the clips holding everything down as the top and side panels are not removable.

From this angle we can see that any 120mm fan attached to the end of the drive bay would certainly be able to pull in lots of air to cool the hard drive. An extra fan is technically not recommended in the Antec manual if you want maximum quiet computing. We can also see the drive rails conveniently located behind the cover. One cover is currently out of the picture, hence only four visible rails. The big mess of cables upfront are labeled and ready to be plugged into your motherboard.

Now that we have the outside and inside of the case covered, we'll proceed to installing our test system to see what kind of issues we run into.

Page 6 : Installation

Installing a system isn't too hard with the Sonata II. If you already haven't, you need to completely remove the air duct so you can install your components. I started my install off by removing the default I/O panel and replacing it with the K8SLI panel.

The next step was to install the motherboard stands. Antec has preinstalled four of them and it is up to you to install the rest. For the K8SLI, I needed to do was to install the top two studs. Please note that the K8SLI is a slightly smaller motherboard and only requires six studs.

With the studs in place, we're ready to transfer a system over. Installed onto the K8SLI is a Venice 3000+ processor and the Big Typhoon. OUr testing will proceed with the stock cooler.

Mounting the motherboard is pretty simple: line up the holes with the studs and screw in the six screws.

Once the motherboard is in, we're ready to install any necessary expansion cards. Since the expansion cards are removable, there's not much to do besides removing the screw, sliding out the cover, sliding in the new card and securing it with the same screw.

The only issue to report is that the standard cover catches onto the expansion card when you slide it in. It takes about thirty seconds to fix this, and all you need to do is pop out the cover for the slot below and let the expansion card fall into place.

Luckily for us, the hard drives on the Sonata II slide in like installing an expansion card. Had it been the older way, this case would be too cramped for anyone to use. Hard drives would be nearly impossible to install without pulling out your expansion cards.

To install a hard drive, we need to pull out the individual drive bays from the drive cage.

Note that each drive bay has rubber washers. These washers will help in reducing the vibration caused by the hard drive on the main cage.

To secure the hard drive, place the drive on top of the bay and flip it upside down to secure the drive to the bay.

Once the screws are in, just slide the drive bay back into the cage and you're done.

To install the 5.25" drives, you will first need to pop out the cover to get the rails.

To properly install the rails, you need to align them to the lower set of screw holes.

Once the two rails are in place, just slide them all the way in until they are flush against the case.

For those still using 3.5" external drives, you need to press on the two tabs and pull out the drive cage.

Simply remove the cover and mount your external 3.5" drive that you want. Once that is done, slide the cage back in until it locks into place.

Now that we have all the components installed, we're ready to plug in the connectors. The first thing I noticed was the length of the power supply cables. The length was just perfect for the Sonata II. The cables were not excessively long nor too short.

As you will see in the next photo, my concern wasn't actually with cable management.

Some nifty wiring would have cleaned things up immensely and made the case feel more spacious.

If you happen to have a large CPU cooler like myself, the ACAG (Advanced Chassis Air Guide) can't be utilized. The Big Typhoon is simply just too big for it to fit in the duct. Ideally, something around the size of a stock cooler should be used to take advantage of the ACAG.

If you install the ACAG, the 92mm fan must be utilized before considering the 80mm VGA fan. Why you ask? Simply because if you leave the CPU fan open, the 80mm VGA fan would suck fresh air away from the CPU cooler.

To make things worth while, I later pulled out the Big Typhoon and replaced it with the stock cooler and ACAG in place. If you have a 939 SLI machine, chances are the ACAG won't help you too much. As in the photo below, it doesn't exactly line up with the CPU socket.

Proceed to the next page where we conduct our tests and see how well the rig performs.

Page 7 : Testing

Here's the layout of our system:

Each case situation will be stressed using Folding@Home and RC5 for three hours before the maximum load temperatures from Dr. Speed are recorded. After the three hour period, both Folding@Home and RC5 will be shutdown to allow the system to cool for three hours. Finally, the idle temperatures will be recorded. Throughout all our testing, the room temperature was a steady 26 degrees Celsius.

Since this isn't a power supply review, we won't be focusing too much on the power supply. I can safely say that the power supply had no problems keeping up with my overclocked, overvoltage AMD CPU and 7800GTX. The voltages were exactly where they were supposed to be. No deviations whatsoever.

There are two parts to the acoustics of this case. When you pair the Sonata II with the stock cooler, it doesn't matter how well designed the case is, this system will be loud. The fan was spinning at its maximum speed during the load tests. That cooler itself will single handedly drown out everything else in the case.

The difference with or without the ACAG is minimal due to the poor pairing. The ACAG was definitely not intended for the Socket 939 SLI motherboards. It would certainly fit better on other models and have a chance in providing better performance.

Anyone looking for a completely quiet machine will have probably purchased a third-party cooler to bring down the noise. If this is your intention, then that machine will be a match made in heaven inside the Sonata II. The Tricool fan and Smart Power 2.0 PSU work well with the Big Typhoon in keeping the noise level at a minimum. Mind you, the Big Typhoon is so big that you won't be able to use it with the ACAG. A heatsink and fan like the Zalman CNPS-7700 or Golden Orb II would be able to utilize the ACAG and keep noise to an absolute minimum.

If you don't like the two Blue LEDS, all you need to do is unplug them. :) A great idea as a bright blue light coming from the corner of your eye could get annoying.

Page 8 : Conclusion

While the case can be considered a tad small compared to what is available on the market, it shouldn't hinder the installation of any of your components. The motherboard fits in nicely and all the drives went in without getting in the way of anything. Paired with another top quality power supply, the cables are the right length so not too much slack is present.
The only thing I'd like to see Antec provide are some extra fans so users have the option to get extra cooling. While the ACAG is nice, many using larger than normal heatsinks may not be able to take advantage of its ability.

In the end, the Sonata II does what it was intended to do, and that is to provide a stylish case that is perfect for a number of applications that require silence. I definitely see the Sonata II as a case you'll find in the living room, bedroom or dorm.

Advantages

Quiet
Quality power supply included
Simple and stylish

Disadvantages

No removable motherboard tray / second side panel not removable
ACAG doesn't work with large coolers and nForce 4 SLI motherboards

Overclockers Online would like to thank Antec for providing this case for review.