More Details:

Behind the front, the 3 5” slots have the standard metal punch outs that most cases still have. I’m never fond of them, because I always manage to cut myself on them as I’m taking them out. The 300 does not leave any sharp edges after the punch outs are removed, always a plus.

Top fan

Overhead

Rear

 The side panels are easy to put on and remove and there is a spot for a 120mm fan on the side, but otherwise they are very plain.  The rear of the case would be completely unremarkable except that the power supply is located on the bottom. The first case I know of that did that was the Lian-Li PC-V1000.

Door panel

Spare fan

Close-up

I really like the idea of placing the power supply (and in the Lian-li’s case, all the hard drives) on the bottom, to keep all the weight as low as possible. I know a few people might have problems with cables not reaching depending on layouts. It does seem to make cable management slightly more difficult, but I’ve never been very good at hiding cables anyway…

Right side open

DVD covers removed

Left side

Back to the front, and behind the air filters. There are 4 thumbscrews holding 2 doors that can hold 2 120mm fans. I love the setup of the doors, but it brings me to a complaint with the case. If there are so many spots for 120mm fans, I’d really like to know how I’m supposed to attach these fans. Nothing was included to hold the fans in place, and I know I don’t have anything around that would work.

Cable ties

Side view

From the front

Internally, aside from the power supply’s location, the case is very basic. The 300 is packed with slots for hard drives  (6) and DVD’s (3). The hard drive installs are the same as cases from 10 years ago, slide the drives in and screw them down. It’s much easier to install hard drives first, then everything else. With the easy to access doors on the front of the case for the 120mm fans, I really think they should have just turned the hard drive cages 90 degrees.

air flow mesh

140mm fan

bottom view

For connectors and switches, there are 2 front USB ports, mic/speakers a reset and power switch.  A basic  standard setup, but very clean and unobtrusive. The connector for the power led did not fit on the ECS motherboard that I installed, that was because the connector was 3 wide, but the ECS motherboard requires 2 wide.

pads

Fan door

installed filter

Once everything is up and spinning, on low the case is almost silent. Even with Zalman coolers on my CPU and GPU, they and the hard drives were louder. On the medium and high settings, things change however. The 120mm is only really noticeable at the high setting (I don’t know what rpm they run at), but the 140mm starts at medium. Unlike smaller fans that make a very high pitched noise, the 140mm fan makes a very deep almost rumbling sound. It’s not unpleasant and should be easy enough to ignore.

Naked front ports

Reset/Power

Messy install

Conclusion:

When I was looking for the price of the Antec Three Hundred locally at my favorite store, I noticed that it was the cheapest mid sized tower that they offered. It’s got no blinding blue LED’s, no silly plastic doors covering the DVD drives. The only downside is the hard drive cage and lack of mounting hardware for the extra fan slots. And it’s not really good or bad, but with my hardware, I did not have any use for the cable management section. Most cables wouldn’t reach that far, or if they did they wanted to stay there without help.

Cables

Running

Very cool

Sure you have to buy a power supply, and I know they want to pass that off as a “feature” (lol, marketing people are funny), but at $60, I sure couldn’t find a nicer case for that price. It’s well laid out, sturdy and light, with a lot of extras you wouldn’t expect to find, even in cases much more expensive. I love how clean the case is, it doesn't try and hit you over the head with blue LED's or flimsy plastic parts that are hot glued on.

Got News? Send 'em in!