The Side Panel:

   This side panel fan design has been out for awhile with Antec products, but I still like it. At first glance it may seem a bit overdone, but I'll tell you it does a great job of disguising the fan placement by breaking up the monotony while still leaving the most desired area open for viewing thru the window.

   The fan, once attached to the door, would be placed directly over a hot SLI setup, or other PCI(e) cards and that's a very good place for an extra intake fan. It certainly has helped me keep my SLI setup much cooler than no fan there at all. 

Outside In Look	80mm Fan Attached
Inside Out Look	Fan Attached Close-up

Installation:

Here's the setup I'll be installing into this Antec PlusView II chassis:

• ASUS A8N-SLI Premium

• AMD X2 4400+

• Arctic Cooling Freezer64 Pro HSF

• Dual 7800GT's in SLI

• 74gb 10K rpm WD Raptor HDD

• 2x 80gb Maxtor 7200rpm HDD's

• Audigy 2 SB Live ZS Gamers

• Ultra X-Finity 500w PSU

   Installing all the latest hardware into this chassis is not a problem at all. It's standard ATX compliant and will accept a massive amount of different hardware from micro-atx to full size atx.

   The included drive rails are nice as usual with the Antec SOHO cases and in my case, I just unplugged the drives out of my old Antec and slide them right into the Plusview II since they're still identical. That's when drive rails rule, when you can use them from chassis to chassis like that.

   The 3.5" drive cages were same procedure. I just removed them from my Antec 1080AMG and clipped them right into the Plusview II. That really sped up my system conversion for sure.

   I used to have color matched, painted drives for my 1080AMG, but of course after time you need to upgrade your drives and well, we're back to white drives now. No problem though...that front door I've come to be in love with is still there on the Plusview II so I won't need to be worrying about what color my drives are ;)

Standard Antec Drive Rails	Dual Core, SLI setup	All Done
Mismatched for now...	mmmm...classy.	Perfect Glow

Conclusion:

   I can literally have ANY case I want for my personal system, yet I always seems to come back to the Antec SOHO series. It just does a great deal of things well from the dedicated fan cages for 3.5" drives, to the drive rails, to the side panel handle, to the front drive bay door, to the tank like construction, to the....well you get the point. It's just a damn fine chassis that's as good as it gets for the mainstream enthusiast that needs a fantastic, solid chassis right out of the box. No modding, no cutting, no mess.

   If you're looking for a great case, you can not go wrong with just about any of the Antec SOHO series. This new Plusview II is an exceptional chassis that's sure to add a touch of quality to your rig and it's even better, cooler and quieter than before with the addition of the rear 120mm fan.

  Don't be one of those people that spend $2000 on hardware only to put it in a $20 mini-tower with terrible cooling and wavy aluminum sides ready to buckle. The Plusview II has it all as far as a  steel chassis go.

   If you're looking for a lightweight aluminum LAN case with excellent cooling and flashy lighting, then you want to steer away from the Plusview II and take a strong look at the Antec Super Lanboy. There you will find the ideal dual 120mm fan layout, aluminum build and blue LED lighting. However you'll sacrifice the rigidity of a steel chassis and more storage options.

   After going thru a few high end cases lately, including my Antec 1080AMG which I used for years and modded many personal touches into, this new Plusview II will be my personal case of choice to use day in and day out.

   I have a dedicated office for my computers and noise isn't much of an issue for me so I have all the fans on all of the time to keep my PC hardware the coolest it can be. Especially now in the winter time with the heat on in the house.

   Once I had this machine up and running I noticed my SLI cards and overall case airflow was much improved, meaning my overall system temps were way down. This is a very good sign and should allow most of you out there to gain some nice temp reductions. I'm not going to do temp charts, etc for this because there is just far too many variables in my personal ever-changing hardware scenario for those things.

   Bottom line is this case cools extremely well, is built like a tank, and has very user friendly features.