what do you think of this case?

When push comes to shove, the "looks" of the case are immaterial - this is even more important when you put the case in a cubby hole.

If you are looking for quality - don't worry about a PSU coming with the case - many retailers "throw in" a cheap PSU to make the case sale. That is bad IMO as good clean stable power is extremely important in today's digital circuits. Note the I would much rather have an Antec 400 PSU than a no-name generic 500W supply. I have several brand new PSUs that have never been used - or I use them for troubleshooting, and I have one on my test bench for testing fans. I also have one behind my audio/HT equipment to run fans.

A good case will be sturdy, with reinforced corners. Plenty of fan options, including support for 120mm fans. All sheet metal edges will be rolled to prevent slicing up your hands. It will have removable drive cages for easy install of drives - side mounted drives cages are nice. Easy access to the side. The drives mount will usually have rubber noise isolation grommets too.

Note that fancy lights do absolutely NOTHING for PC performance - and in fact, can induce electrical noise, adds a small amount of heat, and adds to the draw on the power supply. I would put my money in more RAM, better video, faster CPU, more efficient PSU, or better monitor before I would worry about flashing lights inside a case that I do not look at when I use my PC.

I highly recommend Antecs. I have several

I note that Newegg has my new favorite case, the Antec P180 on sale this weekend only for $109.00. I really like this case for many reasons. It is quiet, has excellent ventilation and cooling, and the power supply is on the bottom. This is really cool as it lowers the center of gravity, but the PSU chamber is self-contained - meaning no hot air from the PSU gets into the motherboard cavity.

I have the Antec Sonata II case - actually, it houses the wife's PC and it is sweet. And it looks nice too. The piano finish is gorgeous.

That case looks cool. I imagine the airflow is pretty good considering its got that turbine in the front.

As I actually have this case I feel obligated to reply here.

First, the biggest shocker for me when I received this is that it's short. Not in a bad way but just way shorter than my old Chieftec case. It still manages to fit everything in and has more room to extra wires.

Second, I knew this before I bought it but the turbine is FAKE. There is a 140mm fan behind it and after a few seconds of running then the turbine spins, the suction of the fan makes it spin. I have nothing to back this up but I person thing this probably restricts airflow a bit. And the Turbine on mine at least is a bit wobboly when it spins. Does both me much, still looks cool to wait it spin up but could annouy some ppl

Third, it's super light, I honestly thought it was made out of aluminum when I took it out of the box. I guess I haven't bought a case for a while, this light weigh steel is nice.

Over all there is more room that I thought and my setup looks great in there with minimal impeding air flow. Personly asside from looks I think the best part is where the hard drives mount, in that that "bay" area is centered between the left and right of the case which gives you a lot of room to run/hide all of your extra cables. I wish I had a digital camera and show you the difference. Looking through the big window (it is bigger than my last one and a more solid material) you can hardly see any wires, my roommates comment was "damn, that looks nice, where are all the cables". But if you pop off the other side you can see where they are and despite having a modular PSU I still had a lot of cables (mainly cause the modular ones were so long).

What else, the fans are very quite, I do believe my loudest fan in my system is the chipset fan, that little sucker is noisy. It's got a very nice paint job on it, it's not like automotive quality but it does have a big of gloss coat to it and very smooth.

Carefully on the PCI placeholder things, they will cut you up if your not careful. Maybe I just didn't know the correct way to get them out but they are sharp as hell! I learned the hard way, used a flat head screwdriver to bash out the remain ones after the first one cut me so bad.

So yea it's a great case. Looks awesome, does provide good air flow though I think it could be better if A) the turbine is removed and B) if the extra metal grating behind the fan were removed (a mod I plan to do soon). The window is very nice quality and has 2 slots to add two 120mm fans to it!

My thoughts may be a bit out of order but yes a love this case, especially the suprisingly compact (outside) and yet open (inside) design.

I hope this has help if you have any more questions about it just let me know.

EDIT: There is no "tool-less" install on this but I actually found it easier than my last "tool-less" one as you just need to take off both sides of the case so it's really easy to work with.

EDIT 2: I have this case with an Enermax Liberty 620W PSU, Maxtor 250GB SATA HDD, and the 5.25" front bay panel for my Soundcard plus everything listed in my sig below. I put the Front panel in the highest 5.25" slot followed by the DVD-Rom. Just so you know what all I'm running Plus 2 blue cold cathode tubes