Antec’s Eleven Hundred stands out among large mid-towers most notably for its support of oversized motherboards up to 13” wide and 13.6” tall, thanks to a deep interior an a total of nine expansion slots. We don’t find an added row of standoffs in either of these directions, but it’s nice to know that EATX- and XL-ATX-based boards will at least fit.

A spacer atop the 3.5” hard drive cage holds 2.5” drives using a single screw and several built-in slides, which is adequate for the low weight and solid-state nature of SSDs.

Hard drive rails comprise the majority of the Eleven Hundred’s installation kit, though a few screws are included to secure the motherboard, additional fans, the power supply, and a couple of SSDs.

Pulling the tabs on 5.25” bay latches releases pins from the bay for quick installation and removal.

Though many users prefer to let their motherboards manage fan speeds, the Eleven Hundred’s fan power hub provides a simpler solution.

Antec cleaned up the cables a little by removing the old AC'97 audio connector from the front-panel headset lead. Double-row connectors power two USB 2.0 and two USB 3.0 jacks.

Our oversized ATX board fits easily within the Eleven Hundred’s cavernous interior, with enough space remaining to allow clean cable routing through all of its holes.

Our finished builds looks almost classy by game-themed case standards, and users who don’t like the flair of a lighted top fan can even disable that via a rear-panel switch.
- Do Cases With More Features Offer More Value?
- Building With The Antec Eleven Hundred
- Building With The Cooler Master Storm Enforcer
- Building With The Fractal Design Arc Midi
- Building With The Raidmax Agusta
- Building With The SilverStone Kublai KL04
- Test Setup And Benchmarks
- Temperature, Noise, And Acoustic Efficiency
- One Value-Oriented Chassis Satisfies Most Buyers
Antec, I think, has fallen behind in case design as of late. While the Eleven Hundred is much better than the aging 900/300 design, it still has some small points of meh such as only one 2.5" drive bay when there are other cases close to the price (not current price but original price) trat support 2.5" in every drive bay.
Also the design is a bit meh. Though I have fallen in love with the Corsair 500R so its a bit hard to make me think of another case. And the CM Storm Enforcer is ok. Had one in the shop the other day. Nothing amazing honestly but its not overly bad.
BTW, you should at least read the ENTIRE conclusion before calling an article a fluff piece. Thanks!
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
As long as the case functions and has what you need -- it's all what YOU like and flips that switch.
Yeah but that's when people choose crap or junk brands like Raidmax, Xion, Ultra and Apevia - those have serious flaws and horrible build quality, I really try to persuade people not to buy those under any circumstances. The computers I work with on a daily basis all use these cases and they suck - I moved a computer built around an Apevia case from one desk to another and the door fell off in the process! There's a lot of crap brands out there and that's why sites like this exist - to help people sort the good hardware from the junk. You don't want to get a case that's poorly made for your new quality components.
The things I never recommend on builds are monitor, keyboard and mouse - I don't like spending hundreds on these things and I don't cut corners to get say a $140 keyboard, that's not what I want people to concentrate on their builds.
Of course, like everyone else, I think my case (Antec P280) is the best and should be the recommended buy. It is $30 more than the Eleven Hundred, but only $10 more than the Raidmax.
I used the CM Storm Enforcer for a friends build and it's quite a good case, thanks to it's price in a 99%, lol.
It's not bad looking and very quiet. Fit's the 7970 perfectly and it's build quality is quite good.
Cheers!