We've already given you a pictorial walk-through of cases six through 10 of our 15-chassis round-up. Today, we build PCs inside of them, evaluate their value, and pick one as the most likely to satisfy your needs (though several excel in other ways).
A few small requirements narrowed a field of over fifty mainstream cases to just fifteen, but even an in-depth look at that subset would have taken us a full month to complete. Rather than tackling a 15-case round-up, we broke the samples into three groups of five.
But that presented a new conundrum: in what order should we present the contenders? The easiest solution was to create groups of five enclosures based on when each brand delivered its first sample. Second samples will show up in the third round-up.
Now, you'd think that our almost completely random selection would result in an equally random set of features in each five-way comparison. So far, though, each story has only seen one stand-out design. We already saw these features individually, and here’s how they compare:

| Antec Eleven Hundred | Cooler Master Storm Enforcer | Fractal Design Arc Midi | Raidmax Agusta | SilverStone Kublai KL04 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dimensions | |||||
| Height | 20.7" | 19.0" | 18.7" | 23.8" | 19.3" |
| Width | 9.3" | 9.0" | 9.3" | 9.3" | 8.4" |
| Depth | 21.7" | 20.8" | 21.6" | 21.7" | 19.8" |
| Space Above Motherboard | 1.2" to 2.2"**** | 1.6" | 0.6" to 1.6"**** | 0.2" to 0.8"**** | 1.6" to 2.6"**** |
| Card Length | 13.8" | 11.1" to 16.6"^^ | 11.7" to 17.8"** | 16.9" | 17.3"^^^ to 18.1"^^ |
| Weight | 20.0 Pounds | 19.0 Pounds | 23.1 Pounds | 17.7 Pounds | 18.5 Pounds |
| Cooling | |||||
| Front Fans (alternatives) | None (2 x 120 mm) | 1 x 200 mm (2 x 120 mm) | 1 x 140 mm (2 x 140 mm) | 1 x 120 mm, 1 x 80 mm (None) | None (None) |
| Rear Fans (alternatives) | 1 x 120 mm (None) | 1 x 120 mm (None) | 1 x 140 mm (1 x 120 mm) | 1 x 120 mm, 2 x 80 mm (3 x 80 mm) | 1 x 120 mm (2 x 120 mm) |
| Top Fans (alternatives) | 1 x 200 mm (None) | None (200 mm, 2 x 120 mm) | 1 x 140 mm (1 x 180 mm, 3 x 140/120 mm) | 2 x 120 mm (None) | 1 x 120 mm (2 x 120 mm, 1 x 140 mm) |
| Left Side (alternatives) | None (2 x 120 mm) | None (None) | None (2 x 180/140 mm) | None (1 x 180/120 mm) | None (None) |
| Right Side (alternatives) | None (1 x 120 mm) | None (None) | None (None) | None (None) | 1 x 120 mm (2 x 120 mm) |
| Drive Bays | |||||
| 5.25" External | Three | Four | Two | Five | Four |
| 3.5" External | None | 1 x Adapter | 1 x Adapter | None | 1 x Adapter |
| 3.5" Internal | Six | Six | Eight | Six | Nine |
| 2.5" Internal | Two | Two + 1 x Adapter | Eight* | Six* | Six |
| Card Slots | Nine | Seven +1 | Seven +1 | Seven | Eight |
| Price | $100 | $80 | $100 | $120 | $95 |
| *Shared on 3.5" tray **Slots 1-3 ***Slots 2-4 ****w/o Top Fan ^w/o fan bracket ^^w/o Center Cage ^^^12.5" w/HDD installed | |||||
Carnival geeks are a good reminder that standing out isn't always a good thing. Yet, the computer geek in all of us hopes that the most elaborate of these designs can stand up to the performance and quality of its less-flashy rivals. We built a system into each of these cases to find out.
If you missed the first part of this series, or our recent picture-based tour of the five enclosures being evaluated today, then check out the links below:
- 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!