Antec Fusion 430 HTPC Case

The Other Stuff

The HDD area has no direct fan cooling. The area is only cooled by the airflow created by the vents in the case. This could cause issues with high-heat drives especially in multi-drive configurations. For this reason, it might be better to select quiet and low-energy drives such as Western Digital’s GP (Green Power) drives.

The Fusion 430 has features that one would expect in an HTPC case. Notice the rubber inserts to quiet the power supply and optical drive.

Upper HDD noise dampening

Lower HDD noise dampening

PSU noise dampening

Antec further enhances noise dampening by pointing the HDD toward the back of the chamber instead of toward the front.

Still, there are some details that might have been added. This would include some sound dampening materials to further isolate the HDD and especially to reduce the optical drive noise. Also, a media card reader is not built into the case.