Home Theater PCs are becoming more popular these days, and they all try to tone down that they’re a PC, trying to blend in with other Home Theater equipment. Antec’s Fustion case is one of Antec’s latest offerings for the home theater enthusiast. Antec designed this case to reduce noise and heat buildup using an innovative chamber structure, and even included a VFD display to complement your home theater software.
Specifications
Fusion, the newest member of the LifeStyle family of enclosures, seamlessly blends Quiet Computing, versatility and impeccable style to media PCs. Utilizing an innovative three chamber thermal design and Quiet Computing™ features like vibration-dampening silicone grommets, it is so quiet you won’t have to relegate your media PC to a closet to make out the softest passages in your favorite movies or music. Combined with a highly-efficient 430W power supply with active PFC, you can rest assured that the Fusion will be a good citizen on the power grid even as it quietly records your favorite shows.
Features
- Aluminum plate front bezel with Vacuum Fluorescent Display (VFD) and Volume Control to work with media center applications. Includes space for user-mounted IR Receiver
- Triple chamber structure to separate heat and noise of power supply, hard drives and motherboard for cooler and quieter operation
- Quiet high-efficiency 430 Watt ATX12V v2.0 power supply with universal input and active PFC
- Removable HDD brackets with extra soft silicone grommets to reduce vibrational noise
- Motherboard: Micro ATX form factor (9.6″ x 9.6″)
- Front-mounted ports for easy multimedia connections
- 2 x USB 2.0
- 1 x IEEE 1394 (FireWire, i.Link)
- Audio In and Out
- Durable 0.8mm cold rolled steel construction
- 4 Expansion Slots
Advanced cooling system:
- 2 x sidemounted 120mm TriCool 3-speed fans
- Low profile desktop height to fit in any environment
3 Drive Bays
- Front Accessible: 1 x 5.25″
- Internal 2 x 3.5″
The first thing you’ll notice about this case is the front panel and huge volume knob. A vacuum-fluorescent display site above the stealthed DVD drive cover, shifted to the left of the case. In the middle of the case are two USB ports, a firewire port, and two standards 1/8th inch audio ports. These obvious computer components are real eyesores compared to the rest of the case, making it plainly obvious that this is a PC. Other home theater appliances do have USB and firewire ports, but the wimpy-looking pastel-colored AC97 audio jacks are completely out of place.
Triple chamber
Sliding back the top cover we see how Antec has designed this case. The hard drive area, mainboard area, and Power supply area have been physically segmented into three separate chambers (the DVD drive rests in the PSU area). Cables can be routed from one chamber to another through small ports, which have rounded edges to prevent cable fraying. Each chamber has two open holes to each chamber, so you can route cables the way you see fit. The holes are oblong, and barely accommodate a flat ribbon cable, so it is best to use SATA drives, or at least rounded ATA cables. You can also use the chamber walls to tie down the cables you route.
Hard drive area
The hard drive area will accommodate two standard 3.5” hard drives, and are suspended in a cage and must be affixed using special long screws. One side of the hard drive is secured to the case’s underside, and the other side from a removable lid. Silicone grommets are used between the hard drive and chasis, so vibration is reduced as much as possible. It would have been nice if the hard drives were mounted in a cage, as any hard drive maintenance requires you to unscrew the drives from the case’s underside.
Rubber feet
Antec tries to match this case with home theater equipment by using theater-equipment-style metal feet. Only the front feet are made to match, and use rubber on the bottom to prevent slippage. The back feet are made of plain, white silicon, and look very ugly in comparison. Sure, you’re not intended to see it, but quality gear should be consistent.
Power supply/DVD drive area
The power supply area also houses the DVD drive and VFD. There is unutilized space above the power supply. If the power supply were lifted up, it could possibly accommodate a full-size motherboard (although a few PCI slots would be unavailable). An extra hard drive could also be placed in this area.
VFD
The VFD is one of the best features of this case, and really makes it shine. The VFD uses iMON’s excellent application software, which is already perfectly tuned for home theater. The VFD is plugged in using a USB header, and power is supplied using a power supply cable. Unfortunately, no IR sensor is installed, although there is a place for one. Let’s be honest, though… if you don’t get it pre-installed you’re probably not going to ever install one. You really don’t need one if you are using Windows Media Center, as it uses its own external USB IR unit.
The software works flawlessly (after initial driver installation), and there are only a few parameters to set up before it is working. The default mode is to “auto-detect” what’s going on. If you have Windows Media Center running, then it will display information relative to your current actions (graphic equalizer when listening to music, DVD titles and chapters when watching movies, if it’s currently recording something, etc). When not running Media Center, iMON’s software will display information such as free space, memory usage, and even weather, email and RSS feeds. There is little to configure, basically just select the screens you want to be shown, what audio line the Equalizer should listen to, and what cities’ weather you are interested in.
The Fusion case has stamped vents in the top of the chasis, to allow heat to naturally escape through convection. Good thing it doesn’t rely on this cooling method, as most home theater cases are going to be jammed into a rack, probably blocking this vent.
Two 80mm fans exhaust heat from the rear of the case’s right side. These fans are actually rather quiet, and there was no need to turn down their speed.
Since this case segments components into their own chambers, cables must be routed to these chambers through oblong holes. The holes are rounded, so there are no sharp edges to fray your cables, and they are barely long enough to fit a standard ATA cable through (you have to angle it just right to get it through). Those holes close themselves off pretty well once you have enough cables stuffed through them.
Installation takes a little longer because of the extra routing, so go ahead and take some time to tie them down to really get them out of the way. Once you have everything installed you really shouldn’t have to remove the cables when you upgrade… you’ll be replacing a DVD drive, and there will probably be no need to upgrade its cable.
Hard Drive Installation
Hard drive installation is rather unique, and takes getting used to. Drives are “suspended” between a top mount and the bottom of the case using long screws. Between these screws are silicon grommets that (in theory) reduce vibration.
There is no removable drive cage, just the top mount is removable. You must then flip the case upside down to access the underside and secure the left side of the hard drive to the case bottom. It is very easy to get confused and install the drive the wrong way, which doesn’t become apparent until the top mount won’t fit properly. Once you do get it installed properly, the drives are hanging rather securely right above a large air intake. The drive area is segmented rather well, so heat produced by the drives should not contaminate other areas.
DVD drive installation
The DVD drive cage is rather unique. It is removed by pulling back on the cage slightly (to unlock it) and then flips up on a hinge. The DVD drive is attched to the cage in a normal fashion, and then the cage is slid back into position. Cables can be routed to the drive via the slots between chambers.
This case can only hold so many components, so you even if you used the best video card and CPU available today you would only be using about 300W, well under the 420W rating of this PSU. Below are the components used in this test configuration:
- Athlon 64 3000+ (socket 754)
- Gigabyte K8VM800M motherboard
- Hauppauge PVR-150 MCE card
- SoundBlaster Live audio card
- PowerColor X1300 PCI video card
- 2x Western Digital 120GB HDD
- Asus DVD-R drive
- 1GB Kingston DDR400
The power supply was testing using a voltmeter, and had less than 1% variance when idle or under load. Antec power supplies have a good reputation, but even a crappy power supply would do well when under 70% of the PSU’s capacity. It’s a good power supply… you can rest easy at night.
You can only fit so many components in this case, so the Fusion is good for a light or medium-duty home theater PC, or a HTPC client. Those looking for an expandable home theater server would do well looking at Silverstone’s LC16M, which allows full-size motherboard and up to 6 hard drives.
The Antec Fusion case packs a lot of hardware into a small footprint that easily fits in most home theater racks. The innovative use of chambers helps reduce “heat bleed” and noise in the case. The optical drive installation is a snap, but the hard drive installation (although innovative) can get easily turned around. Although Antec says you can mount an IR sensor next to the VFD, most users will not bother, and opt for a case that has this pre-installed. If you like the looks of the case, then you will be equally impressed with the case features.
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
1 Comment
For computer ANTEC lifestyle fusion, what is the supply voltage input: 100-240v or 200-240v?