Like most cases today, the frame and body are made of CE steel.
The interior of the case is accessed from a top panel that is secured in place with a single screw. Once removed, the top cover slides back with a tug and can be lifted up to reveal the Minuet’s interior.
The interior of the case features rubber grommets to absorb hard drive vibration, which makes for a quieter system.
The drive cage flips up to allow for easy installation and maintenance. Instead of screws, the cage is fastened by the side panel via two rubber spacers. A rubber stopper also sits under the bottom of the drive cage to cushion it and reduce vibration. The cage flips up by simply pulling on the back end of the cage, and can be completely removed by pulling the cage away from the front. One 5.25” drive and one 3.5” drive can be accessed from the front panel, but the cage allows for two additional hard drives.
The Minuet comes with Antec’s SmartPower 220 power supply, which is a proprietary size. A thin 40mm fan draws air from inside the case and blows it out the back of the power supply. The PSU is rated for 220 watts, which should be enough for a DVD drive, hard drive, and moderate processor.
While it technically is 220 watts, only 12 amps are available on the 12V line (which is what most components use). 20 amps are available on the +5v line, and 17 amps are available on the 3.3v line. There really is no reason to supply this many amps on the 3.3v line – only motherboards use this rail. So, it appears that 56 watts are wasted on the 3.3v line, 100 watts are available on the 5.5V line, and 144 watts are reserved for the 12V line.
Power supplies run most efficiently when kept under 70% load, so I wouldn’t recommend the latest power-hungry processor or video card (today’s CPUs average around 50-70 watts under full load, as do the latest video cards). The heat produced from next-gen hardware might be too much for this little case, anyway.
