Antec Sonata III 500 UK > Reviews > Good all round case.

Author's product rating:   

Ease of Use	Simple
Quality	Excellent
Durability	Excellent
Value for Money	Good

Advantages:	Good case, roomy, easy to install components, included PSU and fan of high quality .
Disadvantages:	Rubber stoppers on the bottom fall off often (this is a very minor niggle though)

Recommend to potential buyers:

yes

Full review

I bought one of these for building my first computer about a month ago. It was extremely easy to fit all the parts inside it and I had my PC up and running inside of a few hours.

It is not clearly displayed in the picture, but the top half of the front of the case opens up to reveal the slots for your CD rom drive, floppy drive, etc. Both this door on the front and the side panel have locks on with a key provided.

There is a 500W power supply provided with the case. (check you are getting this with it before you buy) This is more than enough to cope with anything you might want to power inside the case (high end graphics cards, extra fans etc.) and is supposedly 80%+ efficient. If you want to find out more about the included power supply then search around for "Antec 500W earthwatts PSU".

It's very easy to slot and screw in all the different components you would want to install, with a full range of screws etc. provided with the case. I did have a small issue when trying to install a hard disk cooling fan because of the way the drive bays are aligned, but soon found a way to overcome it.

The case also comes with a large fan on the back, with space for a second fan near the front of the case. (if you fit a second fan take care to align it so that it takes air from the front and pushes it through the case to the back where the pre-installed fan with kick it out.) Another tip with the second fan, if you find it hard to fit because the screws are fiddly, try using motherboard spacers to attach it as that worked well when building my PC.

As for noise, it runs quietly, it's not silent, but is very quiet considering I have the standard fan, a hard disk cooler, and extra fan near the front and a large processor cooler.

Temperature wise it has kept very cool, but that could be due to the extra fans I installed.

The inside of the case is very roomy, with room for a huge-ass graphics card should you wish to install one.

There are rubber stoppers stuck on the bottom of the case, but these tend to fall off easily which is not ideal, but if you don't plan to move your PC often, or have a movable base for it then this is not an issue.

As I have not had any problems worth contacting customer support about, I don't know what it is like first hand, but I know others who have had nothing but first class service from Antec.