Comment Thread for Antec Sonata III Review

[SKYMTL]

The review is up and posted here:

http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/hardw...html#post15501

Please feel free to post your comments and / or questions here.

[BALISTX]

Awesome review.

[enaberif]

I will say a couple things about the Sonata III over the Sonata II

. Better power supply in regards to power AND wiring. The Sonata II power supply had the wires to the outside of the case which made management difficult to get it neat. The Sonata III fixes this by putting the wires to the inside of the case.

. Sonata II had the stupid duct system that everyone ripped out ; Sonata III does not.

. Sonata III could be a bit longer cause as you can see the 120mm extra fan isn't let with a lot of room and if cables are managed right you end up with the "tink tink tink" sound.

. eSata on the front over the firewire great upgrade!

. chrome bezel over two blue bumps again great upgrade.

. 2 blue leds for the power and hard ; nice.

They have done a good job on this and I hope they can improve the next one if they decide to make IV

[JD]

Looks like a good case to use when building somebody a computer. Although the New Solutions series is cheaper, none of those have a 500W PSU.

Great review!

[BMWDriver]

I have one. Absolutely love it, looks gorgeous and quiet. My black 22 in. monitor beside it matches awesomely. No hassle putting in the drives... Antec has great brains and designers. And the PSU's real quiet too.

[SKYMTL]

I find it amazing that there are so few companies out there that release cases with proper PSUs. Off the top of my head, I can't think of even one case other than some Antecs that I would keep the included PSU.

[Cptn Vortex]

I'm pretty sure the case does come with all the harddrive screws you need. In your picture of the mounting hardware, I can easily spot 14 of them. Are you sure you were using the right ones? They are the ones that look like they have a washer built into them, with a 5mm or so of no threads in the middle. You may be using the wrong screws, perhaps you are just using longer regular case screws?

Also, I wonder why Silverstone doesn't offer their PSU's in some of their cases. According to you, they make some awesome PSU's!

[SKYMTL]

I have circled the hard drive screws in the picture above. In the older iterations of the Sonata, the smaller screws you are refering to could have been used. The is not the case with the Sonata III because the hard drive grommets were much thinner. In this case, the grommets are quote thick and on both sides of the tray as well.

Using the smaller screws is nearly impossible since they will not reach their respective holes on the hard drive.

As for Silverstone, I believe they considered adding a power supply option to their new Kublai cases but they threw out that idea before they were released. I think that Silverstone knows that whoever has the money to buy the majority of their cases should also have the money to buy a power supply.

[Cptn Vortex]

Yeah, I know they are thicker. They are now the same thickness as the P180's. I guess they messed up, and shipped the wrong screw packs! Well, nobody's perfect! I'm just waiting for the Sonata IV, you know, when they actually put an aluminum front and door on the sucker!

[MpG]

Had the exact same problem with my own SIII. I stared at the tray, my hard drive, and the included hardware for awhile... couldn't figure out how they expected it to work. Finally just grabbed a few of the screws from my P190. Must have been a screw-up on Antec's part.

SKYMTL - when you reviewed the PSU, you mentioned that you would have liked to see a 120mm fan. Given the position of the case's exhaust fan, wouldn't that have created the potential for the exhaust to steal airflow from the PSU? Since they would have both been pulling air from the exact same location?