Antec Veris MicroFusion Remote 350 HTPC Case Review

Interior Impressions

Unless you look very closely, the Fusion with its panel removed looks a lot like your typical bottom mounted PSU case. To us this is a good thing as this design (whether it’s a left to right or bottom to top orientation) does an effective job at cramming a lot of electronics in a small area; and more importantly, doing it in such away as to be easily cooled by just a moderate amount of fresh air.

When you take a closer look at the nudie geek pr0n picture above a few interesting things stand out. Of course, both 3.5 and 5.25 bays are rotated 90° which would look silly on a regular tower case, but are necessary in a desktop/ horizontal case. These little things are neither here nor there in the grand scheme of things; the real interesting tweak is all surfaces which come in contact with the removable lid have been gifted with copious amounts of vibration dampening material. This should keep any vibrations -which could turn that case lid into a big bass drum- from reaching said lid.


Lets continue this tour with the Power Supply which is included with the MicroFusion 350 Remote. This is not your typical size power supply, as it is undersized though to be fair, we mean the physical size and not the power size as this PSU is 80+ certified and 350 watts should easily meet and exceed most people needs.


As for the connectors on the PSU itself: you get the typical 20+4 power supply cable, one 4pin 12v cable, 3 SATA, 4 Molex and even an FDD cable. What is missing is the 8 pin 12v cable and 6-pin PCI-E connector. However, as this is not a case designed for overclocking and is in fact designed for low noise environments we can understand why these are missing.

Some people may find the 350 watt output to be a bit on the low side but we think it should be more than powerful enough to run any and all peripherals you could actually fit inside this case. The only real down side to its small size is more psychological in nature as consumers have been brainwashed into thinking ALL computers require (at a minimum) 600 watts to run and you should really go with 1kw+ monsters to be safe. This is marketing hog wash, as very few computers will ever suck more than 300 watts of power unless you have a heavy duty video card (or three installed). Since this case only accepts low profile cards, which by their very nature are “low powered”, massive amounts of power are not needed for anything other than the CPU.


It is a shame the Peripheral slots only accept low profile cards, but given the size of this case this really wasn’t unexpected. All in all you get 4 slots which while technically enough, may cause air flow issues if you actually try and cram 4 cards into this area. The area is not badly laid out but when you are dealing with really small HTPCs, their air flow and cooling potential are usually the first things to suffer from the necessity of down sizing.

In the case of the MF Remote 350, the PCI slots are not tool-less and rely on the old (yet tried and true) method of screwing the peripheral card into place. It may be old school of Antec, but it does make for a more secure mounting point. In addition, most HTPCs are not going to be opened up all that often yet are going to be near sources of some mega vibrations so makes sense to have everything which can be bolted down BE bolted down. Let’s face it, in today’s world where entertainment centers with their 7.1 surround sound and 800 watt sub woofers are becoming more and more prevalent, massive amounts of vibrations are going to be one of the biggest challenges of any computer system located nearby. Anything which stops you from having to worry about any AGP/PCI/PCI-E card vibrating loose can only considered a good thing.


The hard drive bay is located just in front of the PSU area and gets its own Tri-Cool 80mm fan. This cage can accept a lone 3.5 hard drive and uses rubber grommets along with rubber feet on the cage itself to help dampen noise and vibrations the drive may create. Of course this has the added benefit of protecting the drive from any of the mega vibrations we just talked about.


Directly in front of the hard drive cage is the built in IR remote and LCD screen which distinguishes this unit from the older Fusion 350. This small sub unit is easily removed and boy is that a good thing! We get into details later in the review but to actually finish your build this needs to be uninstalled and then later reinstalled! Luckily, all this iMON creation requires to work is plugging in its USB connector to your motherboard and the power connector; so yanking it out is not an overly tedious affair fraught with fighting a Gordian knot of cables. On a side note, the actual USB connector is in fact a external male USB connector with a external to internal adapter on it. It may be strange but it does make this unit “adaptable” to say the least.


Moving further along we come to the lone 5.25 bay. Just as the cooling components had to be severely curtailed to obtain its svelte Calista Flockhart -5 size, so too did the number of drive bays available get severely cut back. Though in this day and age of super multi-mega moca granda half caf, double decaff burners which can not only read and write CDs/DVDs/Blu-Ray discs but STILL give you a place to hold your cup of joe, one bay should be enough for most people. If you need more drive bays than one then, sadly, this sub niche of HTPCs is not right for you.


Just as with most encolsures, the motherboard area of the MicroFusion 350 Remote dominates the interior of the case. Since this is called a “Micro” enclosure, and there sometimes really is truth in advertising, this motherboard area is on the small side. We would not exactly call it cramped; rather it is very snug to say the least. This case conforms to the MicroATX standard and only the MicroATX standard. As you can imagine there is no way of fitting a standard ATX motherboard in this area (let alone an E-ATX mobo). It would be unfair of us to call this a negative as it clearly states this is a MicroATX motherboard and in all honesty if you buy a Micro anything and expect your shiny new i7 compatible ATX motherboard to fit in here we hope you are into chainsaws, duct tape and have a butt load of solder on hand.