Antec Skeleton Review

Conclusion

With the Skeleton, Antec has tried to break out of the mold of traditional closed box-type computer cases and offer a product that brings the idea behind the enthusiast testbeds to mainstream consumers. For the most part, Antec succeeds in this endeavor. But there are some critical flaws in the Skeleton in its current form. If these flaws are ironed out in the next version of the Skeleton, I can easily see it becoming the darling of enthusiasts wishing to overclock their top of the line hardware to dizzying heights. Let’s recap some of the pros and cons of this case:

Pros

• Open air design allows easy access to components
• Top 250mm fan pushes a lot of air onto the motherboard, providing active cooling for memory and northbridge among other components on the motherboard
• Cable clutter can be minimized by routing the cables under the motherboard
• LEDs on the 250mm make a very beautiful lightshow at night
• LEDs can be turned off
• The motherboard can be removed from the case and used as a testbed

Cons

• Cannot use any tower style cooler greater than 125mm in height. This means that the leading air coolers on the market like Prolimatech Megahalems, TRUE, Tuniq Tower cannot be used in this case.
• Power Supply may run hot due to little space above and below it, which may restrict the air intake of the power supply fan
• Only 2 hard drives can be used inside the case. Any additional hard drives are hung from the sides of the case which leaves them without any active cooling, which could lead to them possibly running hotter than the hard drives inside the case.

Even though not being able to use tower style coolers in this case may be a big turn off for many enthusiasts, I would still like to award this case AlienBabelTech’s Innovation award, because that is what Antec has done with this case. They have dared to be different and “Think Beyond the BOX”.