Antec Minuet 300 Slimline Case Review

Antec Minuet 300 Slimline Case Review

Specifications:

Minuet II slimline piano black Micro PC case with chrome accents
220Watt ATX 12V power supply, 20 pin main connector
Internal 80mm TriCool fan with 3-speed switch control
Low Profile, small form factor:
- 3.8"(H) x 12.75(W) x 16.8"(D)
- 9,4cm(H) x 31,9(W) x 43,9(D)
Front Ports:
- 2USB
- 1 IEEE1394 (FireWire®, i.Link®)
- 2 audio jacks
3 Drive bays in easy-to-install unified flip-out drive cage
- 1 x 5.25" external
- 1 x 3.5"external
- 1 x 3.5"internal
Motherboard: up to micro ATX (9.6"x9.6")
Top panel with vents for maximum cooling of latest CPUs & VGA cards
Gross weight: 6.4Kg/14.2 lbs.
Net weight: 5.7 Kg/12.6 lbs.
2 stands included for upright positioning
AQ3 - Antec Quality three-year Warranty

Inside:

The inside front of the Minuet is dominated by the removable drive cage assembly. This cage is held in place by the two rubber pads you see here and a single pad located beneath it. The 80 mm fan uses a toggle switch, the white cable on the right, to allow you to manually set the speed to low, medium or high. For this review I left it at medium.

As shown here by Antec, the cage pivots forward and out allowing for easy access to the drive mounts.

In this closer look at the cage you can see the Minuet design only supports one external 5.25" bay, one external 3.5" bay and a internal 3.5" drive bay.

The back of the case gives us a look at the extra 40 mm fan location and the limited space available for the motherboard install.

Much of the community felt the 220 Watt power supply included with the Minuet II was underpowered for today's builds. Antec has responded by including a much nicer 300 Watt PSU with the Minuet 300. With the limited output on the 12 V rails you can see the target audience will not be running power hungry processors and video cards, but then again, that's not what this case is designed for at all. This is also supported by the lack of any 6-pin PCI express leads.