Antec ISK600 Review

Conclusion

Those of you who are regulars to the OC3D will know that it’s been a fair few years since an Antec product has graced us with its presence.  We are though pleased to welcome them back and to see how things have changed in the intervening period.  And so to enable us as to better divine Antec’s Antics, the first product to get the OC3D treatment is the small form factor ISK600.  With a name only its mother could love and marketed for use in “business and Pleasure” I appears Antec intend the ISK600 to be as at home with the small business/office user as it is with the gamer.  At £65 it’s not that expensive for a cube SFF case, let’s just hope this low price hasn’t translated into poor quality.

First impressions are certainly good, the ISK600 comes packaged in an attractive blue box with graphic overlays and is well protected by dense expanded foam padding.  The sides and roof of the case are constructed from a single piece of formed aluminium, finished to a high standard with a hairline brushed effect.  The front of the case, which initially appears to be of the same ilk is actually made from plastic.  In forgoing the “thick billet of Aluminium” favoured by companies such as Silverstone, Antec have invariably kept he price down whilst maintaining the overall aesthetic.

Undoing three screws at the rear of the case enables the outer roof and side panel shell to be lifted off as a single piece.  Space inside is limited as you might imagine in a case with exterior dimensions of just 195x260x369mm (HxWxD).  The trick when reviewing cases such as this is not to criticise the lack of space available, if it’s a small case by definition there’s not going to be a great deal of room inside, that is a given, rather to see how well the manufacturer has made use of what little space is available.  Looking at the ISK600 and starting with the form factor it’s fairly obvious that the case supports only the small Mini-ITX motherboards, no longer the domain of the low power user, in recent months we’re starting to see some very high spec boards which we’re sure will make their way into some compact high end builds.  The case also makes use of the full size ATX standard power supply as opposed to esoteric and often expensive and underpowered smaller units.  The PSU is situated at the front of the case, being mounted in a decubitus position behind the front panel.  Although here are slots down the side of each front panel edge we do have concerns that they may not be enough to feed a PSU that is going full tat during a gaming session. 

As 3TB HDDs are now ten a penny (well not quite but you get the idea), there’s not nearly as much need for masses of 3.5″ bay capacity in the modern PC.  Recognising this Antec have seen fit to include mounts for only three 3.5″ units as well as two 2.5″ drives, which should be more than plenty.  The drives are held in caddies which are mounted tool-free between the top chassis rails, being isolated by rubber grommets a degree of sound and vibration dampening should be expected.  Should you still have the urge to fit an optical drive then this is also catered for, with an under-slung attachment to the 2.5″ caddy enabling you to mount a slim line 5.25″ drive.

So far so good then, we’ve got a low price, good looks, better than average build quality and decent storage.  Combine this with 2 PCI slots, a quoted max GPU length of 12.5″ and a max CPU cooler height of 170mm and we should have the makings of a gold award case.  Problem is, there are a few caveats hidden within this paragraph.  You’ll notice we said a “quoted max GPU length”, the reason for this is that although there is most certainly 12.5″ of space between the rear of the case and he back of the front panel, there’s no way on Bob’s Green earth that you’re going to be able to fit a 12.5″ long GPU in there.  The problem lies both in the wiring loom as it leaves the rear of the PSU and in the space behind the PSU being the only real place to bundle up and stash unused cables.  In reality we think a GPU length of 10.5″ is more realistic, and even then you’re going to have fun getting it in and wired up.  Then we come to the matter of the 170mm of headroom for the CPU cooler.  Again it is technically possible to fit a cooler this high, but only if you remove all of your overhead storage, which incidentally means losing your ODD bay also.  If you want to keep your drive caddies then expect to be fitting a cooler no higher than 140mm or even as low as 115mm if you sling a second HDD under the caddy.  Of course there is always the option of fitting one of the many 120mm rad based AIO units on the market in place of the solitary 120mm extract fan.  The 80mm of space on tap between the rear of the case and the edge of the drive caddy should be plenty for a single slim rad and single fan set up but be wary of it if you’re planning a push pull.  Our point here though, for there is one, is that Antec themselves don’t make it abundantly clear that these caveats exist.  We’re not saying they’re lying, jus that perhaps they’re being a little disingenuous.  Imagine how peeved you’d be if you bought this case along with a 12.5″ GPU (as that’s what the manufacturer stated would fit) only to find the chances of actually getting it in there were slimmer than a vegan in an butchers shop

Gripes about transparency aside, our only real area of concern with the ISK600 is the ventilation.  If you’re planning on putting a mid to lower power build in into it and using the rig for web browsing, office and small business use, or perhaps as a small HTPC then things will be just fine and you’ll have yourself a very tidy little set up that looks a lot more expensive than it is.  If however, as Antec suggest you can use the ISK600 to double up as a gaming rig then you may run into something of a thermal wall.  The only real ventilation at the front of the case aside from the slits for the PSU comes from a pair of mesh areas towards the front of each side panel.  At least one of these will be busy exhausting the heat from the PSU leaving you with just a solitary mesh area through which the case must take all the air it needs.  If you’re overclocking and air cooling then this may well become an issue, especially if you’ve had to trade some cooler height to fit your 3.5″ bay caddy.  Fitting a 120mm AIO would mitigate this issue to an extent, and even more so if you fit the fans on the AIO to intake as opposed to exhaust.  The real problem though lies in getting cool air to the GPU.  If your GPU cooler is of the type that it has the fan at the far end then it may benefit from the mesh area to an extent, but anything not of this design will find itself starved of refreshing and life giving air with the face of its cooling fan pretty much hard up against the solid case side panel.

As always we must now turn to look at the competition.  At £65 he ISK600 is well priced however there are quite a few Silverstone and Cooler Master units hovering around this price point, none of which though we think quite measure up to the ISK600.  The biggest problem for the ISK600 though is in the form of the Fractal Design Node 304 which at £67 is visually very similar but with larger mesh panels in the side and two albeit small intake fans in the front has better ventilation over all. It also has a 140mm fan in the rear as opposed to a 120mm unit meaning that bigger and more effective AIOs can be used.  If you’re willing to spend just £5-£10 more you’re into Phenom and Prodigy territory.  Ok, so these enclosures are a little bigger, but by heck does that bit more room make a lot of difference.

To summarise then.  The ISK600 is marketed as a case “For business and pleasure”.  Certainly if you’re looking for a sleek case that will look stylish in an office or at home, perhaps as a discrete HTPC then the ISK600 is a good option.  If however your “Pleasure” extends to building even a modest gaming rig then we think that the inherent lack of cooling and ventilation may cause the kit inside to get a bit too hot under the collar.  All it would really take to make this reasonably good case into a very decent proposition is the extension of the side mesh ventilation panel, perhaps with the option of a fan mount.  Improving the ventilation really would make the ISK600 a viable option for both business and pleasure.