Antec Twelve Hundred

Antec Twelve Hundred is the big brother of the Antec gaming case lineup. It’s big, spacious and offers plenty of expansion slots, but is it a worthy member of the Antec Gaming case family?

Today we are looking at Antec’s new 1200 tower which is the big brother to the Antec 900 that was released in 2006. This time Antec seems to have built a case that gamers and enthusiasts will love, with more room, and better cooling. Antec 900 was the start of the Gamer series and was later completed with the Antec 300, a microATX version of the 900. A shrink that Antec followed up by doing the same to the Performance One P182, and shrink it to Performance One Mini P180.

Antec 1200 is not a shrink though, but an enlargement that should appeal to the enthusiasts. It’s bigger and comes well equipped and ready for water cooling from scratch. It has room for plenty of harddrives and comes with lots of fans, whereof one measures 200mm and is seated in the top of the case for removing hot air that otherwise gathers inside of the case. That’s just one of many interesting features, the rest will be covered on the coming pages.

Let’s see if it can live up to its little brother.

Antec Twelve Hundred
Case:	Miditower
Side panel:	Window, Perforated bezel
Measurements (HxWxD):	58.2 x 21.3 x 51.3cm 22.9″ x 8.4″ x 20.2″
Weight:	31.9lbs / 14.5kg
Motherboard support :	miniITX, microATX, ATX
Cooling (fans):	Rear – 2x 120mm Blue LED Roof – 1x 200mm Blue LED Front – 3x 120mm Blue LED Side – 1x 120mm (not included)
Material:	Steel
Internal units:	9×3.5"
External units:	1×3.5" (with bracket) 3×5.25”
Expansion slots:	7
Power supply	–
Color:	Black
Other:	Perforated front bezel USB, eSATA, mic and headphone connectors on the top Compartment tray for storing personal media player Screws and extra brackets for the harddrives, optical units and fans. Removable and washable dust filters Cable ties Manual 3.5-5.25″ adapter
Price:	~$170

This case is pitch black inside and out, which is sure to make your hardware stand out, the only thing not black is the thumb screws for the 5.25 drive bays, they are a nice shiny chrome which stands out against the black interior.

The fans are the same as seen in other Antec cases and below are the specifications:

Unfortunately, the case was incomplete when sent to us, but the accessories we did get can be seen on the picture below:

The Accessories package looks a little empty but adequate. It comes with 4 cable ties, motherboard standoffs and screws, and also a bay converter for a 3.5 drive to let you use a 5.25 bay for a floppy drive or memory card reader.

Antec did a fine job building this case, even both side panels feel heavy and are well made. The three 120mm blue led fans located on the front benzel have variable speed knobs in the right bottom corner. The two rear 120mm blue led fans and also the top mounted 200mm blue led fan have speed controls mounted on the rear of the case.

The top of the benzel has 1 eSATA, 2 USB, and HD Audio In & Out ports. The top accessory tray can be used to place a ipod, or digital cam, this also comes in handy for placing screws and small tools when working inside the case. The front benzel also has twelve mesh drive bay covers that have filters to catch dust being drawn in from the three 120mm intake fans.

The rear on the case is also black, and unlike the 900 , it has two 120 mm exhaust fans that are controlled by switches in the upper left hand side. The rear also has two grommet holes for water cooling. There’s a standard power supply plate that comes with the case, if you are planning on using a 1000w or larger power supply, the adapter plate will have to be removed. There’s also four rubber mounts that keeps the power supply from touching the bottom of the case and , and also allowing air under the power supply to help keep it cool and also absorbing some of the vibration. There is also a mount inside the case for a optional 120mm fan to push air onto your graphic cards, and also a 120mm optional side panel fan that fits on the smaller window, which can be removed and replaced with the black mesh that’s included with the case.

On the next page we open it up and look inside.

With the panel removed you can see that the non removable motherboard tray has several openings for cable management, there are five holes which allow you to route cables, for a nice clean interior look.

Each removable hard drive cage has a 120 mm blue led tri-cool fan mounted to it which fan with three settings, there is also a washable filter to catch dust that sits between fan and mesh front of the module. If you were to mount 1TB drives, the Antec 1200 could hold nine of them with no problem, while keeping each drive nice and cool.

Below you can see the rubber supports for the power supply and the top 200mm fan. The fan is controlled from the controller that is seated on the back of the case. We still stand by the recommendation of the lowest setting.

As an enthusiast, I always look for a case that has lots of room, easy access to my hardware, and also large enough to hold today’s largest graphic cards. The Antec 1200 full tower is one of the best gaming cases around, with up to eight fans, and also enough room for nine hard drives. The black internal chassis is sure to make your hardware stand out, add black sleeved cables from your power supply, and black ties , you will end up with one sexy machine to be very proud of.

The 1200 does have some drawbacks, there are too many blue led fans, unless you like that, and with each fan set on high it’s one of the loudest cases I have ever tested. Let’s not forget the weight, with all components installed this can be one heavy case, it’s not the kind of case you want to take to LAN party’s

As far as price, you do get what you pay for when you buy the Antec 1200, you can get it for as low as $165, but most stores charge a bit more than that. Overall the 1200 is a decent case that was built with the high standards we have come to expect from Antec. It’s not perfect but close, and if the fans were not so loud it I would have rated it higher.

Antec Twelve Hundred

Pros + Can hold up to nine 1TB  hard drives + Set up for liquid cooling + Optional middle fan for VGA cooling + Each HDD cage has fan controller with three setting for the tri-cool fans + Can hold power supplies larger than 1K Cons – Weight – To many Blue LEDs – No removable motherboard tray – Fans are very noisy on high settings

We want to thank Antec and Sarah Bendtsen at LewisPR for sending the case.