The Skeleton is Out of the Closet
Well it’s been a month since I last posted anything. Did anyone one of the five people who read this blog miss me? Well the wait may be well worth it, if just for this one post. I just received what is one of the more hotly anticipated cases to come out in a while. Futurelooks.com originally previewed this case this past summer at Computex 2008, and now it’s finally made it into our hands. That’s right, I have in my possession an Antec Skeleton, and I’m going to show you the unboxing right here.
I literally just received the case today, so I haven’t had a chance to set it up where I normally take my review photos. That means that for now everything is going to be spread out on my living floor, and some pictures will use the flash. Anyhow, due to the shape of the Antec Skeleton, the box is much more cubic then the average computer case box. It’s also fairly boring to look at, compared to what is inside.
Upon opening the box, I got my first look at the 250mm fan that adorns the top of the Antec Skeleton above the motherboard area. Now I’ve seen some big fans in my day. I have a couple of pictures in my archive of John Chow holding up a 170mm case fan, with that evil glint in his eye. But that is nothing compared to the size of this fan. Hopefully it should do what I would expect such a fan to do, and that is remain quiet while moving a great deal of air.
And here it is, the Antec Skelton, finally and completely freed from it’s packaging. Some have expressed certain concerns over the construction of this case, and rightly so. Many of the "open air" cases I’ve seen have been made mostly of plastic, and as a result may not be able to stand up to the punishment such a case would take. The Antec Skeleton, on the other hand, is mostly steel. It’s really easy to see what parts are made of what material. The black components pictured here are steel, and the gunmetal grey parts are plastic. Overall, this looks to be a very sturdy case that will feature prominently on many a hardware monkey’s bench.
There’s one more concern that people have expressed in the Futurelooks Forums about the Antec Skeleton, and that’s if it’ll accommodate a large CPU heatsink. There’s a gallery of pictures below, with a few more close-ups of the area in question. I have my doubts as to whether a cooler like the Cooler Master Hyper 212 will fit under the little lip around the fan. Unfortunately we’ll have to wait until next week, when the full review is posted, to see what kind of heatsink you’ll need to use with this case. Until then, enjoy the pictures below.
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Hi Jason,
Just wondering how did you go with assembling your pc with the Antec Skelton case? I got mine last weekend and I had a terrible time putting it all together. Its no way an easy case to put together, but once you have everything installed it looks great. There are few things im not happy about.
1. I cant open sliding bay that hold the mother board. Whole point of the case is to allow easy access to change parts, but I found once you installed the GPU you cant slide the bay out. You’ll have to take off GPU if you want to slide the bay. Although its not major issue, just little bit annoying.
2. I also wished there was a way to turn off lights on the fan, I normally leave my pc on over night in my room and it looks like a disco and pretty hard to sleep . Even with the computer turned off if there is power to the PSU there’s lights all over the mobo and the GPU that’s still on. Only way to stop it is to unplug the power or turn power off on the PSU on/off switch which is hard to get to. I find that I have take off the side panel to access to the PSU switch.
Its only been a week since I had the case, although there are few annoying things about it, overall im happy with it. What are your thoughts on the case?
The full review I wrote can be found here.
http://www.futurelooks.com/antec-skeleton-open-air-case-review/
I also had issues with opening the slide out tray, but mine was due to the power plugs on my vid card. It’s an interesting case, and a good utility for those who swap their parts semi-frequently. To be honest it won’t be replacing my HSPC Top Deck Tech Station.