Black & Silver Micro Atx Tower EA-380 High Eff Psu 80PLUS Certifd

by Antec

Product Details

• Product Dimensions: 17 x 10 x 17 inches ; 17.9 pounds
• Shipping Weight: 19.8 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Shipping: Currently, item can be shipped only within the U.S.
• ASIN: B000SKQOCK
• Item model number: NSK3480
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Date first available at Amazon.com: October 2, 2008

Product Description

Antec New Solution NSK 3480 System Cabinet - Tower - Black Silver NSK3480 220

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The best mini tower, March 6, 2010

By 

Kev's Korner "Kev" (San Diego, CA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Black & Silver Micro Atx Tower EA-380 High Eff Psu 80PLUS Certifd (Personal Computers)

If you plan your projects correctly then you will enjoy the results. That seems to be a fair assumption when it involves finding the right case for your particular needs.
For me, I needed a small case but still a tower design because after trying other designs such as cube cases, htpc etc., they were either too restrictive as far as power supply size or heat sinks.
Antec have always made good quality cases in thier construction and layout in the tower design. This case was not designed for gamers or generally those needing large power supplies over 500w. The equiped power supply that the case comes with is a modest 380 earthwatts.
My needs fit this case perfectly. What I wanted was a smaller tower design for under a desk that would fit a micro atx board, that was quiet, simple in looks, made of quality material. Antec made exactly that. The dual chamber design keeps the system cool. Yes you have to take your time a little more on the build if you decide to keep the hard drive in the upper chamber mounted under the dvd drive, it is a tighter fit. All of this is what you have to expect with smaller dimensions over all but in the end it works and it works very well because antec takes care to keep things designed in a way so that smaller quarters does'nt mean more noise or warmer temps. What makes it work is up to the individual as well, that's where the planning correctly comes in for a good build such as using a cpu & graphics card that makes sense in a case like this as opposed to being more suited for a gaming case with a big power supply.
I give antec an A+ for this case. It has many of the features of its big brothers such as rubber isolation for hard drive mounting, rubber feet to reduce vibration & heavier steel construction. Read the specs for the rest of the features or check out the pictrures for yourself. I did and that's what sold me.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Antec NSK 3480 Case, March 21, 2010

By 

ISAAC (Phoenix AZ) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Black & Silver Micro Atx Tower EA-380 High Eff Psu 80PLUS Certifd (Personal Computers)

PROS:
I wanted a smaller more compact PC case and the review of this case on "[...]' convinced me to give it a try. A MSI 785GM-E65 micro ATX motherboard fit perfectly in the case. A Scythe Big Shuriken low profile processor cooler fits in the case but required a little finagaling with a short 90 degree screw driver to get the upper clip lever in place. The height of this CPU cooler is perfect for this case. AMD Phenom II X4 925 95W processor is showing around 95-98 degrees CPU temp with this combination. The 380 power supply that comes with the case is quiet and perfectly adequate for a quiet low power PC. The case comes with an Antec three speed 120mm rear cooling fan that is fairly quiet at the slower speed settings but I replaced the Antec fan with a Scythe. The case also has two locations in the front for 92mm fans (one at the bottom and one about midway up below the floppy disk mounting tray. A Scythe 92mm fan fit nicely in the bottom mounting location (installing one is probably overkill). The case can accomodate either two optical CD/DVD drives or a single CD/DVD and a hard drive. A second 3.5" hard drive mounting location is provided on the bottom floor of the case which could interfere with a card installed in the lowest PCI slot of the mother board. No PCI cards are needed in this computer as the MSI board has onboard graphics and NIC so the possible interference is a don't care. Two adapters for mounting 3.5" hard drives come with the case. The adapters make use rubber isolators to minimize vibration and noise which work quite nicely.

CONS:
Location and spacing of the Molex and Sata power connectors on the power supply cabling seems rather hodge podge and isn't very well thought out so plan on using molex to sata adapters if you want a neat wiring installation particularly if you install two hard drives (one in the top and one on the bottom).

The upper compartment for the power supply and optical drives is pretty space limited. Plan on using the shortest CD/DVD drives you can find (ASUS and Lite-On DVD drives fit ok). The I/O and power connectors for these devices need to be in place before you put the screws in to mount the upper CD/DVD.

OVERALL: Antec has designed a well thought out nicely done case. I am impressed by the unique mechanical design of Antec cases I have used. I liked the NSK 3480 well enough to purchase a second one. Amazon free shipping was a plus.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars good quality but be aware of the size, September 12, 2008

By 

Long Pan "polo90" (Greenbrae, CA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Black & Silver Micro Atx Tower EA-380 High Eff Psu 80PLUS Certifd (Personal Computers)

This is a very compact and solid case, as expected. But i wasn't able to fit in my old CD/DVD drive. So I had to buy a new one. And it's not very easy to put two hard disks and one DVD drive into the case. To fit better into the space, you may want to make sure all your drives are running on SATA interface.
The nice thing about this case? it is quiet.