Customer Reviews

NSK1480 Microatx Mini Desktop Case

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

The SATA connectors on many modern mATX boards are set right on the edge and cables must be inserted parallel to the motherboard. These motherboards will NOT leave enough space for the cables.

If you are certain you will have access to the SATA headers (less and less likely every generation) or will be running a controller card (you probably arn't)then this case will work and is truly well built.

I won't try to hide my affinity to Antec cases: I like them. The NSK1480 is no exception, although there are a number of things I would change.
As is the norm with Antec, the build construction is great quality, especially compared to brands like Cooler Master. Being a microATX case, I expected it to be slightly smaller for some reason, but once I opened it up, I realized quite quickly there wasn't much room to get rid of.
Hard drives are attached to their cages from the bottom (something not very many cases take advantage of, but every 3.5" hard drive will have holes to secure to cases/cages on the bottom), and the cage system works quite well.
Be aware that a microATX mother will have little clearance in the front and above it near the front (I am orienting the motherboard such that the front is the end towards the front of the case, opposite of the "rear" ports). Try to find a motherboard that does not angle the SATA ports 90 degrees to the rear. Also, you'll want your motherboard to have the 24-pin power connector port near the rear, away from where the 5.25" cage slides in.
Also, I was disappointed with the silver front, so I painted it black. Very sleek, and IMO how it should have been anyway.

Nearly perfect for Intel DG43GT mATX board installation. Only wished fans were not manually controlled because DG43GT board could not detect fans when using molex to fan power adapters. This may be due to the manual 3-speed switches on each fan.

This is a very good chasis that came with its own power supply. no need to purchase add on power supply. the size is almost same as one of the HTPC case. I purchased asus P7H55-M Pro with this one.
that's where this losses one star. the case is so tight and has so much little space left inside it that if you have any mother board which requires connection to sata / ide ports from the side ways, there is no space to push a cable from sideways. i had to leave the ide port on this motherboard and chasis combo unused because there is no space between motherboard and chassis internally that i can push ide cable from sideways.

Otherwise, this has 3 adjustable fans to keep it comfortably cool inside.

I used this case for my first HTPC/file server setup and couldn't be happier, for the money. We all know how expensive HTPC cases get and we often have to sacrifice quality for cost, but this Antec has it all. The included PSU is superb. I threw in a Gigabyte mini-ITX mobo with and Atom D510 and there were absolutely no fitment issues. Great case, great price. If you like the looks, you won't be disappointed.

Excellent case! I just built an AMD Phenom X4 3.0 system with this utilizing an ASUS M3N78-VM.

Everything fit pretty nicely, the only issues I had were the PATA connector on the motherboard is not usable because of the 3.5" drive cage, and the 5.25" drive connector was a tight fight over the power connector in the motherboard.

I really like the removable drive cages and the overall design of the case, everything went together quite nicely.

I was able to use the OEM fan that came with the AMD Phenom X4 3.0, it fit the case pretty well, with the 3 case fans set to low the CPU idles at a nice 35C and at full bore the system ends up at 54C.

This case has some very nice features. The hard drive mounting situation is very well thought out and holds the drives on silicon grommets to isolate vibration. This works very well. Unfortunately this design is not used on the 5.25" mount, which is a shame since this is almost certainly a noisier, optical drive.

Be sure to note that the front panel is silver plastic, not aluminum. The front panel layout is good, except the reset button which is so small only a small child could use it. I have to use a pen or pencil to push it in. It's that small.

The fans are fairly quiet, though not as quiet as some other brands. They attach to the power supply directly via the old-style drive power connectors, so they stay on even when the computer sleeps, which I personally don't like. No sense cycling dust through the box all day long while the machine sleeps. This also means the bios cannot monitor or adjust them. I will replace these.

The 80-plus power supply is a great feature as they are hard to find in this format.

Overall, pretty well done by Antec.

This case is built very well but has a major design flaw. If your using one of the new P55 motherboards then and the SATA connectors are of the right angle type then the connectors will butt up against the hard drive chamber and you can not make the connections. This is an issue with ASUS, Gigabyte, and Intel's new P55 motherboard. Other then that this is a very nice case.