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by Antec
Specifications
Introduction Antec's LifeStyle series of PC cases has become very popular among consumers. A lot of this success comes from the unique style and low noise design. Recent trends in designs have focused on small form factor systems. Many motherboard manufacturers are now offering complete kits that feature the motherboard, case and power supply. The drawback to these is the lack of choice the consumer gets for the internal components. This is where Antec has stepped in with the Aria. The Antec Aria case is designed to compete against these small form factor cases. The big difference with the Aria is that it is designed to use any MicroATX based motherboard, giving the user the flexibility to choose what architecture they want to use inside the system. While doing this, Antec also had the goal of making sure the system produce as little noise as possible to keep with the Lifestyle series goals.  Contents of the Antec Aria Box. The Exterior The most noticeable aspect of the Aria is its size. This is definitely a small system, but still larger than many small form factors systems such as the ones from shuttle. The Aria could easily be placed into a home theatre environment or even be used as a less conspicuous desktop computer system. The design uses a mix of plastic and aluminum for the exterior components. All aluminum surfaces are brushed to give it a textured look.  Front Panel of the Antec Aria Starting with the front of the case, it is constructed of plastic and has several distinct features. First, there is no floppy drive slot at all. Users who need a floppy drive will want to avoid using this case. Second, the optical drive slot is covered by a universal door bezel. The CD or DVD drive will reside behind this allowing the use of any colored drive without disrupting the look of the system. This bezel will hide any drive lights, headphone jacks and volume controls that reside on the front of the drive. Below the power and reset switches are the slots for the 8-in-1 card reader. The left slots handle the compact flash Type I/II, Microdrive and Smart Media cards while the right slot accepts Memory Stick, Memory Stick Pro, Secure Digital and Multimedia Cards. Below the card reader are two USB 2.0 Ports, a FireWire Port and audio in and out jacks. In addition to these features, two blue LED lights reside in the insets on either side to give a soft blue glow to the front when powered up.  Rear Panel of the Antec Aria The rear of the case is constructed of aluminum and is fairly sparse. The large opening is the 120mm cooling fan that resides in the power supply. This provides cooling for both the computer case and the power supply itself. Below this is the standard ATX connector plate that will likely need to be replaced with the one supplied with the MicroATX motherboard. Just to the right are the card slots. The furthest left typically will be used for the AGP card slot with the remaining three being standard PCI slots. Above the slots is the connector for the power. Note that there are no power or voltage switches. The unit will have power as soon as the cord is plugged into the back. The side and top panels are very interesting for the Aria and something we may see in future case designed. Each of these panels can be removed independently from the case. The side panels are held on by a locking tab that protrudes from the rear of the case while the top panel is held on by a single screw. The panels then slide off of the case to the front of the case for the side panels or to the rear for the top panel. What makes the panels unique is their layered construction. It is a kind of sandwich of materials to try and reduce noise in the system. The side panels have aluminum on the interior and exterior, while the top panel exterior is plastic. Between the two layers is some sort of noise dampening material. While this doesn't fully remove the noise from the system, it does greatly reduce the amount of noise, particularly from higher pitched sources like fans. The Interior  Antec Aria Interior without Drive Cage The interior space of the Aria case is very cramped which is to be expected for such a small form factor. The drive cage that takes up the majority of the upper portion of the case is removed by pulling the back portion or it up as if on a hinge. Once removed, the remainder of the interior can be accessed. The cage holds one 5.25" optical drive in its horizontal slot. At the bottom of the cage are brackets to hold a 3.5" hard drive. This location can use specialized screws with grommets to help reduce the vibrations of the hard drives. Two additional drives can be installed on either side of the optical drive by mounting them vertically from the top of the drive cage. Taking up the back portion of the case is the 300W power supply by Antec. This is a custom power supply designed for the Aria case. In particular is the odd shape to the bottom portion. This was done to allow space for the 120mm cooling fan on the back of the case. It is also notched on the interior to allow space for the power cables and for the CPU and heatsink. This placement can cause problems with some motherboards depending on the location of the CPU on the board. For boards that place the CPU below the power supply, the maximum clearance between the motherboard and the power supply is about 2.5 inches. Either way, the tight confines of the case prevent the use of many high performance heatsinks. Moving to the front panel of the case, things are a bit more spacious when the drive cage is removed. The power and reset switch cords run from the front of the case and in front of the drive cage. This actually caused a problem when the drive cage was installed as one of the power switch wires came undone due to the pressure put on it by the lower 3.5" drive. This required a quick bit of soldering to restore the functionality.  Antec Interior Front Panel Below the power and reset switch on the front panel is the 8-in-1 card reader. This is a permanent fixture to the Aria case and cannot be removed. The slots and wiring are exposed to the outside through the slots, so this is a path that air (and dust) will come into the system from the outside. The card reader is connected to the motherboard through a USB header. In addition to the card reader, the case also has two front panel USB 2.0 ports. In order to use both these ports and the card reader, it is necessary to have a motherboard with two USB 2.0 blocks on the interior. (Each block holds the connectors for two USB ports.) Since most MicroATX boards do not have this many, it is necessary to either use the card reader or the USB ports without the other. Continuing on the front panel ports, the system also features a front mounted FireWire or IEEE1394a connector. Use of this also requires a internal header to the motherboard. The two front audio-in and-out jacks also come with a header to a motherboard audio connector. Since the audio connectors are not necessarily standard, the pins must be properly aligned to the motherboard connector. All of these cables, including the USB ports, can be removed from the system if they are not going to be used. This brings up one of the big concerns with the Aria. Since the case is flexible in what type of boards and drives can be installed in the system, the cable lengths must be long enough to reach the various locations for the jumpers on the board. This can cause cable management to be very difficult inside of the Aria case. This is particularly true for the power supply cords that can be difficult to reroute around motherboard components. Antec tries to alleviate this somewhat with the inclusion of a rounded Cobra IDE drive cable.  Antec Aria Interior with Parts Installed The bottom of the case comes preinstalled with two fixed mounting brackets installed, plus two screw in brackets installed. An addition two sliding brackets are included to be installed based on the mounting locations of the motherboard to be installed. Getting a motherboard into the case can be very difficult. Even with the drive cage removed, a motherboard with CPU mounted will have just enough clearance to get between the bottom rail and the power supply. Since most CPUs will reside under the power supply, it is not typically possible to install the CPU and heatsink after the board has been put into the case. Conclusions Overall, the Antec Aria is a fairly well designed small form factor case, but it does have its problems. Its small dimensions and flexible design make it great for the enthusiast who wants to have a lot of control over what parts they want to use. But this same flexibility also makes it very hard to recommend to the average consumer. The tight confines and long cables can make it particularly difficult to get everything installed quickly. The power supply can also limit what types of cooling solutions can be used inside of the computer. But the Aria does hold a few really nice design touches. I would particularly like to see Antec put the layered panel designs on some larger size cases such as the Sonata. These panels do a very good job at dampening the noise within the computer. In addition, the front universal drive bezel allows for consumers to have an easier time finding a drive that won't disrupt the design of the case.
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