Gadgetory

this video is brought to you by NCI XCOM great technology selection and service hello everyone I'm Dimitri with Harbor Canucks and today we're taking a look at the unique signature chassis from an tech they wanted to do something that would introduce a new way of thinking about an tech and I certainly think that this will put them back into the conversation let's just hope that it will be the positive light conversation the s10 is a stunner probably one of the best-looking cases to come out of Computex but regardless of the looks alone at $499 Antec is approaching a totally different type of crowd and let's hope that this new chamber layout delivers on being a functional case first and not just a pretty box you first thing first our tempered glass model arrived safe without any damage you could also get the aluminum side panel version thick foam protected it from any harmful impact and there's quite a bit to the design of the exterior the tempered glass panel look gorgeous this is a modern and urban feeling chassis the slight angular form of the mainframe and this really interesting elevated design at the bottom is not only for looks but allows for proper ventilation for the above chambers the rest of the exterior is plastic like the perforated top panel and the curved front piece and while I don't mind the way it looks I wish that we saw more premium materials used to complement the half G price point they I always located at the top with 4 USB 3 ports headphone and microphone jacks that little power button in the centre there's no reset guy switch here only five and a quarter inch drive bay that when removed you can see that it will only accommodate for short accessories like a short fan controller you won't be able to populate it with any optical drives and from this chamber we also have the large cutout leading into the main compartment for any cable routing and also this is where you'll find the top dust filter for this front chamber now the most interesting part about the s10 is this new chamber Division with their own side panels that's will open utilizing this look clip that pushes out each panel it's a really simple way to get inside which I like is each panel is equipped with a magnetic strip that holds them tight to the case now on one hand it's a beautiful execution for the side panels but there is no way to securely attach them to the chassis the panels can be taken off the hinges as they don't swivel wide enough and can become really uncomfortable to work with if they're open but for a quick check it's convenient and I appreciate the rubber pad installed to absorb the contact with the tempered glass for the aluminum version if you have that the front panel opens at 90 degrees providing just enough access for your drives plus there's a potential to set up some really cool showcases of the build with the side panels fully open like you see here which would be quite the sight with a full system installed and fortunately taking off these panels at the front is not as simple as the bigger ones the hinges here are different they're curved so once you take off the panel you need to spend some time finding the actual hinge inside the case that they're not easily visible and I had some frustrating times trying to properly reattach these front side panels now back to the chamber layout what ntek has done here is fully isolate the front drive chamber which creates this gap so instead of going the traditional route of having the front airflow blast through the drive cage this gap allows unrestrictive intake for the main chamber and this also allows the front of the case to look the way it does because there is no ventilation so this dedicated chamber for all your storage is unique in the way that it's separated but I feel an Tek did not fully utilize the height of the chassis so the drives are installed vertically instead of horizontally this is to allow for gaps between the drives for air flow as one exhaust fan is installed at the bottom however I feel the top mounted fan would be more effective at removing hot air from this chamber we have a total of six three and a half inch drive spots that can be installed here and three two and a half inch drives on the side but SSDs just slide in and wobble around a bit as there is no way to secure them inside aside from the little swivel door and instead of having these dedicated SSD spots I would have loved to see standard backwards compatible Drive brackets and three drive spots on each level that would still allow gaps for airflow and I feel it would be a better utilization of this chamber also because there is already a dedicated SSD cage for five drives in the power supply chamber that was bent by the way on our sample even though this big Quality Assurance sticker was intact luckily it didn't affect amount and I like the smaller gauge implementation but why is it not made removable the entire assembly is riveted this could be an awesome potential spot for water cooling hardware like a pump or a hidden reservoir beside the cage there is a 120mm fan bracket that is pretty difficult to install when to start with all the wiring however it is nice to have airflow for the bottom chamber for the rest of the intake Antec includes three 120mm fans that are mounted on a removable bracket allowing for convenient fan or radiator installation outside of the case supporting dual 140 Miller fans as mounting strips are present for flexible positioning the front intake is also dust proof as this massive filter slides out with quite a coarse mesh I was hoping to see something more finer maybe and I also noticed that the ventilation cutout does not cover all three fan spots half of the top fan is blocked by the frame which might not drastically impact cooling overall but come on this should not have been overlooked on the topic of dust filters one is present for the power supply at the bottom removed from the back the power supply sits on this elevated foam platform and since the floor is slightly angled that foam helps to straighten out your power supply unit this is what the base of the s10 looks like just a massive plastic piece that stabilizes the case well but there are no rubber pads anywhere just a word of caution to avoid any scratching on the surface taking a look at the interior it looks strangely familiar and frankly it's stale which is a big letdown for me because at $4.99 I was expecting to be blown away at some new and innovative features obviously aside from the separated drive cage there are a big flaws here like the incredibly loose rubber grommets that fall out with the width of air and they're incredibly irritating to attach back the location of the cable cutouts is way too far out to the sides of the motherboard for standard ATX build even and while you could put an E DX motherboard in there and populated with four-way GPU array because of 10 PCI slots there's very little flexibility here for cable management for smaller motherboards and that's a big problem for 2015 for top airflow I'm glad to see dual 140 member fans included and they're also attached on a conveniently removable bracket that can support dual 120mm fans as well however there is no dust filter but notice the ventilation cutout is perfectly aligned to the dual fans so you shouldn't worry about settling dust however the biggest complaint here is top radiator support because I mounted the corsair h 105 which is a 240 nominal radiator and it simply would not fit at first i was a bit confused because how would in such a tall case accommodate for one of the most common cooler setups but i realized that the fan bracket is dead center on the case and is not offset closer to the panel for better clearance which means it's aligned with a motherboard directly and it's making contact with the motherboard and the only way I could make this fit if I remove that 8 pin cable that was making contact with the radiator however I couldn't even reroute the 8 pin cable because I didn't have enough reach left on the cable and that's because the cutout that leads from the power supply chamber into the main chamber is all the way at the front you can't route it over the bar because the side panel has to stay flush to the case so this means the a pin cable has to travel all the way to the front of the case first before making its way into that corner on the opposite side it's a really frustrating flaw and an additional cutout near the power supply would have made a lot more sense and so this is the system that I settled on mounting the radiator to the front of the case which in turn actually worked out great to hide the big mess of cables coming from the distance from grommets I put the stock fins back inside because the radiator sits right in front of the cable cut outs I had to pre route everything beforehand because the bottom chamber is very open there isn't much do with the cables unless you opt out for a full extension skit and with our 40 member of radiator plus the 25 min they're fans you still have about 12 inches of clearance for the GPU and with any push-pull setups on the radiator well good luck with any of the cable routing coming to the back we find a fan hub for 10 fans that would be powered by a molex connector it's just a strange to not see any fan controller abilities and this price point but finishing up the build it's easy to talk things away you just have to keep in mind routing into the drive chamber will take some long SATA cables especially for the top spots but I had no problem with that especially because antec includes four SATA cables and check out that accessory box let's just say we've seen better for a fraction of the price and so in the end I had some exciting moments when I first unbox the s10 and followed by some frustrating ones with the assembly but as soon as I close the windows you really cannot deny the exterior is just beautiful despite how is the perfect element to camouflage the flawed interior and the s10 is one of those cases that has potential if placed in the right hands of a moderate but in reality so does any case this was a true chance for an tech to return to spotlight within the chasis market unfortunately the light here is mainly on criticizing the lack of innovation because it's not as functional and not as user flexible as it should have been the signature s10 may have just signed out itself at a commission and so this concludes our review of the antics signature s10 let us know what you think of this case in the comments below thanks so much for watching don't forget to subscribe for more similar content and we'll see you in the next one