Thinking About an Antec Solo

Caldor · Post by **Caldor** » Mon May 29, 2006 6:54 pm

Gday all. What a great website and community - its been many hours searching through threads and articles.

So, I need a new case. I have an AMD X2 system with SLI 7900GTXs, 4 SATA HDDs in RAID 5, one pata dvd burner, Creative Xfi, 2 gig ram.

Is this too much to fit into an Antec Solo?

I was reading the P180Bs dont do SLI setups properly.

I read the article that I should have a single 120mm intake fan on the front, and the same size 120mm exhaust fan on the back. How to do this in a Solo?

srs · Post by **srs** » Mon May 29, 2006 8:35 pm

The Antec Solo doesn't come with a PSU (unlike the p150, which comes with the NeoHE 430 which may not be suitable for SLI).

I think you're also getting confused between the Antec Solo, the P150, and the P180.

The P180 is the larger case with the door, the P150 is smaller, white, no door and included PSU, while the Solo is the black version of the P150 with no PSU.

You should be able to fit in 4 hdds into the P150/Solo, but you cannot use the HDD suspension, as that only has room for 3 drives. The P150/Solo has one 120mm fan for exhaust and you can optionally add two 92mm fans in the front for intake.

Caldor · Post by **Caldor** » Mon May 29, 2006 9:09 pm

Ta

Im not concerned with psu's - Ive got a good one and the fact the solo doesnt come with one is good

With the P180 - Ive read it doesnt do SLI with all the cables so thats why I mention it - seems the Solo/P150 is the go for SLI?

Since this site reports that the best case setup is two 120mm fans, and the solo doesnt have this, is this an issue?

HueyCobra · Post by **HueyCobra** » Sat Jun 03, 2006 7:41 pm

Caldor wrote:Since this site reports that the best case setup is two 120mm fans, and the solo doesnt have this, is this an issue?

Not according to the P150 review:

Ralf Hutter wrote:Behind the bezel you'll notice the fan intake filter, and you might wonder why it's not 120mm square to cover the front fan. Well, that's because the front fan isn't a 120mm fan, it's a pair of 92mm fans! This flies in the face of the "front and rear 120mm fans" that have become the new standard during the past couple years. Personally, I think this is a brilliant idea on Antec's part. Not only does the pair of 92mm fans actually cover a larger area than a single 120mm fan, the position of fans will actually allow for the upper fan to be used in the normal intake/HDD cooling role, while the lower one can be used as a spot cooler for the VGA/PCI cards, if some additional cooling is needed in that area.

oldabelincoln · Post by **oldabelincoln** » Sat Jun 03, 2006 9:28 pm

As you can see from my sig below, I have a somewhat similar configuration, given that a Solo is apparently a P150 with no PSU and black paint instead of white.

I run at 155 W with all disks banging away under Burnintest. Doing only 2x CPUBurn, and no disk activity, it's 174 W. The temps are just fine, as I have two 92 mm fans at 12V up front, and push/pull 120 mm in back - max CPU is 23 C above ambient, and max disk is 12 C above ambient. PSU exhaust is warm, case exhaust is cool - just a few C above ambient

However, my graphics card load is minimal, and that is a big difference from what you propose. Running 2 7900GTX's is going to generate a lot more heat than my system does, and with such a rig, you are probably overclocking as well, wheras my setup (actually, it's one I'm building for my wife) is stock all the way, with a CPU with a TDP of 59.4 W.

I'll speculate that with after-market graphics coolers that dump the heat outside the case, and with a capable PSU, you will have no problems. The stock P150 has relatively poor air circulation in the PCI/PCIe area. I experimented with an 80mm fan just sitting on the bottom of the case, pointing up at the graphics card and found that it dropped the GPU temp by about 7 C. As I have the rear honeycomb opening unrestricted, that says that not much air is being pulled into the case from that opening, which I suppose isn't a surprise given the overall fan layout..

Were I to put a serious graphics card in there, I'd definitely want an older Arctic Cooling NV Silencer taking up the next slot and dumping the heat outside. The VGA cooler designs that leave the heat from the graphics cards inside the case might possibly be too much for a p150 or any other case with the same general layout.

See Mike C's article on his P150 sent to Thailand. It uses one of the Artic Cooling VGA coolers to get the heat from a respectable graphics card out of the case.

silver bullet · Post by **silver bullet** » Mon Jun 05, 2006 10:33 am

I would personally go for a NSK6500, they should be out in a couple weeks.

It should have lots of space for your HDs and SLI setup. Finish it off with a full set of Nexus fans (2x92mm and 1x120mm) and probably a 600W Seasonic. You be set