Antec GX700 Review

Performance Analysis

The fans emit a distinct hum at high speed, and at this setting we were a little surprised by the relatively poor results. The GPU manages a delta T of 49°C here, which although not fantastic is about where you'd expect for a case with no direct GPU cooling or even much ventilation around the graphics card. The CPU, however, climbs to a delta T of 54°C, which is the same result as the Chaser A31, a case with just a single rear exhaust fan. After double checking all of our connections and settings, we retested the case and achieved the same results.

At low speed, the three fans are much quieter and the resultant noise is thus more pleasing for your ears. As noise levels drop however, temperatures tend to rise accordingly, and this proves to be the case here, with the CPU and GPU adding 6°C and 3°C to their delta T results respectively. While this is warm on both accounts, the results leave the GX700 with very similar temperatures to the Midgard II on minimum speed, so it's not all bad news.


As the option was there, we also decided out of interest to test the GX700 with its fans completely switched off to simulate a worst case scenario. This saw our CPU slowly begin to cook itself, eventually reaching its thermal limit with a delta T of a whopping 75°C. This shows that even a little bit of airflow in this area is vital, as this delta T is 12°C higher than we saw even with Nanoxia's ultra low noise Deep Silence 1 on minimum speed. The GPU in this test stabilised with a delta T of 65°C, which is 7°C above the worst we've seen from a case.

Still unsatisfied with the initial high speed result, we followed our instinct about what we thought was the problem and unplugged the front roof fan. Sure enough, with the two remaining fans on high speed, the CPU knocks 4°C from its delta T for a much healthier result of 50°C (although our GPU delta T did increase slightly). What this demonstrates is that the front roof fan was actually exhausting cool air from the case before it could reach our CPU cooler's fan.

Conclusion

No case design will ever be for everyone, and our gut tells us that the specific theme of the GX700 will probably deter more people than it attracts, but at least it's not just another plain black box. For those who like it or simply aren't too fussed about looks however, it ticks practically every box you should be looking to tick in this price range, as it has everything you need to contain and cool your system with a nice bundle of extra features too. Given its build quality and number of default fans, it's pretty good value for £60, but we've seen the same number and sizes of fans in Fractal's £46 Core 3000, so it's also not outstanding in this area.

Antec's own cooling setup evidently isn't optimal, as it's actually better to disable one of the 140mm fans that even more annoyingly can't be repositioned anywhere else in the case. Along with other minor niggles like the lack of anti-vibration rubber anywhere, relatively small space behind the motherboard tray and non-removable drive cage, this means that while the GX700 would still serve you well in most regards, it narrowly misses out on a recommendation, as the Xigmatek Midgard II is a better case for the same money.