While the Acrylic Cowboy family of cases still has our hearts (okay, so maybe it's
just the mascot that does it for us), Antec's latest offering is certainly worthy of praise. The aptly-dubbed Skeleton is wrongfully hailed as the "world's first open air case," but in reality, it
is one of only a handful. Even with all that openness, there's still a 250mm fan up top along with a 92mm one up front, but we suppose there's no harm in being too careful. It also provides four drive bays, a layered tray design, seven expansion slots and a meager assortment of ports. You will have to provide your own power supply when the time comes, however, and you'll also have to wait a tick to find out a price and release date.
[Via
BoingBoing, thanks Matt]
posted Sep 18th 2008 9:41AM
I'm already imagining the layers of dust... I would hate to clean that 'case'.
Would it even get that dusty? It's open with a fan blowing down on it, and depending on where you put it, there should be some good air flow running about the thing. I can't imagine this getting much dustier than any other surface in the room would.
I'm care more about the noise levels...
No ventilated case keeps out dust anyway. The fans draw the dust in. The only thing I might be concerned about is the greater possibility of spilled liquid getting onto components as compared to an enclosed case.
This is genius. I already have the top of my HTPC desktop case removed and when I game I sometimes have to use a 10" house fan to blow it cool. :)
it looks like some kind of convention center or something
I'm imagining accidentally dropping a metal screw onto the motherboard and shorting something out.
If you're in a dusty place, ya, it's not a great case. But I like it. I'd like to see it assembled with all components though. That would be my decision maker.
On the contrary, I think this is the perfect case for a dusty environment. It's a major pain in the ass to have to crack open a standard case every few months to clean out all the dust. With this, you could hit with with some compressed air every few days and keep the system happy.
That is a good point. I suppose it would make it much easier to clean if you were in a more dusty environment. But another thing to consider is that you would also SEE a lot more of that dust, instead of it being locked away inside your case.
This was on Custom PCs website weeks ago, not quite news but attractive case.
@Scythe Cleaning this case ? its called a can of compressed air and a hover, easy peasy
You mean hoover? As in the vacuum?
Compressed air just moves the dust, which is why you should wipe down your case with a damn paper towel or similar.
Damp* -- that was a hell of a typo ;)
The weird thing is I read it as "damp" even though it said "damn".
I take my computer outside to the driveway and then hit it with a few blasts from the garage air compressor. It works great, and I don't need to mess with a vaccum.
You have to be VERY careful using a regular compressor to blow out your computer. The pressure is high enough to damage sensitive internal components. That is why cans of compressed air are recommended.
happy_penguin - I've heard that from lots of people and never found it to be true. Compressed air can't do half the job a good air compressor can. We have a compressor at work and any time I have to open a case I take it out back and blast it with the air compressor. Never had any problems and it removes everything that has collected in there.
Definitely stay away from vacuums, they generate static electricity which will fry your system faster than any air compressor will.
You can actually buy attachments for vacuums that are meant for cleaning electronics and don't build up static electricity.
Peter-
I'm not saying you can't do it, you just have to use caution. You could blast a small component on a board hard enough to break it.... or so they say. Personally, I wouldn't be afraid of it but I'd watch what I was doing.
Is it just the picture or is the footprint of that thing HUGE?
Looks cool though, it would definitely help with cooling an enthusiast OCed rig.
I'm intrigued. But where do all the wires hide? Where would the PSU go?
thats what im wondering. but im not opposed to the idea power cables sticking out every which way. that might look kinda badass. i am extremely interested in this case. so long as it has a reasonable price tag im going to seriously consider buying it
wow - that looks really loud
Actually, it looks quite silent.A huge fan like that doesn't need to spin that fast to move huge amounts of air --> less noise.
I Broke my case, I have a motherboard sitting naked on my desk with tons of peripherals laying around, why u need a case for that.
That case is freaking SWEET lookin. Wouldnt use it, but cool. Looks like LAX.
Yea, kudos for originality but it’s still just moving the ambient air temp around.
This dude has the right idea (sucking in cold air).
http://www.eternal-champions.com/images/chilver_4x4.jpg
Yeah, cause nothing cools a PC like sucking in a bunch of snow filled air.
My deal breaker is how the case looks with PSU, SATA and header wires running everywhere. There seems to be a big lack of cable management.
You're right, it's going to look like a big mess of wires after you're done.
My biggest concern would be space...laying that thing out flat is like tipping your pc on its side. It would take up 2.5 times the area that a desktop takes up.
And keep your drinks totally away from it. It would have to sit high and away from open windows.
I wonder if it floats on a cushion of air.
Hovercase!
I would buy one in a heartbeat. I have like 400,000,000 cases and computer parts laying around for my friends and family to marvel at, why not start an up to date looking pile?
Looks like it should be in the middle of a clean room with nothing else except for some wires and blue LEDs and maybe some epic music in the background, maybe with a couple hacking montages with ones and zeros flying around somehow.
Awesome! I can see Zero or whatever that roller-blading guys name is using one of these.
That case is HOT! No, wait...
apart from the nerd glory of having your bits out on display for all to see this is one stupid idea:
you get more airflow in a closed case with careful planning than in an open system like this. every inlet fan in a real case creates outflow at the other end, whereas in this case the air is just wafting around chaotically. i get lower case and cpu temps when i put the lid back on my pc.
The ONLY thing sitting out in the open is the drives. Check out where the motherboard tray is. Still enclosed.
The problem with your line of reasoning is your not taking into account the size of the enclosure that all that air has to circulate in. Sure you get more airflow in a enclosed case but you have a small volume of air that is real easy to heat up.
When you have an open case like this, the volume of air to heat up is effectively the room that it is in. So the computer can output many more times the amount of heat only raise the temperature of ambient air a degree or so. Read up on some HVAC system design to get an idea of this.
Also meant to mention how much the case insulates the air inside. Those things are like ovens.
I think this is already released. At least in Australia it is. Has listings at online stores:
http://www.shopbot.com.au/pp-antec-skeleton-price-111742-2798570.html
Even if it's not actually available, they have prices for it.
As long as it has a big red and a big blue wire with a LED countdown clock on top of it, all the extra SATA wires etc won't look out of place.
I want to know why they're pushing out a Mini-Skeleton just for ITX but not one for mATX. You'd think there'd be a much larger marketplace with the numerous mATX boards out there. You listening Antec?
Main downside is where will I pile up the crap that seems to accumulate on top of my case?
Looks like it could fly around the room.
Wow, that is really cool. I would love to have that on my desk. However I did make something similar when I had an Athlon 2200+ and a GeForce4 Ti. The damn thing got so hot that I grafted a 12" window fan on the side of the case. It was loud as hell but solved the overheating problem.
Great for those without kids, pets or a dust issue.
haha i sent that in! sick! shit... now you all know my name
fyi: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3b8v5CU42FA
1:57 - Did he say cup holder? Ok 99% of products are better with a cup holder, but an open computer case? Did no one else catch the obvious design flaw in that.
OMG, that microATX version is sweet. That's the one I want.
I wonder if I can pair up a 9600GT with that little guy.
It looks like and 8th grade design contest winner, next please...
Come on people...Am I the ONLY one thinking XBox 360 RRoD prevention replacement case? You can even throw the PSU under a fan...
This review site has some pictures with the MOBO and other hardware installed:
http://www.silentpcreview.com/article840-page1.html
Even with all the guts installed it looks pretty neat. I really like this.
SilentPCReview has some pictures of this case with components installed that give a MUCH better idea of how this thing works than Antec's boring, empty press shots..
I use to use little Shuttle computers as Gigastudio samplers. After some years, they all started dying at once probably because of heat. So I stripped the case covers and the hard drive mounts and replaced all the fans with quite ones, removed the optical drives, mounted the hard drives with stretchy bands, and added a few extra fans to move air past the whole unit - which is relatively the same as this.
Only difference is the Shuttles look like crummy broken down jalopies and this looks kinda cool!
The future of computers is silent, cool-running, affordable machines.
Wow... that really looks like the base of my Philips blender!
Yay! A playground for the spiders in my house!
lol, i can see spyders rappelling down straight into the top fan and getting all diced up. in this case it would probably make cleaning the top fan quite a pain.
They'd probably avoid the fans (whilst the comp is running anyways), and go dancing all over your mobo and expensive graphics card.
Next thing you know your GPU has overheated and they're 47 dead spiders in its fan.
Dunno what it is but they seem to like the interior of computers, a friend recently found a (dead) wasp inside his server.
this case looks intriguing, but i don't see if it's capable of fitting my graphics card (radeon 4850)... oh wait, no walls to hit against. the pictures do not do it justice. is this a micro-atx case? the link pointing to the page for it says its atx, but...
I just keep the side off of my Sonata II. I then put a 508 MM fan (i.e. lasko box fan) on the open side of the case and let it blow. It's not as noisy as you would think, especially with headphones. Just got to figure out a way to ratchet down the RPMs as the low setting is kind of fast.
here's a good vid of it http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XcEH2qLXHFY&feature=related
Anybody who buys this will have to think really hard about where to put it. There's just way too many factors and hazards to consider...
Put it in my IT/Work computer graveyard to test components.
Has anyone looked at those dimensions? That thing is massive. Wake me when a uATX version comes out.
If I got one of these, I'd call it my Dome of Death for my FPS games.
I think it looks bad ass. Once I saw it I knew that'd be my next "case". I just like different looking things and that'd really look good on my desk. I don't see why people are complaining about spilling drinks on it or cats electrocuting themselves in it or crap like that. Don't live like a slob for one thing and keep your friends away from it when you're drinking. :D
(the cats will learn after they skin their nose on the fan)