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Antec Torque

Darksaber

Senior Editor & Case Reviewer
Staff member
Joined
Jul 8, 2005
Messages
3,109 (0.43/day)
Location
Victoria, BC, Canada
System Name Corsair 2000D Silent Gaming Rig
Processor Intel Core i5-14600K
Motherboard ASUS ROG Strix Z790-i Gaming Wifi
Cooling Corsair iCUE H150i Black
Memory Corsair 64 GB 6000 MHz DDR5
Video Card(s) Gainward GeForce RTX 4080 Phoenix GS
Storage TeamGroup 1TB NVMe SSD
Display(s) Gigabyte 32" M32U
Case Corsair 2000D
Power Supply Corsair 850 W SFX
Mouse Logitech MX
Keyboard Sharkoon PureWriter TKL
The Antec Torque is the company's take on open air cases. It doubles down on a compact but elaborate look with the usual material mix focusing on aluminium and tempered glass.

Show full review
 
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The thing that worries me the most about Antec is their Customer Support. Last month I opened up a support ticket enquiring about spare parts for an old case that was no longer in production. Not one time did a customer support agent ever get back to me. and i messaged them again after i realised that i have had 0 response after two weeks.

Also their own forums are dead....

going through a thread that is questioning the lack of customer support from Antec as they dont pick up the phone and it seems like they have done away with telephone support and the only way to get through to them is support ticket.... One person had to file a complaint with the BBB to get a response. A lot of comments in unrelated threads saying how there is 0 support.


Antec 1.png


you can see there are a few threads about Antec support. I get the feeling that Antec are now run by a skeleton crew and will go bust soon.
 
I love how people pay a premium for basically the same amount of dusting an open test bench would require. lol might as well save the money, get a $50 test bench, and enjoy all the open air cooling and just doa nice dusting every month.
 
I'm all for creative case design, but I've always been torn about this case style. It feels like it's trying to either be a racing PC or it's about to fall over and crush someone.
 
Looks very close to the fairly "old" Cougar Conquer, just with a bit less glass
 
350 usd? I wouldn't even pay 35eur for something which is uglier than ugly.
 
Did someone toss a grenade into the original case and the end result looked like this and so they went with it?

I know I don't have the same tastes as others when it comes to cases:
I don't care for windows
I don't like RGB
I prefer clean, neat look in an enclosed case

But this thing....seriously, WTF?
 
nope nope nope
 
I agree with this.
@Darksaber any plans to include testing in future reviews?
Considering I've been needling about it for months now and he's never actually even bothered to respond and try to justify why either he can't do it, or doesn't want to do it, I'm going to guess there's a big fat lack of plans to introduce any actual testing into these "reviews".
 
Gamers Nexus does good case reviews for temps, if anyone havent checked them out yet
 
Gamers Nexus does good case reviews for temps, if anyone havent checked them out yet
I've linked them repeatedly in these threads, oftentimes pointing out that Gamers Nexus actually tested a case and found it to be garbage, when Darksaber acted like it was the best case since year dot. Bitfenix Enso comes to mind - Darksaber loved the thing, despite the fact it's a component cooker. Lo and behold, a while later Bitfenix released the Enso Mesh, because it turns out the market does actually want cases that work and not just nuclear garbage.

Darksaber's comments were of course nowhere to be found on the announcement post or original review thread regarding either of these things.

In fact, he hasn't actually interacted directly with anyone in the forums at all since June 2017 - https://www.techpowerup.com/forums/...nan-giveaway-the-winners.233637/#post-3675921
 
Every time i see this case i want to run over and stop it from falling over.
 
I think its cool. I like it a lot. Looks like a crotch rocket. Also reminds me of the Eyebot from fallout4
I am a very practical guy that prefers form over function so I probably wouldn't use it myself. My current closed case has very good intake to exhaust flow, which an open air case lacks. Open air cases require good room circulation and a dust free environment as well.

With regard to @FreedomEclipse 's comment about customer support and Antec, I have had issues with Phanteks not returning my messages. Unfortunately it isn't a problem specific to Antec. The best case/peripheral customer service I have had was with Coolermaster, they were pretty good.
 
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This is interesting concept but also you need a dust/moisture free home which 99.9% of homes doesn't deliver.
 
It looks like a bad version of the cougar conquer chassis
11-553-027-Z01.jpg
 
KILL IT WITH FIRE!
 
What do we want?

Thermal and noise testing!

When do we want it?

Literally ever!

Isn't this going to be variable, depending on what people put in it? Since it's open air, which isn't really aimed at quiet computing, and this case doesn't include any fans, I can't understand how this would be helpful.
 
Isn't this going to be variable, depending on what people put in it? Since it's open air, which isn't really aimed at quiet computing, and this case doesn't include any fans, I can't understand how this would be helpful.
Not in ways that matter. The majority of all builds are very similar. Even so, this is why you standardize your test setup.

But, in the grand scheme, if case A gets lower temps and noise than case B when you put a 9900K and a 280 CLC in it with a 1080ti, then Case A will still get lower temps than case B if you swap all that hardware out for a 2700X, NH-D15 and Vega 64.

The temps themselves will be different. The RELATIVE PERFORMANCE of the cases will still show the same trends. There is very little hardware you could install that would create an anomaly here, and such hardware would be something users are already accounting for as "different" to a more normal setup.

Gamers nexus does a great job of testing this, including often modifying cases, fan placements etc to give a broader understanding of the way each case works and could even be improved.

EDIT: as for noise, while in theory you could have a test system that produced a lot of one type of noise that one particular case, by fluke, dampened well despite being shit at other frequencies, in practice this is extremely unlikely to happen, as PCs mainly produce broadband noise from fans, and high frequency from coil whine. There's enough going on at all frequencies to ignore the possibility of the sound being "targeted" by unscrupulous case designers like a VW emissions test.

Noise testing is admittedly harder to do well. It is not difficult to do the bare minimum though - it literally requires one quiet room and a cheap decibel meter.
 
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I kind of like the look of it, and have liked Antec from way back. I Have built many PC's in the 600 chassis back in the past, and all my current office builds are int eh Antec 300 Two chassis. However for a case that is a blatant rip of both the Cougar Conquer and Raidmax X08 but sells for almost $100USD more it has to be excellent. A case that requires the user to tear apart a whole build any time you need to swap a drive does not fall into that category. Why aren't they modular bays? How does an overpriced case with such a glaring flaw get a highly recommended badge?

ScreenHunter 141.png
 
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