Antec Sonata Elite Updated version of Sonata III

Author: Jouni 'Jipa' Vasama Published: 23.02.2009 Manufacturer: Antec Product Group: System Enclosures In English Suomeksi

Inside view

Opening the case reveals a pretty familiar looking overall design, but also the totally re-made HDD cage. In Sonata the drives have always been sideways, but in Elite they also are vertically. Behind the HDD-cages there's a solid wall that's a couple of centimeters narrower than the case. This wall forces the airflow coming through the side panel vents to go through the HDD-area before moving on towards the rear fan. No room for extra fans on the front.

One of the new things in the Elite version are the holes on the motherboard tray for cable management. There aren't too many of these holes on the tray, but the existing ones already make clean routing of the cables a bit easier. There's also a generous amount of zip tie hooks on the back side of the tray.

Installation

Pretty much the only difference in installing a rig to the Elite instead of any earlier Sonata are the hard drive rails. These rails mount to the case with two thumb screws and come with the HDD-screws pre-installed. Alltogether the rails are very easy to use and thanks to the special screws they can't be over tightened.

For some reason that's truely beyond my understanding, Antec still uses the support bar in the Sonata. This bar makes the installation of the power supply and also the motherboard a bit more challenging, but other than that the process is easy. There's room for graphic cards up to 28 cm long, so the 8800GT fits in with ease.

Some of the cables were succesfully hidden behind the motherboard tray, but the gap between the motherboard tray and the sound dampened side panel is very narrow. For the temperature tests also the radial fan was installed in place with two screws.

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