Antec Titan 550 Tyldesley

There are a number of differences between products that are intended for home use and products that are designed for commercial or industrial use. Two of the most important distinctions are that products for commercial purposes must be built to a very high standard and be extremely reliable. However, these factors are also pretty high up on the list for Custom PC readers. That why Antec's Titan 550, which is squarely aimed at the server market, could turn out to be a great case for PC enthusiasts.

The Titan certainly looks businesslike, thanks to its sturdy steel construction and high-quality black finish. Although the front fascia is plastic, it looks good in a serious, understated way, especially the lower section, which has a lot in common with a row of gills - apart from the ability to extract oxygen from water. There's nothing fishy about these gills, though; they're air vents that provide a decent supply of air for the two 92mm front fan mounts, although Antec doesn't install the fans as standard. It would certainly be a good idea to install at least one fan, though, particularly if you intended to install anything close to the maximum six hard disk drives that the Titan supports.

Above the front air vents is a door that hides the power and reset buttons, three external 5.25in drive bays and a single external 3.5in bay. The 3.5in bay is set into a removable 5.25in bezel, so you could actually install four 5.25in drives if you wanted.

We're not generally big fans of doors, as they tend to get in the way and break easily. However, the door on the Titan is very well designed; it has a special hinge that allows the door to swing open 270 degrees and lie flush with the left side panel. This is a good design, because if the door starts to get on your nerves, you can simply push it out of the way, instead of having to remove it altogether in a fit of rage.

Below the door on the right-hand side are two USB ports and a FireWire port, plus headphone and microphone jacks. The ports plug straight into your motherboard, assuming it has the correct free headers.

Two easily removed thumbscrews secure the left side panel to the case, but almost everything else, including the second side panel, is held in place by screws. However, Antec has included quick-release drive rails for fitting optical and hard disk drives. These allow you to simply slide the drives into place, rather than screwing them in manually.

Cooling is a strong point with the Titan. We already mentioned the two 92mm fan mounts lurking behind the vented front panel, and installing one or two fans here will direct plenty of air into the main cavity. We'd prefer to see 120mm fan mounts at the front, but 92mm fans are still better than being stuck with noisy 80mm fan mounts.

Thankfully, the rear of the case has a 120mm fan mount, which is fitted with an Antec-brand variable-speed fan. This fan has three different speed settings, which seems like a bit of a halfway house, as Antec could easily have fitted a variable resistor that allows full control over the fan speed. Still, even at full speed, the fan isn't too raucous and it's barely audible at the two lower settings.

Antec also bundles a True Power 2.0 550W PSU with the Titan. Normally, we're extremely wary of power supplies that are supplied with cases, as they're typically quite shoddy, but the True Power 2.0 is a real beast. It's an EPS12V-compliant unit, which means it supports dual processor motherboards and the latest PCI-E motherboards. It also has two PCI-E power connectors, so it's fully SLI-ready too. It's extremely beefy, with two 12V rails delivering 19A each, a 40A 5V rail and a 32A 3.3V rail.

We would offer one small word of caution, though, which is that the Titan is very heavy. Due to its thick steel construction, it weighs a chunky 14kg (including the PSU) even before you install any components.

CONCLUSION

The Titan is a sleek and understated beast of a case, and it's extremely sturdy and very well designed. It's not as flexible as the Cooler Master Stacke for water cooling but, as a case for a high-end PC, it certainly gives the SilverStone TJ05 Temjin a run for its money.

There's no question that, at £146.82, it's expensive, but considering this includes the True Power 2.0 PSU, which costs about £90 on its own anyway, the Titan suddenly looks like startlingly good value for money.

Author: Andrew Spode Miller

Antec Titan 550