very innovative and cool. This is gonna be a bit too expensive for my taste (watchAntecTV says it's gonna be 215 euros / $219 in the youtube video comment), but I can't wait for some of the features to trickle down to the cheaper lines.
this. like i said, i have been repeatedly harsh towards antec for not integrating new features across the board on all their cases the way other companies like silverstone, lian li, and coolermaster have all done. i got a lancool PC-K58 from newegg shipped for $65 after tax and shipping for my file server i just built, and while its steel/plastic instead of the usual allu that lian li is known for, it still has their rubber suspension brackets for the drives and fan screws, the cleanly cut interior, and their common ease of use features like cable management, and the 8th expansion slot to support quad GPU setups without having to modify the gpu board's cooling or use single slot coolers. the construction wasnt quite as good as my 690 II Advanced, but at the same time case also MSRPs for $20 less and i got it for $30 off that, so i REALLY cannot complain, since i was looking for something affordable with the quality and features that have become necessary for me to even consider a case. a lot of antec's cases marketed in the area i usually shop (cases that compete with their 300-1200 lineup and the DF replacements) have been missing most of these features, even after revisions, until just recently, and by then the companies i have been buying from and recommending have progressed further. this case is a step in that same direction, offering things that no one else has yet. if they can trickle it down to a smaller or cheaper model somewhat what this case offers i think that their case lineup will be headed in a great direction.
little off topic, but a modular case design like this really is a genius idea. thinking way long term here, but with intel's litepeak shaping up to be an affordable and impressive interface, it could possibly enable the high bandwidth cabled interconnects to allow for a radical redesign of the desktop PC form factor. imagine not having to slot load your expansion "cards" anymore, instead getting them in the form factor of an SSD, optical drive, or something similar, and just cabling it all to the primary main board, which would have dozens of litepeak breakouts and everything needed to feed the CPU locally. its a radical shift from the ATX form factor we have had for well over a decade now, but at the same time could lead to some simply amazing designs within say 5 years. obviously bandwidth still needs to get ramped up enough to compensate for things like replacing x16 pci-e 2.1 slots, but with the base litepeak model available next year you could already consider some very interesting custom designs to start, since you could integrate primary storage and all the miscellaneous IO we use internally and externally, as modules housed in the same form factor as our current drives, just for ease of mounting. if i had access to some form of CAD software i would post a concept model to visualize it for anyone who doesnt quite get it. would also revolutionize cooling for things like graphics cards, since they could be relocated similar to the 90 degree shift we currently see in silverstone's cases, such that the massive heat dump they have can be aimed away from the rest of the system more easily. i think a case like this is the first step in this direction, allowing for more building upon the concept as things evolve if such a demand arises. i know OEMs would love it though, imagine the materials cost savings from eliminating most of the raw material within the case, providing you with just a frame, and the ability to make more unique system designs which wouldnt even require all the components to be housed in the same location
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