Antech Sonata II or wavemaster?

[PurdueRy]

I have been reading reviews for both and it seems the air duct for the sonata is pretty useless. I am not sure if it would even work with my Zalman heatsink. I imagine this is optional however.

The WM appears better built than the Sonata but the Sonata has the quiet factor. Can I get some opinions on these two cases?

 

[RallyMaster]

I think the 80 mm fans on the Wavemaster are the main things that ruin it. If it had a front 120 mm and a rear 120 mm, I would buy it. Having 3 80 mm fans is just not my thing even if they are high quality Cooler Masters. Having two 22 cfm 80 mm fans in the front aren't as quiet as having one superb 120 mm.

 

[otogrim]

Personally, I would rather go with the wavemaster. I have the sonata, it's extremely quite, like its not even on, but that's the only thing that I liked about it. The coolermaster however is alot easier to work with due to the fact that you can remove both side panels. This might not seem like alot to some people but for me it was a big deal. Also, the mb tray is removable on the wavemaster while it is not on the sonata. Overall though it all really depends on what matters most to you. I still like my sonata, but just wished I would have gotten a wavemaster instead.

 

[PurdueRy]

Originally posted by: RallyMaster
I think the 80 mm fans on the Wavemaster are the main things that ruin it. If it had a front 120 mm and a rear 120 mm, I would buy it. Having 3 80 mm fans is just not my thing even if they are high quality Cooler Masters. Having two 22 cfm 80 mm fans in the front aren't as quiet as having one superb 120 mm.

I agree thats the one thing stopping me from loving the wavemaster

 

[Ken90630]

Originally posted by: PurdueRy

Originally posted by: RallyMaster
I think the 80 mm fans on the Wavemaster are the main things that ruin it. If it had a front 120 mm and a rear 120 mm, I would buy it. Having 3 80 mm fans is just not my thing even if they are high quality Cooler Masters. Having two 22 cfm 80 mm fans in the front aren't as quiet as having one superb 120 mm.

I agree thats the one thing stopping me from loving the wavemaster

You can always just disconnect one of the two front intake fans. That's what I did on my WaveMaster and it runs fine (although I admittedly have a tame rig that doesn't generate a ton of internal heat). I've always thought intake fans were overrated in their importance anyway, and a number of tests over the years have borne this out. And they suck in a lot of dust, which traps heat on the components it settles on, so there's a tradeoff that doesn't get discussed often. Unless you're running multiple Raptors or SCSI HDs, I can't see why one intake fan wouldn't be enough -- unless you get caught up in that whole positive pressure vs. negative pressure silliness. :roll:

BTW, if it matters to you, I don't think the intake fans on the WM are that noisy anyway. Of course a single 120mm fan would be ideal, but what the hey -- the two 80mm fans are not a dealkiller. At least not for me anyway.

Another thing that really helps is to use the included blowhole fan adapter and put an extra fan (I used a Panaflo that's utterly inaudible) in the top panel of the case. It takes less than five minutes to install. That way the hot air that rises inside is exited out the top, thus adding some overall cooling that disconnecting one of the intake fans 'takes away'. The build quality and fit & finish of this case is so awesome that I wouldn't let the fan sitch keep me from buying one. If you use a quiet PSU & other quiet fans (CPU, vid card, et al.), I don't think you'll find the WaveMaster to be too noisy at all. With everything except one intake fan running on mine, I can barely hear it down by my feet. If there's any ambient noise at all in the room and I'm not actually using the computer, I have to look down at the cool blue LED on the front panel to tell if the computer is on.

My experience/opinion, for what it's worth. Hope this helps 'ya.

PS: There is one other drawback of the front intake fans -- they're not completely sealed off inside, so there is some recirculation of warm internal air from the front bottom area of the case. So they're taking in both room air and warmer case air and pushing both back into the case. You can fix this by fashioning some kind of shroud or barrier around the sides of the fans, which is what I intend to do one of these days when I get time. Again, not a deal killer for me, but it could be for someone who's really fanatical about this sort of thing. Why CM hasn't fixed this by now, I dunno. They don't care, I guess, which is kinda a shame since the case is so nice otherwise.

 

[Chode Messiah]

i like the sonata, but the wm looks a lot better IMO. plus i normally swap the stock fans anyways. get the WM.

 

[synergyo1]

Wavemaster intake fans are pretty useless. The holes aren't big enough to blow the outside air in. In the end I removed the intake fans and flip my HD around for cable management.

 

[Indyboy2]

I know this is not a wavemaster but it is very similar in styling and had 120mm fans also
Link http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16811163038

 

[Ken90630]

Originally posted by: synergyo1
Wavemaster intake fans are pretty useless. The holes aren't big enough to blow the outside air in.

Some WM owners have said they used a large drill bit (a little larger than the existing holes) to enlarge the holes a little. As I stated earlier, I don't think intake fans are critically important anyway, so I don't have the inclination to do that to my case. Thought I'd mention it though for anyone that's really bothered by the 'small' intake holes on the WaveMaster front. If I were running more than one Raptor or using SCSI HDs, I suppose I might want some more front air intake. Right now I have a cool running rig that pulls in very little dust.

FWIW, keep in mind that the WM has been around for several years now. It came out before the high-end, scorching hot P4s and Athlon FXs did and before a lot of people were using Raptors. So there was less need (comparatively speaking) for significant front intake 'oomph'.

This doesn't excuse Cooler Master for their unwillingness to fix the poor design of the fan plane and seal them off better internally -- they could have fixed this flaw early on so that all subsequent owners would have a better case -- but it does, IMHO, prolly explain why they didn't feel the need for massive front air intake on the WM. Another possibility is that they couldn't engineer a good way to use fan filters that would be easily accessible for cleaning, so they had to go with filter-less fans in the front. And so maybe they purposely made the holes 'small' to limit the amount of dust that would be drawn into the case. Who knows ....

Of course, another possibility is that they just figured enough people would be seduced by the case's other attributes and would buy it regardless of its front fan limitations/flaws. I was, and I did. :laugh:

 

[Operandi]

Have you checked out the Praetorian 730 or the nearly identical ABS Stealth?