When we reviewed Antec's Sonata IV recently, we found it left a lot to be desired. Antec had updated their Sonata design, but barely, and the enclosure as a whole felt grossly behind the times. Apparently some of Antec's engineers agreed, because we have the brand new Solo II in house now and there's clearly been some serious retooling. But is the Solo II enough of a step forward, or does it still have some growing up to do?

Externally the Solo II doesn't look like a massive evolution of the previous generation of Solo cases (which Antec considers part of their Sonata family of enclosures). That's not really an issue: while the appearances of Antec's gaming enclosures may be the subject of some debate, the Sonata line has always been attractive and understated without looking particularly chintzy or cheap. But looks can be deceiving, and the inside of the Solo II looks less like a traditional enclosure and more like a laboratory where Antec's engineers have begun experimenting with new (and old) approaches to case design.

What isn't mentioned in the spec sheet is that Antec has also included soundproofing on the side panels, soundproofing that would've helped the Sonata IV perform better acoustically. There are thin sheets of polycarbonate attached to the insides of the top and side panels in a way that doesn't add heft or thickness but can introduce a notable improvement in noise.

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We have just reviewed the top liquid-cooling products from Corsair. Today time has come to check out another system, which is one step below the flagship solution in the positioning charts.

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Corsair started their enclosure business from the top of the market and worked their way down. Their first case was an expensive black monolith, the Obsidian 800D, popular for watercooling setups but less so for air. They fired a shrink ray at it and came up with the Obsidian 700D, roughly $50 less. It wasn't until the Graphite 600T that they produced a case with an enthusiast pricetag but also a design that deviated from the Obsidian standard; we were very happy with the 600T in our review back in December. That case proved to be a real success for Corsair; so many of its design cues were married to the design of the Obsidian series, and the net result was the even less expensive Obsidian 650D. Yet Corsair still hasn't tackled the sub-$100 market...until now.

What makes the Carbide 400R particularly interesting is that it's Corsair's first positive pressure case design. Not just that, but in many ways it's simultaneously their most advanced design despite being their least expensive.

he more I examined the Carbide 400R, the more I felt like Corsair was "advancing in reverse." Each new release of theirs is just a little more innovative than its predecessor, and with the 400R we see a lot of features that frankly we'd like to see scale up the chain. Mercifully, though, the extremely flexible system for fans coupled with the increased real estate behind the motherboard tray, LED toggle, and USB 3.0 motherboard header cable are launching at the low $99 price point. That's a straight up win for the consumer: Corsair's first $99 enclosure is also one of its most advanced.

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The last time we checked out an NZXT enclosure, we saw in their H2 a lot of fantastic ideas done in by a single poor design choice. NZXT's engineers are clearly thinking on their feet and the company stays in the enclosure conversation with good reason, and today we have on the slab their new Tempest 410 Elite mid-tower. Geared towards excellent performance without breaking the bank (remember when that was what overclocking was about?), should the Tempest 410 Elite be on your shortlist for an economical build, or were too many compromises made ?

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