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today we're going to be having a look at a product from antec now the sonata line

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has been around since pretty much the dawn of time as far as i can tell but it

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has received some significant updates

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since the original antec sonata this is the sonata four

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is it is it is like its predecessors a quiet mid tower case elegantly silent

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they've added SSD hard drive compatibility this is a quiet computing

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product from antec which is in line with the original concept for the sonata and

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is in my opinion what makes the sonata line

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so successful over the long period of

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time that it has existed so we're going to start opening up the box but we're

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also going to have a look at what antec has to say for themselves in terms of

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spec so it can it has a quiet 620 watt

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continuous power psu so that is higher than any previous sonata line

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although the sonata other than the sonata elite or sonata proto rather the

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sonata line all comes with a power supply but 620 watts is very generous

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considering that it is so because the sorry about the battery there guys so

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because the sonata's always been kind of a value bang for the buck line of

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products that's very generous it has 80 plus certification now in terms of drive

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bays we've got seven drive bays three five and a quarter inch and four three

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and a half inch seven expansion slots which is atx standard one rear 120

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millimeter tri-cool three-speed fan and we have front mounted usb 3.0 which is

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pretty cool to see on a very mainstream case like the

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sonata series so let's uh we got some foam here so you can see and text using

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a very robust closed cell phone you don't want your sonata4 to be damaged at

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any point shipping okay well that was very very close

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because i probably should have dumped it out with the foam rather than without it

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there's what's left in the box in case you guys are wondering

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now let's see what the sonata 4 looks like in person i

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did not have a chance to visit antec at the ces 2011 show so i

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actually have not seen this case in person yet and it's upside down so that

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is something i'm going to have to remedy okay so here we are with the traditional

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oh did i catch you there okay here we are with the traditional piano black

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finish now the last time i used a sonata

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was actually a sonata ii so i'm going to

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be telling you guys what improvements i see based on that ancient case so we've got

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thumb screws on both sides which means that unlike the older older sonata we

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can actually remove both side panels

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there we are so that allows for better cable management as well as better

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accessibility to things like hard drives or

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whatever basically cable management more than anything else let's see how

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fingerprint resistant this finish is so unlike older sonata style cases you can

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see the fingerprints do leave a mark but it's not quite as ugly as some of the

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previous ones this is actually quite fingerprint resistant considering

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everything and let's see how easily they wipe off once you've got something

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smeared on there oh that's nice actually that's really nice okay

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so here we've got some ventilation on the side for your drives

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and then uh cameraman wants to see the inside so that's how it's mounted just

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using little plastic clips

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so side panels off so we're looking at the back side you can see there's not

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much room for cable management behind the motherboard tray although because

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there's no window you don't have to worry too too much about the overall

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appearance of the cables just make sure that you're optimizing them for good

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airflow so let's have a look at the front of the case

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and here you can see in traditional sonata style oh okay oh yeah there we go

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it's not locked but it does lock which as as per the old sonata cases as well

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you can lock the front here and so that's what gives you access to the

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power switch as well as the reset switch i remember the old sonatas the door only

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used to open about this much and people would frequently break them off by

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accident in fact i broke one off myself at one point so now antec has

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implemented this 270 degree door opening

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hinge so that you're a lot less likely to accidentally push it too far and

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break it off so there you go here's our three five and a quarter inch base and

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here is all of our front port access so we've got two usb 2.0 usb 3.0 power hard

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drive led microphone as well as headphones

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all right moving around to the other side

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and there is the inside of the sonata4

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so it has a fairly standard layout although there are going to be some

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tweaks oh this is interesting so

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the box oh okay the box actually has to be

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removed via a screw

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so i don't have a screwdriver on me at

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just this moment so we're gonna have to make do here but the first thing i see

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when i get inside the case is the front usb 3.0 so the front usb 3.0 actually

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runs via a wire comes out the back of the case and uses a usb port to plug

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into the back of the i o shield now i suspect at some point andtech will

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update this product to use an internal header now that that spec has finally

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been finalized but right now this is unfortunately the most elegant way to do

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front usb 3.0 now here's all of our front panel ports including our front

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usb 2.0 our power switch reset switch

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power led hard drive led as well as high

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definition audio and ac 97 audio the

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included power supply has a wide variety of connectors this is a neo eco 620 watt

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so it's 80 plus you can actually see the full specs there but it is a single 12

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volt rail power supply which means that no matter what kind of components you're

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using as long as it has enough power to

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supply to those components you will not accidentally you know trip any over

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current protection or anything like that so we've got 124 pin power connector

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we've got one four plus four pin power connector as well as uh no yeah that's

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four plus four pin power connector we've got dual pci express connectors and you

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can see these cables are fairly short but since they are designed to work

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inside the sonata four which is a fairly small chassis that's not a problem at

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all so we have two PCIe one is a six plus two and one is a six pin so you can

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support any of the highest end graphics cards within this case although be

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careful with ventilation you're probably going to want to add another fan let's

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say for example on the hard drive cage or position something on

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let me see if i can see if they actually have any additional fan mounts it looks

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like this fan can be mounted on here

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but i don't see where any extra ventilation is going to oh that's right the extra ventilation is going to come

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from the back in the hard drive cage as on the on the back side panel okay so

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we've got six SATA connectors and then we also have

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one two three molex six molex connectors so that's our power

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supply connectors here is our tri-cool fan so we've got our switch is actually

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integrated into the back of the case and it's powered by a molex connector so

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i'll go ahead and show you guys that switch and while we're back here i'll show you the entire back panel so it

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comes with a dummy io shield there's your seven expansion slots here's a

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little bit of extra ventilation room and other than that there's not really much

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of note on the back of the case now hard

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drive mounting has been altered a fair bit on the sonata 4 so you can see these

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hard drive cages can actually fit drives on silicone grommets

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here we're going to remove the whole assembly here

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to show you guys how this works so you can actually mount the drives on

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silicone grommets and you can do up to four drives sideways so that that is a

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fairly unique way of mounting the drives this is all with thumb screws so you

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don't actually have to use a screwdriver to mount your hard drive which is kind

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of neat as well and let me see what we've got in terms

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of accessories in our accessory box here

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okay so we have a power cord which stands to reason as this case does have

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an included power supply we have some zip ties as well as all of the necessary

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screws we're going to need we have a key for the front case

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and an antec case badge and last but not least oh we've actually

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got a drive bay adapter so this is a five and a quarter inch to three and a

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half inch external drive bay adapter just in case you have a media card

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reader or you know heaven forbid i suppose a

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floppy drive or anything else that you might need to plug into a three and a

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half inch external drive so that's pretty much all i have to say at this

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time about the sonata4 thank you for checking out my unboxing and don't

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forget to subscribe to Linus tech tips for more reviews unboxings and other

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computer videos

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i found the SSD mount or rather cameraman found it it's right here so

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this is not for a fan this is for mounting a two and a half inch SSD drive

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so you would put it right on there so there actually isn't any additional uh

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forced air intake so you're going to be relying on your 120 millimeter exhaust

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for all of your well exhaust so i wouldn't really recommend a super high

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powered GPU like a gtx 580 but anything

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like a gtx 560 or below should be just

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fine in a case like this which is designed more for a mainstream gamer or

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a mainstream consumer