A great first effort with few faults
Anidees’ name apparently stems from the words ‘an idea’, which have then been tweaked to match translations in European languages other than English, before being pluralised to become Anidees. Naming aside, though, what matters to us is that the company has recently entered the UK market with several interesting-looking cases, including this great looking micro-ATX case, the A14.
Size-wise, it’s what you would expect from a micro-ATX, measuring just 185mm wide by 415mm deep, making it noticeably smaller than Corsair’s Obsidian 350D. While there’s no aluminium in the main construction (it’s all steel), slivers of brushed aluminium span the front and top sections, preventing the AI4 from looking like just another black box.
On the roof you’ll find the power and reset switches, two USB 3 ports, two USB 2 ports and the usual mini-jacks, as well as a 4-pin Molex-powered three-speed fan controller. This can alter the fan speed of the three included 120mm fans from high to low, or just turn them off – an option that’s rarely found on the controllers included with cases, although the switch is a little stiff.
Externally, the case has few faults. The sleek design completely hides the fact that there’s a large, magnetic door on the front, which houses two 5.25in bays and a huge removable mesh section that acts as a dust filter. Cooling would obviously better without the door in front of the intake fans, but there are also large vents at the side of the door section, which will enable some air to pass through the case.
Meanwhile, the inside initially looks like a familiar story, with basic cable-tidying clips and the PSU mount located at the top – a usual position in small tower cases. However, the drive bays are unconventional to say the least. While the two external 5.25in bays and internal 3.5in bay beneath them are standard-looking, a large swing-out metal plate sits between them and the bottom of the case.
You can mount three SSDs, two hard disks or one of each onto this plate, and that’s in addition to the 3.5in internal bay as well. There’s a further lone drive mount in front of the lower 120mm fan in the base too, where drives screw in from the bottom of the case.
This storage mounting system means there’s extra space for long graphics cards, and there’s also nothing blocking the two 120mm fans in the front. Noise reduction is also a big focus of the AI4’s design. It has large, soft rubber feet and anti-vibration pads for the 3.5in side mounts. What’s more, our ‘silenced’ version, which costs £10 more than the standard case, has sound-absorbing foam on both side panels.
As far as radiator support goes, though, the Anidees A14 can’t match the Corsair Obsidian 350D. There are no vacant fan mounts, and the front two 120mm fans sit right next to the base of the case and top drive mounts, while cable clips sit flush on the far side. This means that dual 120mm-fan radiators won’t fit and, unless you remove the cable clips, this area is a no-go for single 120mm-fan models too.
The rear 120mm fan sits right next to the side of the case too, but there’s just enough clearance above and below to mount a single 120mm-fan radiator, albeit one that’s no wider than the fan itself.
PERFORMANCE
With the Anidees’ fan controller set to the lowest setting, the CPU delta T settled at 62°C, which is one of the highest temperatures we’ve seen with our current micro-ATX test gear.
However, the case was incredibly quiet at this setting, with just a low thrum coming from the fans, which was only audible from a foot or two away. The GPU delta T was a fairly good result, though, coming in at 50°C, beating the Corsair Obsidian 350D by 7°C. The fan controller also has an off setting but, with the CPU already getting quite toasty, we felt it was best left alone. With the fans at their highest speed, the temperatures improved noticeably. The CPU delta T dropped 5°C to 57°C and the GPU delta also fell from 50°C to 46°C, the latter being 11°C cooler than the Obsidian 350D.
However, the fans were also much noisier at this setting, being far more audible than those in the Corsair case, with the extra airflow clearly accounting for the lower temperatures. Seeing as you have the option, we’d definitely recommend choosing the low fan speed.
CONCLUSION
There’s a lot to like about the Anidees AI4-. It’s small, well-made and features most of the mod-cons you would expect from a decent case, such as fan control and USB 3 ports. It offers reasonable cooling too, despite having a front door in front of the intake fans. There’s room for plenty of hard disks and SSDs as well, but not a great deal of space for water cooling. Comparatively, of course, Corsair’s micro-ATX Obsidian 350D case costs roughly the same amount, and can house most all-in-one liquid coolers too, although it’s also considerably larger and lacks a fan controller. This makes the Anidees A14 a better choice if you want a small air-cooled micro-ATX case, without the hassle of dealing with a claustrophobic cube-style mini case.