Hardware Antec P280 Review

Antec returns to its popular Performance line of cases with the new, aluminium fronted P280.

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/2012/02/16/antec-p280-review/1

 

I do!!

A free Zalman Reserator a few years back still makes a good cooler for my heavily overclocked GTX 280, so the holes in my P182 are put to good use.

Thanks for this review Harry.

Personally I'm not such a big fan of the look of this case, and I'm someone who likes monolithic, fridge-like cases. Such a missed opportunity on the external finish. Also, I'm stunned by Antec's decision to include three exhaust fans and no intakes. I'm sure the cooling performance of this case would have been better than average had this been the case.

Still no compelling reason to move out of the P182 just yet then, after four happy years!

 

Such a shame, I had high hopes for the P280 as i've been tinkering with the idea of a new case for a while. I've had a P180 for so long and have been really happy with the case, it's been rock solid.

I'm in two minds when it comes to the look of the P280. I've always preferred the sort of Q some case designs. Wish the fan fitters were covered of like on the P180. Though I like the idea of the power button on the roof as you always have to open the door on the P180 to boot your PC.

Good review, would love to see an article on cooling again with the thermal imaging camera.

Good review, would love to see an article on cooling again with the thermal imaging camera.

 

I loved the look of the P180 but never had a chance to buy one. All the Performance series cases Antec has put out since just don't appeal to me like the P180. However the R3 I just bought and built into was as close as I could get to the P180 look but still have cooling performance.

Anyways what I'm saying is R3>P280

 

I must say moving the switches and USB ports to the top of the case = win.

The one thing that lets the P182 down is the position of these halfway down the front, I don't think I've ever put a USB cable in the right way round first time.

 

As there were no intake frans i think the results of this review are underwhelming. BT proved that having an intake fan is essential in there case fan article recently...I wonder what would happen if you switched one of the fans to an intake or added one in.

This would also help the HDD temps.

Such a silly oversight by antec to not do this as standard!?

 

I´m so anxious to get my hands on one of these!

Looks, quality, price, everything is right. (I consider the current price really cheap for a case like this. But then again, I don´t really care about the price of a case, even though I´m always on a budget. It will last so much longer than any other hardware.)

And I´m absolutely sure, that the cooling can be improved massively with a little extra cost for two or three good aftermarket fans. I think, that just moving the top-front fan down to be an intake at the front alone would help a great deal.

Thanks for the review.

 

Really liked my P180 when I first got it, although its flaws got to me after a while (sides were nightmare to reattach, clips kept breaking, and PSU fan was way too close to the PSU).

Nice to see Antec going back in this direction, I've been utterly uninterested by everything else they've produced recently, the 900 and that Meccano monstrosity.

Now though, it's a bit late. I don't think I would now buy a case without a rotated motherboard, having seen and owned a Silverstone FT03.

 

I'd liked to have seen exactly what difference adding an intake fan or two would have made to its cooling abilities - would it still underwhelm or would it jump higher up the table?

Inquiring minds need to know!

 

The temps are never going to be great with this design, the cruicial element is Side-intake fan to cool the GPU, and 140-200mm fans should be standard. The biggest change I can do to cool my p182 is removing the side-door while gaming, taking off nearly 20°C off the gpu under load, and nearly 10°C Idle. This helps keep the noise lower aswell as my gf complains about noise when the door is ON while gaming.

Looks like Antec slept trough last 5 years, just like they did with the dragon-series ages ago.

 

I`m not sure if it has been mentioned in the review, but you can mount a couple of 120 mm fans behind the hdd bay, fairly close to the gpu and motherboard. I agree 140mm fans would have been nice, not sure about 200 mm fans though. These tend to flex a bit too much which makes their sound character a little unpleasant to me.

Like others have mentioned, I suspect that by simply moving one of the top fans to the front (preferably to the aforementioned position behind the hdd cage) the cooling performance of this case would be greatly improved without any additional expense.

 

I concur with the general consensus, looks and sounds like the R3 pips it.

 

Ah well, that seals that then. Last hope now is the Bitfenix Shinobi XL... or I need to spend ages looking for alternatives again.

 

1. The audio header lead is barely long enough to reach an ATX board...
2. USB3 - 2 adaptor should be supplied, IMHO.
3. Silver screws - someone should be sacked !
4. With my H70 + i7 960 @ 4+ GHz mine is cooler than in it's previous home ( NZXT Panzerbox ) and that's like sharing the room with a helicopter...
5. Once you add a pair of front mounted exhaust fans it's fine, plenty of air circulates from the rear grilles.
6. Only issue I've had is with all three GTX 460's, where the bottom one tried to fry itself, but is fine when in another PC mounted vertically. ? ? ?
7. Subtle looks are fine by me, who needs a Sci-Fi nightmare full of blue LED's ?

I'll give it 9/10 as my CPU is around 68 degrees at 100% load 24/7 and I can barely hear it.

dunx

P.S. I'm sorry but the thought of frying a system for the lack of a £10 fan is just stupid... I have four server 38mm deep fans sat here to play with, for that authentic Server Room howl

 

P.P.S. There is so much room inside the case that I was going to fab an acrylic fan bracket to mount a fan "above" the GPU's to stir the air up a bit...

 

Some feckless project manager at Antec is probably currently on a disciplinary because of this! The effective admission of the error by offering customers a free set of black screws made me

 

I can not decide on a case, want lots of room and cable managment options a window on the side door and if and when i decide to go for a full water cooling set up.But not fancying paying £300 for it.

 

Harry, can you explain how a case that's bad at cooling get 23/30? It's at the bottom of the list, surely more like 13/20 would be appropate...

 

i've gotten to a point where sound is more important than cooling...to a degree...

i would love to see the temp differences with a front intake over the hdd cage that hits the gpu as well...would imagine the temps would drop pretty well...

based on my experience with the P182b, getting this with an extra intake and run on low speed will suit me nicely...i've played with the fractal and didn't like the build quality as much, and this has usb3...

if i need cooling to see what size my epeen is, ill remove the side panel...

 

P193 is much better IMO