Antec P180 low-noise case

steel is inherently quieter than aluminium at the same thickness, which is what id imagine was the thoughts going through the antecs designers minds.

 

I was interested in this case even before this review. Today I finally broke and ordered it during my break. I found this review tonight while I was finding out what I got myself into, this review only confirms the reason I orderd it. Cant wait.. got 2 day shipping newegg!

 

Not sure if this has been mentioned, but I think you should've removed that lower-chamber 120mm fan. The PSU should pull in enough air over the hard drives to cool itself to within specification. By not having the fan there, you could've had one strand of molex connectors go straight to the drives, making things just so much easier. Antec and SPCR only recommmend using that lower-chamber 120mm fan when using a passively-cooled PSU. Otherwise, you don't really need it and are just adding to the overall noise produced by the case.

 

looks wise i love this case, it was always the whole door thing that got me though, the doors on all cases seem to break off :S... start to squeak haha.

 

I got the SPCR in black!!!

This case is fantastic i must say, there are a lot of pointless bits inside which are easily removed (i.e. the 80mm card fan block), the idea of the PSU being in lower chamber is good actually, for the sole reason the 2 120mm fans at the top and back of the case draw all the heat away from the CPU ect.... making my PC run very cool indeed....and with them sucking no blowing the case seems to gather very little dust which cannot be a bad thing....

I have the SPCR in black which i purchased from www.overclockers.co.uk, the front door is a little flimsy which is really my only niggle with this case, although it would look fine removed, as behind the door looks very attractive....

Inside my build is the new ASUS A8N32-Deluxe, with a AMD X2 4400+, Powercolor X1800-xt 512DDR3, Creative X-FI Fatal1ty Edition, Seagate SATA2 160gig, Plextor PX-130A DVD-ROM, Plextor PX-750A DVD/Writer, Geil One 1.5cas 3200 1gig (2x512mb)....

I find this to be a very silent case compared with my Antec PlusView AMG1000 I used last, the wasable air filters are gr8 they are the only thing i have had to maintain so far and they seem to be serving their surpose....

SNIPERMikeUK

 

X-fi fatal1ty drive bay module

Does anyone know if the front door will close if you have fitted a the X-fi fatal1ty 5.25" drive bay insert?

Cheers

 

there is around a 1.5cm recess between the front of the case and the clearence of the door.... suppose you could move the drive back a bit, but I think the rails would stop that.

Imp

 

Externally the case looks verry nice
Only internally I really don't like that grey dull looking steel. It looks damm cheap. Also not so good modding factor fore this one. Also if you open the door it looks really cheap ass.
Give me a nice Lian Li V1100 looks supperB, just simple nice just right no fancy things just what you need!!

 

I had just purchaced the p180B and I have just a few comments (bought it even before seeing this review)

1: Antec removed the VGA duct

2: As for water cooling, a black ice rad should fit in the middle chamber if you remove the cage that is there. There are mounting holes to screw it in. Though not sure on how well it will pull in air or change the "silence" of the case.

3: There are ways to make the cableing more "nicer". It would just require a bit more inginuity.

All I have in it atm is a P4 3.0, 1gb Corsair Twin-x, XFX 7800 AGP with a cooler master Hyper 48. Before this that system was in a case built from a 20mm ammo can with a dual rad setup and it ran cooler than what it does now. 34 idle vs 40. That is also with fans on med and even still I have to struggle to hear any thing from it.

Any how, I will definatly be coming up with some mods for it and see what capabilities it might possess.

 

Good review. I just saw it. And it took me here so I thought I'd commment.

I just got one of these at BestBuy a couple of moths ago and it is great. Not that roomy but I still managed to make it work. Correctly routing the cables in the P180 as mentioned before is obviously time consuming, but not not that hard. As mentioined at newegg and epinions some of the wires are also too short so that aids in being time consuming. Fortunately I was all good to go. Here's what I did.

I went to Fry's Electronics and got an ECS 915P-A v1.2 for 12 dollars. I know cheap city. But it works great and it was retail. Not even the seal was broken. Complete with manuals and everything.

Then a Celeron D 775 3.06 GHZ g4 bit. 1gb ram ddr. 160gb HD and 250gb backup. And BFG Nvidia 256ddr PCI Express Video card.

No removable motherboard tray. But still easy to install. The I/O Plate is the hardest to install. The rest easy. As long as I'm not using all the drives cables are no issues.

I already had a Antec Ture 430w power supply. Cable is long enough to reach. I just added a 20 to 24 pin converter. I t was long enough anyway. But needed the converter cuz of the mb.

Removed the black flat thing to make more room for the cables. Took out the 120mm fan infront of the Power Supply.

No need for a PCI blower even.

I put the antec 2 other fans on high and I got 1 on the CPU. And 1 northbridge fan I added. And I'm about 45c CPU and about 40c case temp. Not too high.

So never needed the 120mm case fan infront of the Power Supply.

And then that makes more room. Instead of bringing the Power Supply wires inoto the main area I can now keep them tucked under the main area right next to the power supply.

And the rest I do bring up can be hidden behind the 3.5 bays I'm not using.

Now 3 quarter of the motherbpoard area is empty and I'm not cramped with wires blocking my motherboard like before.

So it is pretty orgainzed compared to before and also alot quieter.

See my pics below

http://teenlounge.org/cex/

Both of them.

Thanks,
Confusmio