Reviews for Antec Performance I P180 Chassis

Good Case but requires great care

Strengths: Quiet, Well Ventilated, Lots of drive bays, attention to detail, dust maintenance easy

Weakness: bottom fan a little too close to drive bays, some flimsy parts, some finishing details

Needs a lot of attention to detail to get the best out of it, but highly worth it once you are done.

I previously had an older noisier Lian Li Alu case with 80mm fans housing an Athlon XP, and the noise was really starting to get to me. Since the reviews were quite positive, I ordered a P180 through pricegrabber. I'm very familiar with the P160 (over 20 systems) and the Aria (2 builds) line of cases, so my expectations were quite high.

The box arrived yesterday, it's HUGE. It arrived well packaged with no damage. It's taken me about 5 hours to transfer the old innards to the new case, and I'm not a beginner. This case is designed by experts for experts, you have to really pay attention.
This case weighs a lot empty. With 8 drives, PSU and heatsink, it's quite a handful.

Firstly some of the bad things, the silicone hard drive buffers on one side of the removable drive bay were all installed upside down in my sample. I only noticed after I had already 2 or 3 drives in :| The bottom most 5.25" bay has a metal lip at the bottom and it catches on Vantec removable drive bays. It took me a good hour of fiddling to realize what was going on. Simply bending the metal downwards, solves the problem. I wish the case were about 1" deeper because with a full size ATX board, the Vantec removable drive bays block the ATX Power and IDE ports on my DFI Ultra-AL board.

The lower isolated drive bay could use some more cable routing options. I have SCSI drives in the bottom bays and routing the cables was difficult, even with rounded cables, because of how cramped things were. If the Fan housing were 0.5" further back this would have been much easier. Another thing that would help would be larger holes for routing larger cables past the lower fan area would have been appreciated. Not everyone is using SATA yet :D

A minor annoyance is that the top fan cover comes off a little too easily. It would be nice if it had a little more positive locking. I also think Antec should think about providing some extension cables for the 4pin power connector, I have mine routed over the PCI slots and it's a little akward. My PC Power and Cooling 480W Silencer PSU went in fairly uneventfully. I wish some vendors would offer Firewire header pin to male plug convertors, some of us use PCI cards to get firewire, making these front mounted connectors useless without custom cabling. Lastly, blue LEDs. Can we stop with the blue LEDs ? Research shows these are considered annoying by a lot of people and thankfully they are no longer all that fashionable. Old school green (power), and red ones (hard drives) would be great. Not only is it retro, but it would look great.

Now to the positive aspects, the case is much quieter than my old one. The hard drives are noticeably quieter, and the only real noise is the CPU fan, which I may slow down with a fanmate to make the system even quieter. The CPU remains consistently in the mid 30Cs with an ambient temperature of 75F in the room. With the door closed it is even quieter. I also like the fact that Antec provided two HDD indicators, one of which I use one for IDE and the other for the SCSI. To get more positive pressure in the lower bay I used some Aluminum tape cut to size, blocking all the extra holes around the PSU. I didn't make use of the separate PCI card cooler, because the PCI cards were too tall, so I blocked that port with tape too.

Overall I am very pleased with this case. It has made my work environment much more pleasant and converted a rather noisy system to one which is much more tolerable. Another excellent, if somewhat complex case from Antec.

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Worth Your Money

Strengths: Quiet, Artistic, Sturdy, Front Panel button/port placement is ingenious. Door swings 270° for wicked cooling opportunities. Comes with fan filters and three fans.

Weakness: *Drive bay installation; door and panels feel flimsy when removed.

*After seating the rails on the sides of my CD/DVD drives, the drives were hard to push into the 5.25" bays, and afterwards tok some lovetaps to stay put.

Other than that and the somewhat flimsy panels, this case is still worth your money. Great airflow, great for overclockers (the reason I bought it), great for audiophiles who want absolute silence, and great for those of you who want their LAN opponents to drool as they walk by your machine.

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Awesome Case

Strengths: Very quite, sturdy, great ventilation

Weakness: Heavy (around 40lbs), need to select the right length power supply cord to attach to motherboard, poor "graphics card cooler".

This case is a great! It comes with 3 120mm fans with 3-speed control that runs very quitely. It has dual chambers, one for the power supply and another for the rest of the parts. One tricky thing is that you need a power supply cord long enough to reach the ATX insertion on the motherboard. I chose to go with a modular power supply to go around this problem. It has plenty of room for expansion with multiple hard drive bays with rubber cushions and also has a little tool storage case with extra screws on the side of the upper hard drive cage. Installing parts were extremely easy and everything runs extremely quite and cool with fans on medium setting. The "graphics card cooler" assembly is quite large and you need an extra 80mm fan to attach it to pull in air from outside without any filter.

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Best out there, but still not perfect

Strengths: Extremely quiet Well designed, excellent build quality Understated style

Weakness: Cramped Rear air intake not filtered (see below) Difficult to install new PCI cards

The Antec P180 is an excellent case, but, sadly, it is still not perfect. It is, as claimed, extremely quiet, even in a high-end overclocked system with many fans and noisy video cards.

Build quality, like all of Antec's high-end cases, is top-notch. The outside aluminum panels are well finished. Note that the black trim on the case is plastic, not aluminum or steel - this is because Antec uses an aluminum-plastic-aluminum sandwich on the case exterior to make it acoustically "dead."

Unfortunately, the interior of the case could use some additional design work. The PSU goes into the bottom of the case along with the hard drives. However, very little space is provided here, and you will have a hard time fitting the PSU into the case. In particular, if you have lots of spare power leads from the PSU that aren't being used, you will have a hard time finding a place to stuff them. If your PSU has a system where additional connectors can be plugged into the PSU, adding connectors is nearly impossible without taking the PSU out.

A duct is provided that routes air from the back of the case over the motherboard's expansion slots. This is a great idea, except that no filter is provided over the rear air intake (filters are provided for the front air intakes) so dust can easily accumulate inside the case. Furthermore, installing PCI cards means removing this duct, which is held in by two screws.

Overall, the P180 is an excellent case and the issues I point out are minor when viewed in light of Antec's overall excellent design.

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Antec P180 Review

Strengths: Real Quiet; Sleek Design; Sturdy construction; Convenient pull-out cages

Weakness: Install is not as easy as other cases; power-supply compartment small; no internal firewire connector; power-on button inside door; expensive!

I've been using this case for a little over a week, and thus far I am quite impressed. Once you get the fans working okay, this thing is real quiet! And I mean that!! If you don't use cds much, its even that much more quiet as you can keep the front panel closed all the time. This thing has a ton of room for all your drives, though only one 3-1/2" front slot. There are four 5-1/4" front slots. Internally, you can store additional drives. I really like the pull-in out hard drive cage, and the noise/vibration dampners seem to do the trick. The only time I really hear the thing is when I am ripping MP3's using iTunes.

The install was a bit more challenging than other computers I have put together. Of particular difficulty was the power-supply compartment, which is quite small. I actually had to return the original Ultra X-Connect PSU that I purchased, as it did not fit w/ the detachable cables. Ended up w/ an Antec TruePower II, which fit just fine. Stringing cables around was kind of a hassle, as the distances were kind of long. I also with they had included a firewire connector for the cabling to the front panel. If you have a PCI Firewire card, which only has the official firewired connectors, you will need to buy an adapter to enable the front panel firewire connector. And that is a pricey $15 after shipping! For a case this expensive, they should have just included it!

I also had problems with the fans. Using the "Fan Only" connector of the Power-Supply meant that the had to be set to High, versus the Low/Medium. Not sure if this will effect noise in the long run.

But even after those quibbles, I love the case, and don't regret the purchase at all!

UPDATE on 12/31/05!! The performance of the case is still satisfying after several months of use (cool & quiet), however, the quality of the material on the outside of the case is terrible!! The front door has warped towards the middle, meaning the door never closes properly. The side panel on the side where the motherboard lies is also warped and the aluminum material is bowing out! I think the glue (or whatever) is being effected by the heat of the motherboard inside. I have an ASUS P5WD2 MOB, which has a cool stack feature with a special heat sink on the MOB bottom. I believe this heat dissipation is causing the case to warp! Antec is a smart company, one of the industry standards, so this should have been anticipated during the design of this case. Shame on them!!

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Antec P180 Evaluation

Strengths: Airflow design; attention to aesthetics and acoustics; air filters are re-usable and easy to remove and clean; nice aluminum finish; four 5.25" external bays; fans extremely quiet at low speed

Weakness: minimum power supply and hdd cable lengths; PCI cards in a squeeze by power supply cable routing, VGA cooling port ineffective, flimsy front panel, locked panel is useless

I'm sure you've already heard of all the good points of the case, so I'll cut straight to the gripes. First and foremost is cable management. Since the power supply is in a separate lower compartment, Antec allows the cables to be snaked through a door between the bottom and upper compartments. This door, however, has the cables coming out where a PCI card should be. This means that the last one or two PCI slots require that you place the smaller PCI cards in them and leave the upper PCI slots for longer cards.

The drive bay in the lower compartment requires Serial ATA cables, or IDE cables that are longer than 18". Even then, the IDE cables have a tight squeeze down there.

My case had an unbalanced fan, so the fan was noisier than should be. Too bad that it's not listed anywhere on the Antec site as a spare part, although one may purchase a retail (non-black) Tri-Cool fan that functions similarly.

Front panel is flimsy. For many people, the door is not flush with the vertical face. This is minor. However, the panel tabs that hold it onto the case are prone to breakage as in my situation.

Behind the front panel, the drives are taken out from the front without any tools. I guess this is a convenience factor, and that's probably why the lock is on the front panel and not the side one. I say that the security should be on the side panel to prevent easy access to the hardware rather than worrying about access to the optical and floppy drives. The system setup is made for that.

Case has no system speaker. One could help when you're troubleshooting your hardware.

The unbalanced fan and front panel mounts of shoddy construction leave a sour taste in my experience with this case, but otherwise, it still has redeeming features.

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Great case, even greater value!

Strengths: Cooling design, acoustics, sleek exterior, ample room inside

Weakness: No front LCD display, need long PSU cables

I had heard about this case from Silent PC, and decided to give it a try. At $120 plus shipping, it was an absolute steal. The cooling design is quite unique: the PSU is mounted at the bottom, so that heat from the CPU and motherboard is not a factor. There are three standard 120mm fans - one in the back, one in the front, and one in the PSU compartment. The case has 3 layers of material, which deadens noise like a charm. The only sound I could hear from my computer was the CPU fan at full speed. At normal speeds, everything is near-inaudible. It would have been even better if there was a front LED display that had a temperature monitor. I have one with my fan controller, but just an added boon. Also, the PSU compartment design has a drawback - you need long cables to be able to reach the 5.25" drive bays and the top of the motherboard. Antec's PSU's do the trick, but some PSU's like the OCZ Modstream may fall short.

Final Verdict : 9.5/10

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Great Case

Strengths: Heavy duty. Pull out hard drive cages. Very easy layout to work with. Fans silent at low speed.

Weakness: Heavy. Front door feels somewhat flimsy. Tall for a mid-size ATX case. Fans fairly noisy at high speed.

This case weighs about 35 pounds by itself. When you knock on the side panel, It sounds differant then any case I have ever had. Very solid construction. The front door panel is the one exception. It does feel somewhat flimsy. No sharp edges that I have noticed yet.

It is a tank. (Not a case to be lugging around to LAN parties)

The lower compartment layout was a little short for my power supply. The cables coming out of the power supply were intruding on the fan that is behind it. I had to remove the fan bracket for it to fit. Be sure to check the length of your power supply you plan to put in this case.

The hard drive cages are very easy to work with. You just pull it out, screw in your drives, and stick the cage back in.

I feel this is the bast case (out of 5) I have ever bought. It was easy work with and overall is fairly silent.

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Antec p180

Strengths: Appearance, Cooling, quiet

Weakness: weight, front door, some PSU cables may not be long enough.

I love this case. The trend today seems to be cases with lots of "extras", but i just don't care for neon fans, UV lights or plastic faces on the front of my case. This case has an elegance to it. The simple silver and black makes this case look professional and clean.

The case came with three 120mm fans(one front, back, and a top blowhole) that are fairly quiet. The side panals are layered with sound defening material that also helps keep things quiet. When i was picking out parts for my new build, noise was a top consideration. After reading a lot of reviews on this case, the choice became easy.

There are a couple of potential weaknesses with this case though. My first complaint is the front door. It seems a little bit flimsy, and there is only a magnat at the top, so the bottom dosen't seem to stay shut as well as it should. Another potential problem is the location of the PSU. In this case, the Power Supply is located at the bottom of the case. While this helps to seperate heat from your PSU and Motherboard, it's going to be a considerable distance that your Powersupplys cables are going to have to run to reach your motherboard. I used a OCZ PowerStream 520w, and the cables just barely reached. I read a couple of posts on forums that said their PSU/MOBO combination didn't work in this case, so make sure to do some research.

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Great Case for a Great Price, Period.

Strengths: Design (very attractive), durable and well crafted, easy access to components, lots of room for expansion, & excellent intake/exhaust/airflow!

Weakness: Graphics card exhaust isn't very useful (but can be modified like I have to work well), NOT for un-experienced system builders, the two 120mm exhaust fans could use a filter.

I decided to put together a gaming system and decided to pick up this case, initially because it looks very attractive. The ventilation system is the most impressive feature of this case, it comes with 3 120mm fans to keep things cool. There is room for at least 8 hdds if you ever need the space and 4 DVD/CD rom drives. The power supply isn't included but it does have a unique location, at the bottom, with a 120mmx38mm (included) fan blowing a ton of air over it to keep it even cooler. The case overall is a bit big and bulky, but that's what I like, lots of room to expand. If you decide to pick up this case, you'll definately want to pick up:

1) 120mm FAN (for the upper HDD bay/used to cool HDD and as a system Intake)
2) A 80mm fan (for the video card exhaust) OR a SLOT exhaust fan (which may work better for some graphics cards-then you can just ditch the Antec VGA exhaust system)
3) 2x120mm FAN filters (for the rear exhausts)
4) Zip ties, to help organize everything since the PS is located at the bottom and you do want everything looking nice, right?

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Antec P180

Strengths: Well build (sturdy) Excelent quiet cooling design

Weakness: Tough to manage your cabling VGA duct usefulness is suspect... PSU Setup (need to make sure cables can reach your motherboard and your PSU can fit)

Overall I am extremely happy with the case. There are a few down points to it though and my biggest gripe would be cable managament. If you are someone like me that likes to hide and tuck all your cables as best as possible this case is very tough to work with. The lian li cases I have installed were great for hiding cables...this one just doesnt have the same channels for tucking away your cabling.

The power supply area is located in the bottom of this case, you need to make sure your cables from your PSU can reach the motherboard (mainly the standard ATX cable and 12v aux cable). Another think to mention is you are limited in the length of PSU you can use. Most all willb be fine, but more and more PSUs are coming out that more powerful and longer than standard ATX size.

While it is designed to be a quiet case (large fans and triple layer side panels) there are other areas that could have been also designed into the case to support this. Overall tho, this is a great start for someone looking for a quiet personal computing experience.

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Simply the best.

Strengths: Extremely quiet, cools well. Separated internal chambers.

Weakness: Power button inside door.

The P180 is very sturdy and extremely well-built. It's design was well thought out and allows the case to cool efficiently while staying almost silent. With the right case fans, you won't even notice that it's on! Get one, you won't regret it!

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Antec Performance I P180 Chassis

Strengths: QUIET large case for the future 3 fan standerd in the case the cage for the hds comes out

Weakness: dam fimisy front door the VGA Cooler Sucks im taking that out and will this case fit Asus A8N32-SLI Deluxe mother board not sure some 1 plz tell me in any way possible and this is heavy for a case

Ok this case is great it is so quiet so large anf ready for the Future 11 drive bays the insance but the case is not pefect 1 the front door suks its soo fimsy and im not sure the Asus A8N32-SLI Deluxe will fit in this case and 2 the VGA cooler is woithless so im taking that out and it has a key lock but has no keys in the box -.- but that is a minor thing and 3 some PSU cables might not be long anought to reach the mother board chamber otherwise it is a very good case to use to by for an Gaming rig

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Mid range Case

Strengths: Tons of Features and Great Customer Service

Weakness: Too much Plastic!

Tons of features. The side panals are held on by plastic hooks on top and bottom these broke off. They sent us two new side panals though. One of the rubber foots came off and they sent us 4 more. the Graphics cooling duct with a normal fan installed hits graphics card so you need a slim fan or install it inside the duct, but that limits are flow. Too much Plastic! and it is Crampt to work in. Good air filter screens though.

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Innovative and well-made, but still not the best case

Strengths: Fairly quiet; easily accessible filters; no sharp edges; very professional-looking; sturdy; has 3 120mm fans

Weakness: the graphics card air duct; cable routing; heavy; no motherboard tray

First of all, you can't just get any power supply for this case. I got a fairly long one that had every possible power connector you could possibly want (even for a full tower), and this turned out not to fit with the extra large fan they have in the bottom section. Fortunately, I got it to work by switching that fan with one of the thinner ones in the upper section. The cable routing was a major pain, but then this was my first system build from scratch. But I know I could never put a full-length PCI card in my bottom slot, just because of where the cables come up from the bottom. Also, it's better if the PS has the air intake grill directly opposite the air output (not on the top or bottom).
The two removable 3.5" drive bays are very nice. There's lots of cushioning to prevent noise due to vibration. The wires for the front port connectors were well-labeled. All extra parts have storage places inside the case, even after your system is complete.
The graphics card air duct turned out to be one of their worst ideas. I understand how it could help keep the system quiet, but I ended up taking it out and leaving it out. First, it requires you to use a screwdriver on six (yes, 6) screws just to remove the duct, which is necessary in order to do any work with add-in cards. Even the screws for each card slot are more difficult than normal to deal with. The air duct might help one main graphics card stay cool, but if you have 2 (SLI), I don't see that it would help the second one at all. The most overlooked aspect about it, though, is that it draws air in from the rear, where two other fans are blowing out warm air. There's also no filter for it, so it could contribute to dust inside the case.

However, even with the problems that I had, I still think it is worth what I paid for it. It should serve it's purpose--keeping my system cool while remaining quiet. (And, it's color scheme fits in perfectly with the rest of my stuff. :)

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Antec P-180 case

Strengths: Quiet setup, quiet fans, flexibility, power supply goes in separate chamber

Weakness: The power supply chamber can be too far for the cables from some power supplies, little heavy, cable management is harder, vga duct is pretty much useless

This case is for people who want quiet and cool. The Antec tri cool fans that come are quiet even at the medium setting. One of the great thins about this case is the flexibility to move around components, for example you have take out the drive cage in the middle to put in a fan and you can move the hard drives to the bottom chamber's drive cage. You can have different fan setups with different push/pull configurations.

A WARNING, while the power supply is located at the bottom chamber in the back to separate the heat, I have read in forums that some people's power supplies cannot reach. So you have to be careful what power supply and motherboard you will use as the motherboard's power connector's placement matter. If not then you will have to buy an extension cable.

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highly recommended

Strengths: This is the revised P180, you 'CAN' run the power supply connections behind the MB tray! Antec customer service #1 gi....

Weakness: Only me trying to pick the beast up..(grin)

Top of the box ripped open and retaped by UPS. Front bezel top left broke, front door below break bent. Contacted Antec they're sending a new bezel and door assembly.

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The Megan Fox of computer cases

Strengths: Exterior design, separate compartments, quiet, tons of extra space, strategically placed fans

Weakness: heavy, fan next to power supply too close

This is the Megan Fox of computer cases. The design is perfect, alot of thought went into functionality. Everything is compartmentalized in just the right way.

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Antec P180

Strengths: Very durable, looks great, Quiet and ease of installation. Case are very durable, very quiet even with all three fan at high speed. Looks very sharp.

Weakness: LED for Hard Drive is inside the door, when closed you can't see HD activity LED.

The performance and look of this case is awsome, installation was easy especially with the pull out module. Heating is definitely not an issue for this case. I have Intel P5 Extreme Edition 3.73Ghz with Intel stock fan and CPU, CPU idle Temp. at 40C idle, mother board temp was only 29C. All three fan at Low speed. You must get the new power supply from Antec (NeaoHe) to be able to reach mother board PS connector. Great Antec!!!!

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Works for Me!

Strengths: Solid, Quiet, well-designed.

Weakness: Graphics Card Cooler assembley.

Antec has built a very solid, good looking case that works very well for my build. One important point up front- go with an Antec PS as the PS compartment can be a nightmare if you don't. I went with an Antec NeoHE 500W and had plenty of room and no trouble getting cables through slot into main compartment. Case is virtually quiet with fans set on default settings. I did move the top fan to the front to pull air into the case as my Zalman 9500 is mounted vertically so it's actually blowing air out the top. The Graphics Card cooling part is about worthless. Very big and bulky and as mentioned before no air filter so you have to ask if you really want to restrict airflow in the case or blow dirty air in. On top of that, it wouldn't fit back into mine anyway because it rubbed up against the 9500 - that thing is a monster if you haven't seen one in person, but it works very, very well. Bottom line - for $120 this case is a very good deal.

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Antec p180, a good case for the well informed

Strengths: stylish look, plenty of setup options, silent operation

Weakness: no side panel window, hdd lights are covered when door is closed

Before you choose this case you have to know a few things. First, the setup of the case makes it hard to organize the cables inside, it's possible to do it, just that it will take longer. Secondly, there have been issues with few power supplies not having long enough cables to reach the connections from the bottom chamber to the motherboard.

I used this case for my 2nd system I've built, although it took longer to set up because of the architecture of the case it was well worth it. The 120mm fans provide good cooling with decent air flow movement, I use them at medium speed and they are very silent. Again I would only recommend this case to experienced and patient users.

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Antec Performance One P180

TestSeek.com has collected 26 expert reviews for Antec Performance One P180 and the average expert rating is 92 of 100. The average score reflects the expert community’s view on this product. Click below and use TestSeek.com to find all ratings, product awards and conclusions.

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Antec P180: The Whole Nine Yards

The P180 is not a beginner's case. In the right hands, it has the potential to outdo almost any other case on the market in terms of noise and thermals, but some knowledge of thermodynamics and acoustics is necessary to get the most out of it. A beginner may be luckier with the P180 than another case because the choice of hard drive and power supply are less crucial, but the cable installation...

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