Antec P180B Case Review

(This review sucks without pictures, I'm sorry. Maybe I can borrow my roommate's camera.)

Introduction

I received my P180B case in the mail yesterday. I got it via UPS ground so I was terribly nervous but I couldn't pass up free shipping from Newegg. Luckily, there was only a small hole in the box, which didn't effect the case at all. I was worried the whole side would have been smashed in and the case dented. I got one past UPS this time...

What I was looking for in a case

I'm picky. If I'm going to spend $100-200 on a case (this was $130), I want it to be perfect. I wanted a case with a door. I rarely use my DVD drive so it's not bothersome to have to open the door and it helps quiet everything down (the noisy DVD drive is definitely muted with the door shut). I like things sleek and stylish, I had no intention of getting a flashy gaming case. I understand that mesh cools better (my PSU is meshed) but it's ugly and that's more important to me. I wanted the front ports to be on the top (the P180B has them low on the front sadly). I also wanted a nice quality case that will last me at least 5-10 years (until ATX goes out of fashion). I got most of what I wanted in the P180B.

O_O

The first thing you notice is - "it's HUGE! Is a full-tower? I thought it was a mid-tower..." Well, Antec calls it a "Super Mid Tower", which is essentially somewhere inbetween a full and a mid. UPS said it weighs 37lbs and I believe - this thing is steel and it's not going anywhere, especially when you fill it up with parts. It's big and it's black, it's not quite mirrored but it's also kinda shiny, in a black-hole sort of way. It also reminded me of a B-2 stealth bomber. It matches my monitor and UPS but I guess I'll need to paint my router then so it's not Linksys blue >.< Unfortunately, seeing as it's shiny, it also will probably be a dust-magnet.

P180B == P182

As a note, this is a revision ahead of the original P180 and essentially the same as the P182. I'm not even sure the exact differences but they're minuscule, if even present. The P180 is available in a greyish color, the P180B in black and the P182 in "gunmetal grey" or expensive "special edition mirrored". I wanted black.

Why pay $130 for a steel box?

It's not the cheapest case around. I'm used to cheap cases - they're beige, steel and plastic and come with uber-cheap no-name PSUs in them and cost $20-30. All the cases I've ever had were like that. After all, isn't a case just a big steel box? When I was young, I couldn't imagine who would pay over $100 for a box? The P180B is more than just a box, it is a box of boxes. Everything has a box - the PSU has it's own cage, there are two removable drive cages (the 5.25" slots aren't removable but the 3.5" hold 2x3 hard drives). Hell, there's even an empty plastic box attached to the middle drive cage for all your screws, pin out diagrams, software licenses, etc. One review compared it (actually the P190 full-tower) to those Russian dolls - boxes inside of boxes.

The manual, or lack thereof

There is a manual but it tells you little about assembling your case. Directions are vague (although not Engrish) and there are no pictures to guide you. There are also no diagrams for the different types of screws and there are a lot of them! I ended up looking at some other people's rigs on the Internet to solve a couple of tough issues. The lack of documentation is the worst downside to this case.

Powering the beast

Installation was not the easiest thing in the world, starting with the PSU. I have a Hiper Type-R 580W modular PSU which is about two years old. I used to never think about PSUs, they just turn AC into DC, right? You get them for nearly free with the beige el-cheapo cases, why would someone pay money for one? Well, I started having problems - I came back to town and my computer wouldn't turn on. After fiddling with it, it turned on but immediately shut down. Further twiddling resulted in a system that ran but was unstable. When I received some money for school, I picked up the PSU that was all the rage a couple years ago. I wanted a modular one and I wanted it black and sexy. So, I paid about $120 for it and my dormmates thought I was nuts (silly girls just didn't understand... that's okay, one watched the Super Bowl intently and I just don't understand that.) It's been rock-solid ever since and I love it.

The PSU is installed at the bottom of the case instead of the top but the motherboard isn't inverted so you have to be able to get the ATX power up to the top, I'm sure with some PSUs, it will be tight. Well, woe to you moreso with even longer PSUs because I barely was able to make mine fit and it took some squeezing. Having modular PSU connectors make it longer and there is a fan right there which isn't easily removable and even if I did, I'd have to get it back on (or not, I'm not running RAID 0 Raptors or anything). You could also remove that fan and put it in front of the hard drives but that would be louder.

Routing the blood

Being modular, I decided on three molex cables - one for the DVD, one for the hard drives, and one for the fans. This way, cables could stay pretty out of the way from each other. The fans are powered by molex pass-throughs instead of the tiny 3 prong fan connector. I haven't looked too closely into how to hook them up to a fan controller but I think I have mine out in the shed so I might try it later (I can also see temps then). The top and back fans have controls for Low, Medium and High on tiny switches in the back. The bottom fan lacks an accessible speed control, it's on a little switch just hanging inside so you have to open the case to get to it. I might be able to thread it through where the PSU is living but I don't want to mess with it too much more, it was a pain!

So I pushed a short and medium molex through the slot to the main part of the case and the long one I ran behind the (non-removable) motherboard tray and down through a hole in the top to my DVD drive. Another went up through one side of the divider and down through the other to reach the hard drives. I decided to link all the fans together via the pass-through connectors and placed the bundle below the PCI slots, where the water-cooling ports are. I haven't attached them to the case yet, I haven't finalized my wiring.

Braaaains!

The motherboard installation was simple and there is even a standard backplate provided (I didn't have one on this old board, it was permanently attached to the name-brand case). There were only three brass standoffs provided and I didn't have any extras. Anyway, if it was any higher off of the tray, it wouldn't have fit in the backplate. Maybe I'll feel differently later with my next motherboard.

A freight train on rails

Here is where I felt like a total newbie. I've never used drive rails before. They seemed simple enough - screw them onto your drives and slide them into the hard drive cage. So I tried that with the 5.25" external slots. You pull the plastic cover off and then twist the punched-out steel until it breaks. I screwed the rails on and tried to slide them in so that they matched the hard drives. They ran into a stopper so I moved them to the next hole, still sticks out, next hole, hmm, well the door will close but this can't be right. I tried and tried, I even popped the motherboard out to be able to try from the back but that didn't work. Grrrr... I looked online to see where other people's metal prongs latched on and I couldn't tell.

I finally had an epiphany: "Perhaps I'm doing it backwards, perhaps the metal prongs stick out the front! That would look funny, but it might work." *slide* and *click*, That does mean there is shiny silver metal visible from the front (spraypaint?) but it's right.

If you actually read the manual, it helps. "Make sure the metal portion is angled on the outside and facing forward." Ah well, whatever, it's in there now... >.<

I think I like the rail system now that I've messed with it a little. It just takes some getting used to but it's nice to not have to take off the other panel or to screw at odd angles.

Conclusion

It took me a bit of extra effort to get this case together, both because of the parts I had and because of my own ignorance. Patience is a virtue but when it's done, it looks pretty nice. I am going to rewire it when I buy my CPU/MB/RAM combo in the next couple of months and see what I can come up with.

So I've only had this case less than 24 hours so I'm not ready to put a final rating on it but I'm going with 4.5/5 for now. One mark off for no pictures in the manual (although it's in 6 different languages...) and for being difficult to work with in the PSU area. From reading other people's reviews, it's definitely a step up from the original P180 because they listened to people's criticisms and that's what is important. It's a big sucker so be aware of that, it dwarfs the mATX mini-towers that are so popular now but it's the perfect house for a watercooled, quad-core, SLI rig with 4 hard drives. Just be aware of its limitations with regards to the PSU and you're good. It really is a nice case.

(Hopefully photos soon!)