Antec P100 Case Review

The Build

In the blurb that comes with the product Antec claim to be doing their bit to save the planet by not including a traditional paper instruction manual.  Instead they point you at their website and the access to an e-manual.  Unfortunately when you get there, the cupboard is bare, and although there is a header showing you where the manual should be located there’s actually nothing to download.  For those of us in firm possession of their Man card this is no big deal, we’re men after all and we can work this out for ourselves.  If however you’re a namby pamby “new age” sort of  person who has “feelings”, or are perhaps new to the PC case and PC building world this could be a cause of perturbation. 

     

 

The PSU when inserted doesn’t efface the side of the case.  We assume that rather than poor measurement tolerance being the cause Antec have actually designed it this way deliberately to reduce the vibration of the PSU through to the motherboard panel.  With the cables fed through it’s clear to us that we’re going to have to find another route for the front I/O cables as feeding them through the hole immediately above the tie points doesn’t leave enough length for them to reach their destinations.

    

 

In the image below left you can see how busy the roof of the case is.  We think we can get it a bit tidier than this though.  Certainly down at the base of the PSU the management hole is perfectly placed to allow cables to exit cleanly.

    

 

Things are looking a lot tidier now, with the front I/O cables re routed to a hole beside the 5.25″ bay.  The USB and Audio cables are still routed through the original hole, partly because they have enough length to make it all the way, but mainly because they won’t fit through the other hole.  There are cable tie points that could be used to route your 8pin CPU cable diagonally up to the edge of the case, however we’ve chosen our usual route which involves stuffing the cable into the side panel recess well out of sight and mind.  All in all not a bad job

       

 

The CPU cut out is more stuffed than a Turkey on Christmas day but is still holding on thanks to those clever grommets.  Up top you can see how we’ve split and re routed the Front I/O cables.  Any other way and they just won’t reach.

    

 

With everything in we can get an idea of proportion and interior space.  All is present and correct with lots of room to work in, especially around the CPU cooler area.  We’re particularly pleased with the grommeted management holes.