Antec P180b ATX Case

Installation of components

To test the thermal properties and quietness of this case I installed some parts I had lying around:

AMD 64 3200+ Venice skt 939
AMD Stock Heatpipe Cooler from an X2
Abit AT8 32x Motherboard
Sapphire X1600Pro
1gb OCZ Platinum Rev 2 TCCD
Hitachi Deskstar SATA II 160gb HDD
Pioneer DVD-RW
Silverstone Strider 560w PSU

There is a manual with the case and some additional paper that goes over some of the installation procedures. I did feel that this was slightly inadequate for installation as I could have done with perhaps a couple of pictures as pointers. Having said that: most case manuals are pretty poor and Antec’s provided manual was better than most.

Cable Tidying

Cable tidying was a slight issue with this case. I did my best but the results weren’t as good as I have managed with previous cases. However this was a quick tidy during a review so I am sure it could be improved.

The bottom section of the case was separated from the main part of the case by a plastic screen. The metal holes from each chamber can be closed off by a cleverly placed piece of plastic that does up using thumbscrews. The size of the holes can be adjusted to suit what wires you want to put through the hole.

It is also worth mentioning that Antec have provided wire-tidying with their front-input cables. This is very impressive and shows how Antec have put that little bit of extra thought into the overall package with the case.

I used the easy-to-install top HDD area to install the HDD’s into the case. Installation was a breeze and cabling here wasn’t as difficult:

Installation took a little longer than I would have thought with such a basic system inside but this is perhaps because I am slightly fussy with wire routing. Generally the case was easy to install to and for a ‘Super Midi’ tower not too hard or fiddly.

The PSU was very easy to fit with a removable holder around it. It stands on a rubber surround in the case for noise dampening. Yet again: another nice touch from Antec.

All in all the case was easy to install to and I think the result looks ok. I think a couple more hours and you could get this case cable-free without the time limitations of a review. I am impressed with the quality built interior of the Antec P180b

Sound and Thermal performance

I did not measure the thermal performance or sound with any measuring devices but thought that this was worth a mention at this stage. Once turned on the system is very quiet. Apart from the slightly noisy X1600 fan I could barely notice the PC was turned on. This is a testament to Antec’s three-layer design and included very quiet case fans. The system also stayed at a very reasonable temperature. I would definitely recommend this case to those wishing for silence in their enclosures.

As you can see the case does a great job of dissapating heat from the system. The temperature in this room is currently very high but the P180B maintains a very cool (comparatively) 30°C. This managed to keep the CPU temperature nice and low.