Antec P280 Review: When Enthusiasts Are Engineers
by Dustin Sklavos on November 15, 2011 10:20 AM EST- Posted in
- Cases/Cooling/PSUs
- Antec
- P280
Noise and Thermal Testing, Overclocked
Here's where we separate the men from the boys. Our overclocked test bed has proven to be very stressful on "less prepared" enclosures, and this is hopefully going to produce some more decisive results. So far, Antec's P280 has put in a strong performance, offering decent thermals with low acoustics, but it's still competing pretty squarely with Fractal Design's Define R3, an enclosure that costs between $30 and $40 less. The R3 lost a lot of steam in our overclocked testing, though. Can the P280 pick up the slack?
Unfortunately, while most of the other components are running pretty frosty, the P280 has a hard time dealing with the substantially increased thermal load of the overclocked i7-875K. What we can glean from the results is that it's able to mostly manage overall ambient temperature, and the GeForce GTX 580 runs nice and cool compared to some of the other cases, but the processor may just not be getting enough cool air running through it. The P280 supports 240mm radiators, and getting one in there may not be a bad idea.
Once again it's hard to justify running the fans at their high setting. At their low setting the P280 is nice and quiet at idle, though load performance is dicier. Once again the P280 is in the same general ballpark as Fractal Design's up and comer.
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deararis - Thursday, November 17, 2011 - link
Oh I want one!rak500 - Thursday, November 17, 2011 - link
I'm a big fan of Antec products but I must admit I am disapointed in the lack of CP PSU series compatibility!Still looks fabulous though, I will most definitely get that for my next build!
winglerw28 - Thursday, November 17, 2011 - link
I always remembered holding off on a P182 for cost restrictions and because of the middle bar, and I'm glad I did that because it looks like the P280 is fantastic in comparison. I wish my case could be anywhere near as quiet as some of the systems shown here :Pscottmchsd - Thursday, November 17, 2011 - link
Good looking caseas1099 - Thursday, November 17, 2011 - link
The thing about cases is that they last so long. I'm still using the Antec SL-3000B (i think that's what it was called) which i bought for GBP35 7 years ago. It's witnessed 3 different builds and many upgrades besides.However, this very thorough review of an apparently awesome case may be my reason to finally upgrade! The whole cable routing thing will be totally new to me, having not purchased an enclosure since 2004...
GLudlow - Thursday, November 17, 2011 - link
I prefer these lower-profile cases to the more visually busy ones.vrmuds - Thursday, November 17, 2011 - link
Looks pretty cool!bkiserx7 - Thursday, November 17, 2011 - link
even sexier than my ole P180B...droolAlexvrb - Thursday, November 17, 2011 - link
This would look great on my mantle! I mean desk!intelpen2002 - Thursday, November 17, 2011 - link
This case takes best ideas from existing models and combine them with a few original ones to give one of the best of it class. Very good product overall.