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
Conclusion: A Matter of Time and Preference
It was probably unreasonable to expect better thermals out of the Antec P280. The enclosure isn't a homerun, at least not in its stock configuration, but it's most definitely a strong base hit. While competing with Corsair's Carbide 500R and Obsidian 650D means taking a look at what your priorities are, it really invites direct comparison to Fractal Design's Define R3, an enclosure that many enthusiasts found themselves recommending over the incumbent P180 series.
That comparison is a tough one. The Fractal Design enclosure is cheaper, has more room for 3.5" drives, and I'm frankly more enamored with the acoustic dampening in it than I am with Antec's P280. Having those internally covered mounts is a nice touch, giving the end user more flexibility with how they want to configure the R3. On the other hand, I like the looks of the P280 more. The enclosure is bigger and easier to work in, and has more room for expanding the system inside. There's plenty of space for mounting a good, thick 240mm radiator at the top, cable routing is slightly better, and the two internal fan mounts invite experimentation. Antec's P280 also has better ventilation in the front for taking in fresh air. Test results suggest a close match up, but I just get a better feeling from the P280. It's a situation where I can easily see some users going for the Define R3 and some users going for the P280; if it were my money, I'd personally spend the extra dosh on the P280, but I wouldn't dream of faulting anyone for choosing the Define R3 instead.
Antec's engineers made an awful lot of changes when they designed the P280, and it's fantastic to see the kind of innovation here that I used to expect fairly regularly from them. They took a lot of the best ideas from existing designs and applied some of their own, and the result is an enclosure that in many ways feels like a grand experiment. If you like tinkering with your system, I probably couldn't recommend the P280 enough. If you were in the market for a silent performance case in the sub-$200 range, either the Define R3 or P280 would serve you well (going north of $200 means picking up my personal favorite, the SilverStone FT02.)
The P180 saw two important revisions in its lifetime, with the P182 and P183 both improving somewhat on their predecessor's designs. I think the P280 is an excellent first draft that I could happily recommend, but what I'm really curious to see is where Antec opts to revise the design. There are a lot of good ideas here and the more adventurous users will probably have a lot of fun with it. I'm not entirely certain this was the enclosure you were waiting for, but it's definitely a strong step forward and certainly worth considering.
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TemjinGold - Tuesday, November 15, 2011 - link
I really liked the concept of the P180 Mini because I hate big bulky cases. I will never have more than 2 HDs and 1 SSD and I will never use more than 1 gfx card. I also like uATX motherboards. Any idea if there are plans for a P280 Mini or sorts?danjw - Tuesday, November 15, 2011 - link
I was looking at the product page for the P180 mini a couple weeks ago and that was up said "P183 mini", it has since been changed back. So that suggests they are getting close to a release of an update to it.danjw - Tuesday, November 15, 2011 - link
Opps, just reread this I meant, "... the image that was up ..."albiglan - Tuesday, November 15, 2011 - link
Wasn't there a problem on the P183 that the USB3 connections for the front panel were routed in a "flimsy/cheap" manner? I assume from the lack of coverage on the built in wiring that all is well and good now? Thx for the review! Glad to see Antec is on a better path with this case...haukionkannel - Tuesday, November 15, 2011 - link
It would be nice to see how this new P280 compares to P183. The P280 is easier to assemble, but how about acoustic and temperatures. Are they better or worse in P280?I am happy owner of original P180. It is really a pain in tha ass to assemble, but otherwise very good and quiet case. So it would be nice to see some results of how taking the dual cahmber away has change the things.
tomek1984 - Tuesday, November 15, 2011 - link
I got one of the first versions of P180, and it's still one of my favorite cases today. I never saw any real advantage of the dual chamber but it did help in cleaning big cable cluster. The only problem i had with this case, was trying to install long video card, basically you cant, unless you take out top hard drive cage. So this new design is quite an improvement.My only hope is to see a case which will equal Cooler Master Cosmos 1000 in exterior appearance. It was the first case i had to use a grinder during assembly and the case quality control is not existent ( most screws barely aligned and cable management was completely useless), but that case is second to none in exterior appearance ( together with P180 the only two options i will ever consider in my living room), handle bars also come in very handy when you have to move it around.
Metaluna - Tuesday, November 15, 2011 - link
The main advantage of dual chamber is that you can cool the hard drives using the PSU exhaust fan only (the middle fan is pretty useless unless you've got four 15k rpm SAS drives down there). It also isolates the PSU from the GPU, though you probably get most of that benefit from just having the PSU at the bottom without the partition.That said, I've always hated the removable drive cage down in that chamber. Such a pain to work with.
bobbozzo - Tuesday, November 15, 2011 - link
And mounting spinning drives vertically (in the P180) often is discouraged, forcing one to move the drives to the other bays. I also moved the lower bay fan to the front of the upper drive bay.bigboxes - Tuesday, April 10, 2012 - link
It makes no difference on a drive's orientation. Also, the P183 has removed the fan from the middle. However I added a 120mm in front of the hard drives... all mounted vertically (that's the C: drive and three download drives). The only drive that has died in this case was mounted horizontally in the upper hard drive chamber.http://i256.photobucket.com/albums/hh175/bigboxes/...
8steve8 - Tuesday, November 15, 2011 - link
full size ATX is dead, (or should be)other than graphics, no one buys expansion cards... micro-atx should be the large board for people who want custom features/expansions, and mini-itx should be the mainstream size.
I wish chassis developers would put more effort into smaller sizes.