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
Assembling the Antec P280
If you ever dreaded assembling or working in Antec's P180 series, the P280 is going to seem like a breath of fresh air. The interior is incredibly spacious, but not just that...Antec has produced an enclosure that is nearly as easy to work inside as any of Corsair's (still the standard for ease of assembly as far as I'm concerned.)
The two side panels are held on by thumbscrews and are extremely easy to remove. From there, Antec has included six mounting screws for the motherboard and includes the rest in a kit with the enclosure. Our I/O shield snapped into place easily enough, and the board went in without any fuss. Wiring things up was a little bit trickier; it would've been nice if Antec had routed the cables through the motherboard tray in the first place and bound the motherboard headers together, but once you do it yourself the inside feels a lot cleaner.
As for mounting drives, that's more of a mixed bag. I had to pretty much jimmy the optical drive in, applying force until it eventually just went all the way in. On the flipside, the toolless locking mechanism is incredibly secure (although you can still use screws if you're so inclined.) This is still a big improvement over having to manually attach rails to the ODD. The 3.5" drive trays are sturdy enough, though remember to stash the screws in a safe place for when you want to add additional drives. Where things do get a bit tricky is in the 2.5" toolless cage: SSDs slide in pretty firmly (I'd really recommend against putting a mechanical drive in here), but it doesn't feel super secure, and you'll want to route cables through the cage ahead of time as it's difficult to access the back of the drive from the other side. There's no locking mechanism either, just the pressure of the cage on the sides of the SSD, although you can use a screw to mount them in place. If you're not a fan of this approach (and I wouldn't fault you), it's worth mentioning 2.5" drives can also be mounted on the drive trays.
Mounting the power supply and video card was easy enough; there's a healthy amount of space inside the enclosure, and things lined up just fine. Where Antec has made their biggest gains, however, is in cable organization. The P180 really pioneered cable management back in the day but by modern standards it's pretty dire. That's not the case with the P280, where there's nearly enough space behind the motherboard tray to stand up a molex connector on its side. Wiring up the P280 was very easy, with copious space above the tray for the AUX 12V line, and plenty of space around the motherboard to squeeze in the side-mounted SATA cables. I also plugged the three included fans into the set of headers in the back of the case, and routing the single molex power cable was a breeze.
Honestly, the P280 is just tremendously roomy and easy to work in, the polar opposite of its predecessor. With the tremendous amount of space behind the motherboard tray, sliding the back panel on required none of the force it usually does with most other enclosures. This is a design that was clearly put together by engineers who also happened to be enthusiasts, and it really shows.
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tzhu07 - Tuesday, November 15, 2011 - link
I agree. I would only buy full ATX if I was going Crossfire or SLI. Since I don't, microATX covers everything I need.kmmatney - Tuesday, November 15, 2011 - link
it's still nice to have a large case, even if you don't have any expansion cards. I have a P-183 just for low noise. It can easily passively cool my HD4890, and I even have a few of the internal fans turned off. If you want a real quiet (but high performance) system, it easier to do with a full ATX system. The room has to be dead quiet to hear any noise from my system.Zoomer - Tuesday, November 15, 2011 - link
I have a microATX board, and thought it was enough. I thought wrong. Between leaving a slot (preferably two) open next to the gfx card, and a sound card, there's only 1 other slot left. This is frequently slot 0, or right between the gfx and cpu. Non optimal.My next buy would be a ATX board. To be honest, I think the best place for the GPU is the very last slot, so that there's plenty of space for the oversized cooler and some clearance, while not blocking any other slots.
Sound card
TV Tuner card (for kicks)
SATA / HW Raid Card or two. This case support 8 storage drives + optical drives. Your recent Intel chipset doesn't.
Additional nic cards
Serial/Parallel card for tinkering with microcontrollers (Thanks Intel)
Extra Firewire, USB
danjw - Tuesday, November 15, 2011 - link
Not so much. There are X79 boards that are coming with 8 memory slots. You aren't fitting that on a Micro ATX case. It looks like they may be working on a mini P183, that should satisfy you.rum - Thursday, November 17, 2011 - link
Not really, especially when it comes to cable management and the such. A bigger case allows you more room to put cables in their place, and when it comes time to upgrading components, you don't have to worry if your case is "big enough" to accomodate that new extra long video card.Not saying this is the right size for everyone, but not everyone has small hands and dainty fingers that makes working with a small case easy.
kevith - Tuesday, November 15, 2011 - link
I'm almost sure, that if you added two front intake fans, the case would be very much cooler. It's only fair to review the case out of the box, but two additional fans is a relatively small cost. In my Antec Sonata 3 that made a very big difference.In a Zalman 100 GS I had, I reversed the two top fans to intake fans instead, and turned over my Arctic Freezer 90 degrees so the CPU fan was blowing downwards. That took 4-5 degrees off overall.
I think the possibilities for different configs makes this a better choice than the Fractal.
And I think it was a good idea with a comparison to the 182/183 as well.
MrSpadge - Tuesday, November 15, 2011 - link
I also wonder why they used 120 mm fans on top. With a case this wide they could have gone for at least 140 mm, maybe even larger.MrS
Mumrik - Tuesday, November 15, 2011 - link
6x 3.5" internally just still doesn't cut it for me. Especially on a case of this size. I'd rather lose one of the 3x 5.25" and get at least 8x 3.5"rrohbeck - Wednesday, November 16, 2011 - link
Define XL FTW: 10x 3.5". I just built with one.Similar looks, design and price but bigger and better features.
emgarf - Tuesday, November 15, 2011 - link
Congrats on an informative review, although it unfortunately doesn't help those of us using a P182/183 decide whether the P280 is acceptably quiet in comparison. It does certainly seem more convenient to work with.