Antec P182 Performance Mid-Tower

[Rob Williams]

It's a well-known fact that Antec produces some of the best cases on the market, and the P182 is a perfect example of that. We have here a case that looks great, packs a lot of smarts and is efficient, all at a price that's easy to swallow.

You can read the full review here and discuss it here.

You seem to have completely missed the main point of the P182 update over the P180 - if you'd taken the other side panel off, you'd have seen how most of the cabling is intended to go *behind* the motherboard tray, eliminating the rat's nest you created.

[Greg King]

In defense of the review, a lot of the cables seen in that "rats nest" are unroutable behind the motherboard tray. The back fan for instance, there is no way to route that behind anything. You could route a 4-pin molex behind the motherboard tray I suppose but you would still have to take that fan cable somewhere towards the front. I can see how the ability to snake the power cables behind the tray would be useful but sometimes, dependent on the power supply, the cables just aren't long enough. Another instance would be the SATA and IDE cables. In my opinion, those are just as ugly as the power cables and far more difficult to hide.

I understand where you are coming from, the mention of this feature would have been nice and can actually be added into the review, but to deem the build a rats nest because a feature of the case that only a handful of cables could have used, wasn't mentioned or applied, is jumping the gun a bit.

[Greg King]

Also....

As an owner of the original P180, my only main concern with both designs was the placement of the cabling pass through hole. While I have never had a PhysX card in that case, I have had problems with my sound card clearing the cables coming out of the bottom. I would personally move the hole up 2-3 inches, do away with the 120mm fan in the middle and move it to the front of the case. This would set the bottom hard drive cage back a few inches but would easily eliminate the cramped feel that is there when the fan is installed. Thats my 2 cents on the design. Outside of that, I have yet to find a case that matches Antec's rubber gromet approach to mounting a hard drive. Rails and screws are fine, but Antec nailed that part of the installation.

Hey - you used the P182 as if it were a P180!

With P182 you can route all cables behind the motherboard tray so that no cables run through the lower deck hole (other than the IDE or SATA data cables if you have drives in the lower bay). Antec provides pre-installed straps just for that on the tray's backside. Same goes for the wiring to the two Tricool fans at the top (and the front fan too, for that matter). Speaking of which, the front fan does not need to be screwed on the case. The black plastic holder is removable (press inward on the clap and at the same time pull to get it out). It's the same mechanism as for the fan between the PS and the HDD cage.

I think your review was well written, but it doesn't do justice to the amount of flexibility this case provides for clean wiring.

Originally Posted by DarkSynergy

In defense of the review, a lot of the cables seen in that "rats nest" are unroutable behind the motherboard tray. The back fan for instance, there is no way to route that behind anything.

That is false. You can route them quite easily - check other reviews. My case is a P182 and I had no problems doing so.

Originally Posted by DarkSynergy

Another instance would be the SATA and IDE cables. In my opinion, those are just as ugly as the power cables and far more difficult to hide.

I don't think that the main PS cable is quite the same as a SATA cable.

Originally Posted by DarkSynergy

I understand where you are coming from, the mention of this feature would have been nice and can actually be added into the review, but to deem the build a rats nest because a feature of the case that only a handful of cables could have used, wasn't mentioned or applied, is jumping the gun a bit.

Routing the PS cable behind the tray does not require any additional wire length. The only possible difficulty is the 4-pin connector, which is usually at the top of the MB. This can be a problem with cheap OEM power supplies (still fixable with a $0.99 extender). However, this case is targeted at enthusiasts which are unlikely to make such PS choices. Your choice not to use what many see as the main added feature of P182 compared to P180 is questionable.

[Rob Williams]

In the reviews defense, the author can be an idiot at times. While writing, I always refer to my big pile of photos that I took during the review process. For some reason, the photos I took of the few wires I routed were not in that pile, so down to crunch time, I ended up overlooking it. I have added a small paragraph in the review and a link to this thread so others can read more about it.

I would go ahead and begin routing more cables, but I swap motherboards often, and that case is not ideal for that in the first place.

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Routing the PS cable behind the tray does not require any additional wire length. The only possible difficulty is the 4-pin connector, which is usually at the top of the MB. This can be a problem with cheap OEM power supplies (still fixable with a $0.99 extender). However, this case is targeted at enthusiasts which are unlikely to make such PS choices. .

An Antec 650W TruePower Trio! is a bad choice then? the 8-pin motherboard cable is too short to route through the back, had to do it from the front

// JMke|Madshrimps.be

[Rob Williams]

Originally Posted by Unregistered

An Antec 650W TruePower Trio! is a bad choice then? the 8-pin motherboard cable is too short to route through the back, had to do it from the front

// JMke|Madshrimps.be

You did a far better job with the routing than I did JMke

[Rob Williams]

I had to swap motherboards today, so I decided to do things the right way. Now that things are organized the way they are supposed to be, I love the case even more. With all those cables out of the way, swapping motherboards should prove a simple task.

Robin:
This Antec P182 sounds great. I am looking to build a new unit and want to put a Gigabyte GA-965P-DQ6 inside...maybe with a Thermaltake V1 cooler. I noticed you have a liquid setup...how is that working? Your GPU was running about 146º F. The temp on the CPU was great.

Does anyone know if a Silverstone Zeus 750w PSU will fit in this case, and are the cables long enough? And would the bottom chamber fan have to be removed?

Will removing the bottom fan make four HDDs in the bottom chamber overheat?

Originally Posted by lfh003

Robin:
This Antec P182 sounds great. I am looking to build a new unit and want to put a Gigabyte GA-965P-DQ6 inside...maybe with a Thermaltake V1 cooler. I noticed you have a liquid setup...how is that working? Your GPU was running about 146º F. The temp on the CPU was great.

In the pics it looks as though he only has the CPU WC'd,a dn the GPU Air cooled.

This would give reason to the temps you saw.

[Rob Williams]

In preparing this chassis for some benchmarking, I decided I wanted to put a big fan in front of the bottom HDD bay in order to suck in cool air from the outside and push it through all three drives I have installed there. That desire was short-lived though, since I could not fit one in there, and could not figure out how to remove any pieces of the case in order to fit one in there.

It looks like that spot is designed for a fan... but am I wrong? What am I overlooking? I assume that a fan is meant for there, because the drives can get hot, especially when you clump a bunch all together.

[Rory Buszka]

The fan is supposed to go between the hard drives and the power supply, in the middle of that 'tunnel' thing. There's a sliding door there to keep airflow nice and orderly through the tunnel after you route the cables. That's your fan for keeping the bottom hard drive cage cool.