Antec P182 Black Midsize Tower

Quiet and sturdy case

Strengths: Quiet, Cable management, Sturdy

Weakness: PSU chamber needs more room, especially for larger PSUs

With the power supply located at the bottom, it helps reduce turbulence to lower noise from the PSU fan. And with grommets in the hard drive cages, the vibration from the hard drives is reduced, together making the case very quiet overall. Being able to route the PSU cables behind the motherboard tray is a nice touch and makes the cables organized, but it could use a bit more room especially for...
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With the power supply located at the bottom, it helps reduce turbulence to lower noise from the PSU fan. And with grommets in the hard drive cages, the vibration from the hard drives is reduced, together making the case very quiet overall.

Being able to route the PSU cables behind the motherboard tray is a nice touch and makes the cables organized, but it could use a bit more room especially for fatter cables.

The toughest part was getting the PSU into the PSU chamber. I had to temporarily remove the fan that sits in the lower chamber between the PSU and the hard drive cage to insert the PSU (I have a 750W PC P&C). Omitting this fan is not really an option for me since it sucks air into the case to cool the hard drives and expel it out the PSU.

Before buying this case, I would check around to see what PSUs others have successfully been able to install.

By tmorita - Dec 28, 2007

Great case, but not perfect

Strengths: Well thought out design. Silenced my hard drives. Behind-the-scenes cable routing helps with airflow.

Weakness: Expensive. Not as quiet has I hoped. Need newer PSU with long power cables. Tricky installation. Have to open front door to turn on computer.

I upgraded to this case mainly to try to quiet my system, and secondly to help with cooling. While it did help with both, it wasn't as good as I was expecting. First, the hard drive cages are awesome for quieting your hard drives. The rubber grommets make all the difference. I have 2 Western Digital Raptors which are super-noisy, but after mounting them in this case, they are barely noticable. My...
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I upgraded to this case mainly to try to quiet my system, and secondly to help with cooling. While it did help with both, it wasn't as good as I was expecting. First, the hard drive cages are awesome for quieting your hard drives. The rubber grommets make all the difference. I have 2 Western Digital Raptors which are super-noisy, but after mounting them in this case, they are barely noticable. My Seagate 7200.9 is now silent. Also, they are mounted out of the way, in the same compartment as the PSU on the bottom of the case. This clears up clutter and gives the drives dedicated airflow. The bad news is that the other hard drive cage is in the way of my graphics card (nVidia 8800GTX), so I had to take the hard drive mounts out (but not the cage itself). I had a similar problem on my last case too, so it's not totally Antec's fault.

The next thing that makes this case so great is the ability to route most power cables behind the motherboard. This helps immensely with airflow. I even got the huge 24-pin mobo cable to fit behind. On the minus side, you need a newer PSU with very long cables for this to work. Even with a new PSU, I couldn't get one of the 8-pin mobo cables to reach behind, and it barely fit the normal way. Getting all the cables to fit the way you want takes a bit of planning and trial-and-error to get right. Also, my PSU had to be shoe-horned into place. It was just a tad to big for the space Antec left for it (didn't have that problem with my older case).

The biggest complaint I have is that my computer isn't really much quieter. The panels are designed to quiet sound, the case is solid, so what's the problem? Well, it's the fan placement. There is a huge fan on top of the case, and while the fan itself is quiet, this gaping hole allows the noise created by my CPU cooler (Zalman 9700) to escape out the top. If I block this hole with something (like a book), the case is much quieter. But obviously this would hurt the cooling properties of the case long term.

Also, it's a bit expensive. I feel it's worth about $100, but you can't find it for that cheap unless you get a good sale or rebate.

By gman757 - Dec 26, 2007

Great Case, Quiet & Cool

Strengths: Wonderful design, very quiet out of the box, large case

Weakness: None, some things to be aware of though

I replaced an old Xblade case with a new P182 Tower. Given I build my own machines I had a pretty long list of requirements for my case most notably the ability to keep the machine cool, ensure low noise levels and provide good spatial utilization for all of my components. The P182 is the best computer case I have had the fortune of building a new desktop with. It is truly a beautiful case and...
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I replaced an old Xblade case with a new P182 Tower. Given I build my own machines I had a pretty long list of requirements for my case most notably the ability to keep the machine cool, ensure low noise levels and provide good spatial utilization for all of my components.

The P182 is the best computer case I have had the fortune of building a new desktop with. It is truly a beautiful case and Antec put some serious engineering in the design to ensure this machine not only keeps cool but quiet as well. The loudest part of my machine now is the Zalman fan on my video card which will be replaced.

I did encounter some concerns. One, no installation manual was included with the case. I'm not sure if this was just a missing piece in my box or a more widespread problem from the packaging process. Either way there are plenty of resource on the Internet that can provide you with this information, just make sure you do this before you go to build your machine!

The only other concerns (really for others) with this case are the weight and the PSU location. As others have mentioned, this is one heavy case but I knew that going into this project.

More importantly than the weight is the PSU location which is on the bottom, nestled away on its own plane. I love this placement and it is truly amazing at how well this case keeps the heat from the PSU away from all of the other components. I had no problems with my Seasonic PSU but it is worthwhile to reiterate that you will need a PSU with longer cords than the traditional, standard PSU.

Although this case fit my needs perfectly, I feel it is important to note for other shoppers that they need to be aware of the PSU.

By mrieger - Sep 25, 2007

Awesome Case!

Strengths: Great looking, cable management makes for great airflow, easy access to lots of places inside, fantastic workmanship, quiet operation

Weakness: You'll need a PSU with long cables to utilize the cable management design, pretty heavy, larger CPU heatsinks may not fit without removing the overhead case fan

I am very impressed with this case. I used to be a fan of another Japanese case maker that used only aluminum in their construction (and ran for twice as much), but Antec has sold me with this. There are some very minor gripes, as listed above, but nothing is perfect. Actually, this is the closest to perfection I have ever seen a case get.

By Rainking430 - Jul 25, 2007

Super Quiet Case.

Strengths: Looks great, quiet, good cooling.

Weakness: Very large and heavy. Expensive.

This is a great case if you're going to spend some money on a case. It's really quiet and because it's large it's very easy to work inside of it. If you have all the fans set on low it is whisper quiet. It's easily the best case I've ever owned but it's also costs about four times any other case I've ever bought (and it doesn't include a power supply) and weighs twice as much. Though, it has been...
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This is a great case if you're going to spend some money on a case. It's really quiet and because it's large it's very easy to work inside of it. If you have all the fans set on low it is whisper quiet. It's easily the best case I've ever owned but it's also costs about four times any other case I've ever bought (and it doesn't include a power supply) and weighs twice as much. Though, it has been totally worth it to me because it's has so much space inside for hard drives and is both well-cooled as well as quiet.

By Weyland-Yutani - Jun 30, 2007