My Antec P182 Review -Not so happy
- Thread starter HighlandeR
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The HDD frame at the bottom DOES come out!
a Fan can be placed on the bulkhead behind them (inbetween the HDDS and the PSU)
after removing the middle HDD cage you can place a fan onto the front of the case, excellent cooling for an 8800GTX.
i had NO problems routing cable around my P182.
if you wanted a case so big, why not splash out on a MountainMods UFO cube-case or something.
you're being unduly picky to a very good case.
a Fan can be placed on the bulkhead behind them (inbetween the HDDS and the PSU)
after removing the middle HDD cage you can place a fan onto the front of the case, excellent cooling for an 8800GTX.
i had NO problems routing cable around my P182.
if you wanted a case so big, why not splash out on a MountainMods UFO cube-case or something.
you're being unduly picky to a very good case.
Caporegime
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mountain mods cases are so incredibly tacky looking, people used to put those standard chrome grills on dodgey looking custom blowholes before cases started to come with 120mm fans and fans in side panels. a case with eleventy billion chrome grills just look pap IMHO.
other than being big that don't have much actual thought put into design, holes, air flow path or decent noise prevention.
afaik can tell the main 182 mobo space has one optional intake at the front infront of hdd bay(not sure if you can have one there with hdd cage there), then 2x120mm fans pulling air out the top which isn't that balanced. but there really is a problem with lack of options for proper cooling of memory and mosfets/chipset cooling, especially when watercooled too and no downwards airflow from a cpu heatsink fan, and now almost all the decent heatsinks have sideways flowing fans which don't cool mem/mosfets/chipset either.
other than being big that don't have much actual thought put into design, holes, air flow path or decent noise prevention.
afaik can tell the main 182 mobo space has one optional intake at the front infront of hdd bay(not sure if you can have one there with hdd cage there), then 2x120mm fans pulling air out the top which isn't that balanced. but there really is a problem with lack of options for proper cooling of memory and mosfets/chipset cooling, especially when watercooled too and no downwards airflow from a cpu heatsink fan, and now almost all the decent heatsinks have sideways flowing fans which don't cool mem/mosfets/chipset either.
I got an 8800 ultra in my 900, got about an inch of space between it an the drive bay, just have to take off that black thing and move hdd to bottom rack.
Caporegime
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its the case i have now, its good but, i just get peeved. antec started the sideways mounted drives with the sonata, with added silicon thingymajiggys to help prevent vibration and noise. i have 5 drives, so minimum of two bays with drives in, which means when i put the gtx in i had to change hdd's about so it sloted inbetween the two in the upper hdd bay. but i can't see a single reason to change the sideways antec style drive mounting, its quieter, better, uses the width more effectively as basically all cases have perfect minimum width needs to fit a hdd. but it cuts out how far the stick into the mobo tray area which is a problem in so many cases.
but more than anything, because of cable routing and space its miles easier to swap out hard drives when they are sideways, in a tray that slides out rather than take whole bays out which are screwed in on both sides. hdd's are probably the most often installed/removed part of a computer so the sonata style mounting is better in every single way.
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The frame can come out? how please enlighten us
cos id like to put a 120mm fan there.The fan inbetween the hdd/ps is pointless for me cos theres no space and too many wires there my corsair 620 while modular has a bundle of wires that are not modular quite.
As for routing, well my P4 cable wouldnt reach and I have 3 sata hdds/Xfi power cable and few others so yeah took a bit of time for the cable managment.... but im not complaining about that too much cos hey it has the option for cable managment at least!
Yeah I shoulda gone for a much bigger/better case one where I could work with more confortable and easier with. Big cases help but so does air flow impact.
Yeah im being picky thats just me
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Still loved it, but the front panel I dunno what happen to mine I think I took it off so many times it got loose and caused a nasty vibration between it and the alu panels on the sides...
I shoulda done what todays or "good" cases do they have rubber silicon linings around the case panels to prevent this issue.
Still I didnt notice the issue really much just once in a blue mood id wake up to my pc making some cat like whine
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Could have been the hdd but it was enclosed in a scythe hdd enclosure which cut noise from the hdd by 80% but I know when I took the front panel off for a month never noticed the vibrations
Sorta suspected the front plasticy case was the fault + it never clicked solidly in place.... but could never tell cos use to get vibrations from the side panels even.
Either way stunning case definatly top on the list...
Sorta suspected the front plasticy case was the fault + it never clicked solidly in place.... but could never tell cos use to get vibrations from the side panels even.
Either way stunning case definatly top on the list...
I agree even though i like my eclipse i do have gripes mainly the royal pain it is to have to undo and take off both side panels to clean the filter.
Other than that i have no issues with it i am not bothered about the front looks no worse than the black plastic you get on monitors.
It is beyond me why they don't make a new eclipse with an aluminum front panel that can be taken off by the press of a button make it say 5 inches taller and they will have the best case going.
Can i suggest you take a look at the coolermaster stacker as i think that may be your perfect case.I am sure you know all about it anyway.
Other than that i have no issues with it i am not bothered about the front looks no worse than the black plastic you get on monitors.
It is beyond me why they don't make a new eclipse with an aluminum front panel that can be taken off by the press of a button make it say 5 inches taller and they will have the best case going.
Can i suggest you take a look at the coolermaster stacker as i think that may be your perfect case.I am sure you know all about it anyway.
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Yeah was looking at the stackers... gonna check more, + this Antec 1200 need it to come out like tommorow lol, even the thermaltake armour cases look quite stacker/antec typish cases look good.
I went for the 900 over the 182 simply because it looked too cramped, the case itself is very compact inside and not very well thought out for routing cables, although the 900 has the same issues it does cool extremely well but looks like a LAN gaming case.
The 190 seems to be the better Antec case out of the lot with the looks of the 180 / 182 with good cooling but it comes at a price!
DeadMan
The 190 seems to be the better Antec case out of the lot with the looks of the 180 / 182 with good cooling but it comes at a price!
DeadMan
"I went for the 900 over the 182 simply because it looked too cramped"
The 900 is so much smaller than the P182 internally and better layed out..
I did look at the 900 but didn't fancy the cramped space and the bad cable management it offered, hence I bought the P182 
I do think the 182 is too cramped, compared to the Stacker. I was trying to connect a IDE connector and there isn't much space between motherboard and edge of 5.25" bays. The case needs to be around 2" deeper (also help with bottom fan being further from SATA cables)
The Stacker and the P182 are relatively the same regarding space (I know as I own both) Stacker is just a big open space inside, the P182 is split into component compartments and does require good cable management, agreed with the IDE cabling... But with a SATA HDD & SATA DVD Drive cabling is a "Breeze" compared to the bulkiness of the old IDE Cables...
Both excellent cases and both need to be approched in diffrent ways when building your rig...
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I didnt notice the sound dampening kicking in tbh....with usual cases when u put that side case back on yeah it does dampen the noise naturally.
But with the antec 182 side panel when I put it on it just sounded almost the same lol
And I had 3x notuana 8db case fans inside.
Antec 900 over 182, id still say the 900 felt the better of the two overall. My GTX and hdds had direct cooling and temps were simply amazing I dont think the Antec 182 can get remotely close to the cooling abilities of the Antec 900. And since it offered direct GTX/Hdd cooling I only required 2 case fans on front so noise was same if not better over antec 182.
Both were cramped with GTXs hitting "almost" the end of the case (unless mid cage removed on 182) but imo its a sign of a bad case, I could have idealy liked to put the fan on the end of that mid bay and cool the GTX without issues.
As a side note I was wrong in my review the bottom fan intact does have vent holes "open" so air can go thru the bottom, shame theres no space for a fan behind it!
But with the antec 182 side panel when I put it on it just sounded almost the same lol
And I had 3x notuana 8db case fans inside.
Antec 900 over 182, id still say the 900 felt the better of the two overall. My GTX and hdds had direct cooling and temps were simply amazing I dont think the Antec 182 can get remotely close to the cooling abilities of the Antec 900. And since it offered direct GTX/Hdd cooling I only required 2 case fans on front so noise was same if not better over antec 182.
Both were cramped with GTXs hitting "almost" the end of the case (unless mid cage removed on 182) but imo its a sign of a bad case, I could have idealy liked to put the fan on the end of that mid bay and cool the GTX without issues.
As a side note I was wrong in my review the bottom fan intact does have vent holes "open" so air can go thru the bottom, shame theres no space for a fan behind it!
Associate
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Case weighs a metric ton.
Associate
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Not true about no space for a fan. Plenty of us have a 120mm fan in place down there and if you read earlier the exact fan is quoted - Shame it isn't a standard fan though so I will agree with you on that point.