antec p150

k3v · 26 Apr 2006 at 22:19

HI all,

Im in the process of building a new PC. Im looking at getting either the antec p150 case or the lian-li pc-7 with a suitable PSU. Ill probably go down the intel dual core route but nothing too flash. Any thoughts on these two cases in particular the antec one as I see everyong likes the lian-li case! I gotta admit im leaning towards that one but I cant make my mind up what PSU to use. Im not going to be overclocking to extremes but It would be nice to have a quiter PC to the one i have at the mo, which is a typical beige, home made generic el-cheapo one

thanks in advance

Kev

Yewen · 27 Apr 2006 at 04:25

P150 can have trouble with the stealth cdrom bays breaking if you do not have it perfectly setup.

Only had hands on for 5 minutes in a PC shop in malvern if I remember correctly, but it was ok, nothing special and very overpriced considering its competiton. Left me with a sense of Antec had a great case, but making it fit into a lower price band made them cut corners and end up with something which just feels cheap; in comparisson.

Neither are bad cases, but the PC7+II/PC007 userbase on this forum, with no real bad words to say about it speak for the Lian Li really, the much smaller P150 userbase has voiced its distress twice that I remember; with the same issue.

Antecs aftersales support is better than Lian Li's, but with Lian Li they really don't have any fancy features that could go wrong in the first place.

Lian Li = barebones features, maximum build quality.
Antec = some fancy features, money left on build quality.
Generic gaming case = all money on useless features, no money on build quality so the features don't work or break.

How I see the casing world, personally it is the Lian Li for me, but that is not really a secret is it.

Nix · 27 Apr 2006 at 04:45

If you go for the Lian-Li, you'll probably end up spending more on a decent PSU as the Antec PSUs are usually quite good quality.

My personal preference would be to go with Lian-Li and get a seperate PSU, the cases look practically the same, but Lian-Li are good quality.
If you're looking at saving a bit of money on a PSU too, just get the Antec. Neither are bad choices.

Personally, for a PSU, I'd probably look towards a Hiper or a Tagen.

glitch · 27 Apr 2006 at 11:47

Don't go for the P150. While it may be better looking that the Lian-Li; have the potential to be quieter; contain some excellent features (elasticated HDD suspension, cable management, sound deadening on panels) and have a brilliant 430W modular PSU - I've got one and would hate for it to become as common as the Lian-Li PC-7.

It's nice to feel like you're in an exclusive club.

PS. There's absolutely no problems with the CD bezels if you fit the drives properly. At least I had no problems with my NEC drives - maybe other manufacturers have slightly different mounting positions?

FirebarUK · 27 Apr 2006 at 14:39

As above. My P150 has excellent build quality :confused:

Better than my old Silverstone and Chenbro GB II

Yewen · 27 Apr 2006 at 14:56

LG drives if I remmeber correctly, having the potential to have it happen is bad enough in my books. Never said it was a bad case, just that the build quality is less than the Lian Li.

FirebarUK you can only compare build quality to other cases you have used, and yes the antec is better than quite a lot of the Silverstones and any gaming cases, but Lian Li just go for build quality with no money spent on features, it is why they are so good in my eyes. You get what you need.

(elasticated HDD suspension, cable management, sound deadening on panels)

The first can be done for £2 in the PC7, the cable management is a good feature but the PC7+ can be made to hide all cables and the sound dampening is very gimicky in my eyes, a loud PC in a case is still a loud PC in a low noise case. Never found one where they make a bit of difference.

The p150 comes with a psu, so obviously less money from its total price goes to the case, but it does make it good value. If you plan to use the PSU then it is the better option, if you are going to chuck it out then the case is not worth the money at all.

kbc · 27 Apr 2006 at 15:02

I have been looking at the Antec P150 as well, but the cost of such case is quite a lot compared to the PC-7. I was quite impressed with one of the photos of the P150, showed it to my friend and he thought otherwise, he claimed it looked cheap and tacky with a bit of silver stuck to the front....

If there are any better real photos of it, I'd like to see it.

But price wise, I feel the Lian Li is the better deal.

glitch · 27 Apr 2006 at 15:52

Yewen said:
LG drives if I remmeber correctly, having the potential to have it happen is bad enough in my books. Never said it was a bad case, just that the build quality is less than the Lian Li.

Really? Isn't that strange that LG drives are slightly different? I would have thought it would be a standard across everything.

Yewen said:
The first can be done for £2 in the PC7, the cable management is a good feature but the PC7+ can be made to hide all cables and the sound dampening is very gimicky in my eyes, a loud PC in a case is still a loud PC in a low noise case. Never found one where they make a bit of difference.

Yes you could do something similar in the PC7, but it's there for you in the P150, it's purpose built and I'd say it's a lot better than a custom jobbie. Obviously if you don't have it already there you have to DIY, but it was another big selling point for the P150 in my eyes.

The cable management is exactly the same; you could do similar in another case, but the P150 has it all there ready for you and it's an excellent system.

As for the sound dampening, it's going to work better than not having it. Sure a loud PC is a loud PC, but it's going to be dampened in some way, shape or form by having the covering on the panels. A quiet PC is going to be slightly quieter and a loud PC is going to be quieter by what will probably be an indistinguishable amount. Mine's a quiet PC and it'll be even quieter with the deadening!

Yewen said:
The p150 comes with a psu, so obviously less money from its total price goes to the case, but it does make it good value. If you plan to use the PSU then it is the better option, if you are going to chuck it out then the case is not worth the money at all.

Good little PSU too. Not much use if you're Crossfiring/SLIing, but it's pretty handy for modest setups and having the cables pre-sleeved and modular is everything I want in a PSU.

It's not the type of case you'd want to be transplanting your existing system into (unless you really wanted a modular PSU) but it's ideal for the first-time buyer, like me. And if you're planning on building something quiet, like white and silver and blue lights - buy it, buy it hard!

kbc; when I finish building my system I'll set my studio up and take some high-res shots for you. It'll be about a week until I get the chance to do so, so can you wait or are you in a rush? If you're in a rush, trust me and buy the P150 if you agree with my reasoning above.

Yewen · 27 Apr 2006 at 15:56

First time buyer the antecs are excellent cases due tot he combo.

BUT

The noise dampening really makes no difference if you build your PC to be quiet, none, zippo.

My v1000+ is silent, proper silent (Raptor HDD seek sometimes)

That is in a case that is meant to be noisey, the noise dampening is a gimmic and it is just a placebo effect. Never had any direct systems be quieter in a P180, and did a blind test.

FirebarUK · 27 Apr 2006 at 15:58

I've used plenty of Lian-Li's. Imo their build quality lacks behind that of the older coolermaster's (ATC201 etc).

I haven't used any over the Lian-Li's over £150 though, but that doesn't matter because the P150 is below £100 WITH a PSU.

kbc · 27 Apr 2006 at 16:09

glitch said:
kbc; when I finish building my system I'll set my studio up and take some high-res shots for you. It'll be about a week until I get the chance to do so, so can you wait or are you in a rush? If you're in a rush, trust me and buy the P150 if you agree with my reasoning above.

That would be nice. The thing is with the P150, it's not all aluminium, unlike the Lian Li PC7, the majority is steel and is said to be an ultra heavy case.

Whereas the PC7 is very light.

I'll await the photos.

Yewen · 27 Apr 2006 at 17:34

FirebarUK said:
I've used plenty of Lian-Li's. Imo their build quality lacks behind that of the older coolermaster's (ATC201 etc).

I haven't used any over the Lian-Li's over £150 though, but that doesn't matter because the P150 is below £100 WITH a PSU.

Yes but the ATCs cases cost over £200 new, not really worth comparing and they are superior indeed. Lian Li new are the best out for the build quality side.

glitch · 27 Apr 2006 at 17:41

Yewen said:
The noise dampening really makes no difference if you build your PC to be quiet, none, zippo.

Well it has to make some difference. It's only logical that it would.

Take two systems, identically specced. Put one inside a P150 with no dampening and the other in a P150 with dampening. The one with dampening will be quieter, no question. How much quieter is the question.

FirebarUK · 27 Apr 2006 at 17:46

Yes but the ATCs cases cost over £200 new, not really worth comparing and they are superior indeed. Lian Li new are the best out for the build quality side.

I seem to remember paying £110 inc P&P for my Black Widow. Still not convinced by Lian Li

Yewen · 27 Apr 2006 at 18:36

You got a good price then

Yewen · 27 Apr 2006 at 18:37

glitch said:
Well it has to make some difference. It's only logical that it would.

Take two systems, identically specced. Put one inside a P150 with no dampening and the other in a P150 with dampening. The one with dampening will be quieter, no question. How much quieter is the question.

Not noticeably quieter.

Hard drive seek, and hum from fans is about all it does when it does work. Can also change the pitch of the noise but in no way would I class it as a feature.

cypriobrit · 27 Apr 2006 at 18:39

FirebarUK said:
I seem to remember paying £110 inc P&P for my Black Widow. Still not convinced by Lian Li

That was a lovely case. Still tempted by them when i see em on Ebay... <sigh>

FirebarUK · 27 Apr 2006 at 19:20

Yeah. I managed to buy one of the last ones new, ooooo it was so good.

In the end I sold it, turned out the guy who bought it was going to chop in in half and put it under his existing one to house watercooling. I almost cried.

Flanno · 28 Apr 2006 at 01:32

Yewen said:
Never had any direct systems be quieter in a P180, and did a blind test.

I had a V1000 and a P180 and I don't know how you can make the V1000 quieter simply because the holes on the front leak noise, even with ulta quiet fans and internal hard drive enclosures to mute the hdd seeks. Maybe if you block them off, use very quiet fans, and mount the drives on foam or use silentmax enclosures. On the other hand I found the P180 was able to run all fans at minimum speed, completely mute the hard drives, and of course the heavy side panels really deadened the noise. Overall at stock settings I found it ultra quiet, only beaten by the P150. Didn't think it cooled the video card very well though even with an optional 120mm fan, and it was a pita to work on as everyone knows, which ultimately led me to selling it. Of course I still think the V1000 was the best quality case I ever owned.

Yewen · 28 Apr 2006 at 01:37

Oh I didnt say if I did what I have to the v1000+ the P180 would not be silent, it would. Just I have my main HDD in a silenmaxx, fans at 5v and a reserator, bit of elastic under the drive bays for the storage drive and it is a silent case.

The p180 can be made silent just as easily, but I am just saying that a 60db fan in both cases is still 60db, same as I ever do when these threads crop up, you are usually better sorting out the cause of the noise rather than trying to muffle it.