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Very nice case 
Antec P190 Case...Wow!!
- Thread starter moggsy
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I've got one of these - great case in my opinion.
Pro's
Most of the stuff I would think are pro's have been mentioned already but theres some great features.
Great cooling and noise suppression and theres loads of space to work. Roomy = better cooling. I like ability to route your cables round the back of the mainboard side of the case. This keeps everything tidy.
2 x Power Supplies - some people have said that they are unbalanced, but you can use adaptors to even out the load if its needed. The power supply that powers the Mobo and CPU does have some Molex connectors which you could easliy use to hang a GFX card off - brilliant if you are using SLI/Crossfire
Cons
The door closing mechanism seems a bit antiquated for a case of this price. Your standard 'slot in and apply thumb screws' type door. Not very good - especially if you have your PC on the floor! The door can be a little awkward to re-seat after you've had the side of the case.
No case speaker - Another pretty fundamental thing that really shouldnt be overlooked!! Enthusiasts need the 'PC Beep' to diagnose faults etc...Schoolboy error not including one in my opinion!!
Still, its a bloody good case and should see me through at least the next 2-3 years of upgrades
Really happy with it!!
Pro's
Most of the stuff I would think are pro's have been mentioned already but theres some great features.
Great cooling and noise suppression and theres loads of space to work. Roomy = better cooling. I like ability to route your cables round the back of the mainboard side of the case. This keeps everything tidy.
2 x Power Supplies - some people have said that they are unbalanced, but you can use adaptors to even out the load if its needed. The power supply that powers the Mobo and CPU does have some Molex connectors which you could easliy use to hang a GFX card off - brilliant if you are using SLI/Crossfire
Cons
The door closing mechanism seems a bit antiquated for a case of this price. Your standard 'slot in and apply thumb screws' type door. Not very good - especially if you have your PC on the floor! The door can be a little awkward to re-seat after you've had the side of the case.
No case speaker - Another pretty fundamental thing that really shouldnt be overlooked!! Enthusiasts need the 'PC Beep' to diagnose faults etc...Schoolboy error not including one in my opinion!!
Still, its a bloody good case and should see me through at least the next 2-3 years of upgrades
Really happy with it!!
Good case by looks of it, my only issue would be the fans used... you don't exactly have the option to replace them with something else do you? I can't say I've seen many 140mm or 200mm fans for sale, plus if one fails you'd have to deal with Antec directly for a replacement I guess.
Isn't it obvious. If you bothered to read what I said below you would know the psu's are unbalanced. Because the weaker psu only has sata and molex plugs it will only ever power drives, so at most will use maybe 50-60watts, obviously more when the drives are booting. That means you have a very average 650w psu left to power your video cards, cpu and motherboard. Throw in a quad core and 2 x 2900xt'x and I think you will be pushing things. So it's a crap design. They should have sold the case without psu's or at least designed them better.
http://www.xsreviews.co.uk/reviews/cases/antec-p190/4/
http://www.xsreviews.co.uk/reviews/cases/antec-p190/4/
lol I see.
Although if you could get modular PCI-E cables from Antec you could properly utilise the second PSU, but it is still a very ill-concieved system considering that the majority of the load is on the first...
Strange.
Although if you could get modular PCI-E cables from Antec you could properly utilise the second PSU, but it is still a very ill-concieved system considering that the majority of the load is on the first...
Strange.
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Wonder if they will release a version of the P190 without the PSU's i'd get one in a heart beat if they did.
Just bought this bad boy, whats wrong with unbalanced power supplies? They are independant right? who said they need to be equally loaded? the 650w would easily handle a quad and duel graphics. Leaving everything else to the 550W - HD's, dvd drives, coolant pump, fans, lights, Mobo molex, may hook up my peltier to it depends on 12v rail A-max's.
Lookin forward to this big time! , although may have to be creative to get my 240 rad on those 140mm fans especially with the gap between them. Any 1 done this????
+ in responce to 'You have 1 psu with only sata and molex cables. How dumb is that.'
Wtf connections do you want on there? another mobo 20/24 pin? another P4/8 connector? If you wanted to add a 3rd or 4th Graphics card then as stated b4 you could use molex adapters. no power problems as i can see it.
Lookin forward to this big time! , although may have to be creative to get my 240 rad on those 140mm fans especially with the gap between them. Any 1 done this????
+ in responce to 'You have 1 psu with only sata and molex cables. How dumb is that.'
Wtf connections do you want on there? another mobo 20/24 pin? another P4/8 connector? If you wanted to add a 3rd or 4th Graphics card then as stated b4 you could use molex adapters. no power problems as i can see it.
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well the idea is that few people except overclockers need 1200w's of power which this supposedly has. a quad and 2x8800's overclocked properly will have issues on a 650, 2x2900xt's will have more problems, what about 4x3950's, or 3x8800gtx's? that would run easily on 1200w, but will not at all run on 650w.
however, both psu's are supposed to be modular or so say antec when i e-mailed them, they didn't answer my questions specifcally. its always possible review models ship without the right cables as they are often NOT the final shipping product yet.
but even the review one seemed to show the 550w had modular plugs which should mean the ability to stick some pci-e connectors on.
its a pain in the ass, its the closest i've seen to a great case, but the psu's kill it, if the cables aren't coming with final cases. you can't sell a 550w psu without mobo connectors, my initial plan was to order it, sell the psu's and smack in a big psu.
also remember, adaptors aren't a great option, firstly most psu's these days, and most/all of antec's are multi rail psu's, meaning if all your hdd's and fans + a 200w 2900xt are all running off one of 3 rails that can only pump out 200w in the first place you have issues.
not offering a version of this case without psu's is just about the dumbest thing i've seen. people that buy sonata's with built in psu for a very cheap quiet setup arent' the same crowd as enthusiasts building custom setups. i mean, loads of people aren't buying the case because of the psu's. i e-mailed twice now, first time just asking about getting the case without psu's, 2nd time to ask about the psu's and cables it comes with so asked again and they aren't planning to sell it without psu's.
EDIT:- also worth mentioning that the case supports eatx boards, which in 99% of the case means server setups, where dual psu's are very common to provide some redundancy, though not in this kinda of 2 psu setup. however in most setups should the 650w fail you could easily switch it all over to the 550w psu while getting the 650w replaced. except the psu setup they have makes it completely impossible to use the 550w on its own, which is just flat out stupid because they sell 550w's with the same internals, they specifically have to make a new psu with different cabling without the mobo connectors, for a case which won't sell many. it costs them more to make a custom psu than to just throw in a normal mass produced antec 550w. there just is some very stupid idea's when it came to the psu's while the rest of the case is mostly of very good design. another noteworthy mention is almost ALL psu's ever made are designed to be used with a 20% load, very few psu's are efficient below the 20% load mark, which if the 550w is running only say 2 hard drives and a dvd drive will be using maybe only 20w's, psu's are also designed to have at least a few amps being used consistantly across all rails, which with a couple hard drives and maybe a couple cases fans(as plenty of people put case fans onto mobo headers) might not be enough to even be considered safe.
its also a great value case, the psu's would generally retail for what, £70-90 for high quality 650w, and 50-60 for a 550w. that makes the case, which is much heavier, bigger, with quite a few more fans around the same price as a p182.
however, both psu's are supposed to be modular or so say antec when i e-mailed them, they didn't answer my questions specifcally. its always possible review models ship without the right cables as they are often NOT the final shipping product yet.
but even the review one seemed to show the 550w had modular plugs which should mean the ability to stick some pci-e connectors on.
its a pain in the ass, its the closest i've seen to a great case, but the psu's kill it, if the cables aren't coming with final cases. you can't sell a 550w psu without mobo connectors, my initial plan was to order it, sell the psu's and smack in a big psu.
also remember, adaptors aren't a great option, firstly most psu's these days, and most/all of antec's are multi rail psu's, meaning if all your hdd's and fans + a 200w 2900xt are all running off one of 3 rails that can only pump out 200w in the first place you have issues.
not offering a version of this case without psu's is just about the dumbest thing i've seen. people that buy sonata's with built in psu for a very cheap quiet setup arent' the same crowd as enthusiasts building custom setups. i mean, loads of people aren't buying the case because of the psu's. i e-mailed twice now, first time just asking about getting the case without psu's, 2nd time to ask about the psu's and cables it comes with so asked again and they aren't planning to sell it without psu's.
EDIT:- also worth mentioning that the case supports eatx boards, which in 99% of the case means server setups, where dual psu's are very common to provide some redundancy, though not in this kinda of 2 psu setup. however in most setups should the 650w fail you could easily switch it all over to the 550w psu while getting the 650w replaced. except the psu setup they have makes it completely impossible to use the 550w on its own, which is just flat out stupid because they sell 550w's with the same internals, they specifically have to make a new psu with different cabling without the mobo connectors, for a case which won't sell many. it costs them more to make a custom psu than to just throw in a normal mass produced antec 550w. there just is some very stupid idea's when it came to the psu's while the rest of the case is mostly of very good design. another noteworthy mention is almost ALL psu's ever made are designed to be used with a 20% load, very few psu's are efficient below the 20% load mark, which if the 550w is running only say 2 hard drives and a dvd drive will be using maybe only 20w's, psu's are also designed to have at least a few amps being used consistantly across all rails, which with a couple hard drives and maybe a couple cases fans(as plenty of people put case fans onto mobo headers) might not be enough to even be considered safe.
its also a great value case, the psu's would generally retail for what, £70-90 for high quality 650w, and 50-60 for a 550w. that makes the case, which is much heavier, bigger, with quite a few more fans around the same price as a p182.
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Hi everyone...
You lot prolly know all about this case but I didn't, I just stumbled across it on toms hardware and all I an say is "wow"!
If you want the best, this has got to be it....but I just had a very quick gander and it's £230 on <ahem....somewhere else!!>.....ya get what ya pays for though!
http://www.tomshardware.com/site/flash_videos/video_antec_p190_case_review.html
PS. Had to laugh at the out-takes at the end too
Looks really good, I would have gone for it if you didn't have to buy two PSU's with it, so I went for the p182 instead.
No - I want the 2nd psu to be able to handle 2 more gtx's off the 12 volt rail, with proper pci-e 8pin connectors. It's unbalanced because it can't do that, it will only handle drives (and other molex devices) and use about 10% of it potential power; and if you do use adpators to run another another gtx how do you know it will utilitse the correct rail. You will probably end up running your video card, hard drives etc... all off the 1 rail as a poster below pointed out. Plus there is no way in hell the very average 650w 1st psu would handle a QX9770 overclocked with tri sli or even sli. Sure, the Corsaid HX620 will do it (at least sli's gtx's anyway), but it's a quality psu unlike the Antec. Essentially you have a 650w psu that is supposed to power the lot except drives. Would have been much better if they stuck in one of their new 850w psu's and left it at that. Bad design.
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Antec make good powersupplys. Maybe not as good as corsair, but certainly better than most manufactures.
Running GTXs off of molex adapters is fine, of course they will use the right rail, you think a molex connector is going to pump loads of the 5v rail into a GTX instead of a 12v :s
Its certainly not ideal, for the cost you'd expect them to have PCIe connecters, but by no means is it going to cause problems.