Best Quite Case

Flanno said:
Fair enough WJA96. That is your experience but not mine or a lot of other people I know.

You seem to be wriiting off the p180, from both a cooling and noise point of view. It may not be your ideal case, but I am sure Antec didn't spend all that time or money on this case for it to be "urinated" on by the Eclipse, which happens to be a case based on an old Globalwin design and offers nothing new or refreshing. Just ask the members over at Silent PC Review about the P180. I have yet to meet anyone who has bought a P180 and has not been impressed by it overall. Lots of satisifed users on these forums too. Sure cabling is tricky, and there are issues with the door, but I fail to see why the Eclipse wins so much praise from a cooling point of view. I know it's easy to work with, very well built, but it is nothing more then a wide case with a traditional 1 fan in, 1 fan out assembly. And no way could it be quieter then the P180. That is just impossible, seeing as the Eclipse has thin alumnium panels which just reverberate the noise from the hard drives and has no sound proofing or hard drive isolation what soever.

If you want a case that beats both of them handsdown for cooling, then try a Gigabyte Aurora. It is my experience that this is by far one of the best cases around for cooling thanks to the rear 120mm fans, and side mesh which helps cool that Crossfire or SLI setup.
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To tackle your points in order;

1. I cannot comment on your experience, but I promise you, things change when you put between 2 and 4 powerful computers in a small room, which is what most server rooms are.

2. I have never written off the P180, elsewhere I have said that the OP would not be disappointed by any of the cases mentioned in the thread.

3. I am also quite certain that Antec didn't expend a vast quantity of money on that design to disappoint lots of users, but I think that's what happened. They basically went out and asked lots of people what 'silencing' feature they wanted in a case and put it in there. And the overwhelming reaction at the time of launch was 'Is that it?'

4. I don't spend much time on Silent PC Review, but didn't one of their owners/mods have a hand in designing the P180?

5. Working on a P180 is much harder than on an Eclipse.

6. The build-quality on the P180 is poor for the money. It has to be when you see all the 'features' it's loaded down with.

7. The Eclipse is an old case, no doubt. It's still around because it works. It's a wide bodies case with a big air volume and a wind tunnel running through it. You don't need to be an aerodynamicist to see why it's so good. The air just rushes through the case.

8. The minute someone says 'That is impossible' I always like to quote the bumblebee. Bottom line is that insulation is bad for heat build-up. Warm air gets trapped in it and stays there. Rubber grommets prevent heat loss by conduction from HDD to the chassis. There are any number of reasons why the 'clever' design of the P180 doesn't work as well as the Eclipse, but the final fact is that it doesn't. You admit that yourself with reference to the graphics cards.

8. The vibration can be an issue. It depends on the build components, the room, the floor, the tightness of the screws, the choice of power supply. I have been known to stick a piece of blue-tack on a side panel, or remove a screw completely to solve a vibration.

9. The Gigabyte Aurora is worthy of a thread of its own, and I'll leave it at that. I don't have much experience of it as most 'pro' users steer clear of LED fans.

I'm honestly not sure why people get so defensive about their choice of componentry, I have Akasa, Lian-Li, Jeantech and Silverstone here at the moment, but if it's good, I'll buy it. And I only recommend stuff I have personal experience of.
 
Of course the OP's question was to recommend a quiet case, and I reckon he would not be dissapointed with the P180 in this regard.
 
But the eclipse can be made to be just as quiet as the P180, which is where this little debate has sprung up from. The eclipse is a excellent case, right back to its Savrow days it has been excellent, with no major reported issues, yet the P180 still has door flex issues.

To through a new one in the works, Lian Li S80, refined low CFM aluminium low noise case. Should be a cracker and I will most certainly be getting one; yummy!
 
Well if truth be told, it was the door problems which caused me to ditch the P180 in the end :) Specifically, the warped front door drove me batty. And the replacement I got had a dent on it !! But of all the cases I had in the past, and the money I invested in Nexus, SilentX and countless other fans, I was really amazed how quiet the P180 ran with stock fans, and how my raptors were almost silent thanks to the isolation mounts and thick side panels. To get something even approaching that on the Eclipse, I had to use acoustimass foam on the doors, and mount the drives with elastic. I guess I was obsessed about noise too much. I will admit though, it was pita to work with, cabling was a nightmare and took a hell of a lot of patience, and ultimately the vga duct was joke and my video cards ran about 10% degrees hotter then with the Akasa. If I had to buy a case again, purely as cooling as a primary concern, I guess the Eclipse is a great buy and if fitted with Nexus fans, and you can figure out how to mount the hard drives without them resonating then it is a great case. But for pure quietness from the go I think the P180 wins.
 
Is it possible that the fans supplied with the P180 are very variable in their noisiness? I had quite loud ones and there is another thread running at the moment where someone else is also complaining of loud fans in a P180, yet you have not had this problem. I do wonder about the sound levels of OEM fans in general.
 
As well as myself, I built 2 systems for friends with P180's and the fans were quiet on the low setting, and on medium were only slightly noisier then akasa ambers. I do know the specification for the fans on US models was completely different from the European models, according to the manuals. The US models were definitely louder on lowest settings. The only fan issue I had really was the top fan would buzz from time to time, and adding a fan to cool the motherboard area did very little.
 
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