Antec P180 Review - PAGE 3

When removing the sidepanel twist screws the real treat comes out. The multi-level design of the P180 can be seen and examined. The structure design is very solid and it scraps everything they had done in their series to this point. While some cases tended to lean towards some of these items in the end the final product is much more refined.

The first things to take notice of are the 3.5" internal drive bays. On the top a 2 drive housing is viewable. Upon removing the primary screw and rotating the pull ring to release it the drive glides out with ease, for those that pulled first the case will probably jerk with that pull. The plastic guides make for an easy removal and easy install as the grooves are designed for one way and to hold when in place. In the upper bay the drives mount with trays like those found in the Sonata series. A closer look points to the intake area for a 120mm fan with an open side for cable management.

Downstairs the lower drive cage holds 4 3.5" drives if you need the storage. Just for testing I loaded up all 4 bays and there was pleanty of room between for airflow between each drive. Also if need be it looks like one could wing in another fan in the area but it would be a tight fit. For some the lower cages might be a little troublesome depending on the user setup, SATA cables can easily run in but if users are running additional PCI ATA cards they may need a bit more length to get them to all the drives below.

The power supply is generally held down in most cases by the rear screws or an accessory panel that fits onto the PSU and then mounts to the case, in the revisions for the P180 Antec changes things up by using an actual mounting system to hold the PSU down since there is quite a bit of room inside the PSU area for a variety of sizes. The only real trick is making sure the actual frame is on the PSU before installing it.

Going up the divider is pretty simple, it allows power from one side and on the other it slides to accomidate IDE /SATA cables and power cables as well. The only real other features is the VGA duct area for the video card which in itself was a bit troublesome at first. in this situation I ended up mounting the 80mm fan inside the duct since outside of it resulted in too much tension against the card and an improper fit. Using a lower profile 80mm will probably fix this situation though.