Antec P182 review

Antec's P182 is the replacement for the company's successful P180 enthusiast's case.

From the outside, you'd be hard pushed to tell the difference between this case and its predecessor, but that's no bad thing. The P180 was an atttractive case and so is the P182. It keeps the P180's fin, which covers the top fan with a grille. It also keeps the same front door that neatly hides away your drives. Finally, it's the same gorgeous piano black.

The inside is familiar, too. The power supply is mounted at the bottom of the case in its own compartment. This helps with cooling, but means you're often left with an unattractive and messy spread of power cables running over the top of your motherboard.

There's plenty of space for drives. There are four external 5in drive bays, with mounting rails for each. There's one external 3in bay for a floppy disk or memory card reader, and six internal 3in bays for hard disks. Disks are all screwed in through rubber grommets, which helps reduce noise by preventing vibrations.

The motherboard tray isn't removable, but there's plenty of room to work inside the case, and you'll have no trouble fitting an ATX motherboard. With rolled metal edges inside the case, you won't cut your hands to shreds when you're building it.

So far, this is very similar to the P180. However, the top and rear 120mm fans now have their speed controls mounted neatly on the rear, so you can adjust them without having to open the case. The bottom fan still has a three-speed control inside, though. If you want to use water cooling, you don't need to cut holes in your case or mount an ugly bracket; Antec has done the job for you with two holes on the rear with fitted grommets.

Best of all, the P182 is a few pounds cheaper than its predecessor. If you are building a high-specification PC, this is the best case you can get.