Antec P150 (cont’d)
This door conceals the front-loading hard drive bays, which are individually removable. Each bay houses a sled that incorporates rails for extremely easy hard drive installation. Four silicone grommets are employed to further diminish hard drive vibrations from adding to the system’s noise, and once the hard drive has been mounted to the sled, it simply slides and locks into place from the front.
Click to enlarge.
Not only do the hard drives load this way, but the included 5¼” to 3½” bay adapter has already been fitted with rails so that it, too, can be locked into place without screws. If one chose to, however, they could simply do away with the adapter altogether and have four 5¼” bays available.
For the other 5¼” drives, the user simply has to attach two included rails to either side of the drive and it will slide and lock into place from the front. One other handy feature is that six rails can be stored in holders in the bottom of the case.
The only active piece of cooling hardware present in the P150 is one of Antec’s tri-speed 120mm fans. In a case of this size, even a single 120mm will be able to move a lot of air through the enclosure and, combined with a decent power supply, it should be more than adequate for cooling moderate to high-end rigs.
Click to enlarge.
Notice also the black areas on the top and side plates; these are pieces of plastic that have been affixed to the metal to help dampen vibrations in the case, and we can attest that the plates really are quieter when struck. Whether or not this
really improves noise levels is probably a much deeper topic than this article can provide, but rest assured that it certainly can’t hurt, considering that plastic truly is a better sound insulator than steel.
In our last internal shot seen here, we can appreciate the case's dimensions It's not exactly spacious inside, but it's not that cramped either. “Large enough” is the term that comes to mind, but just like many other cases, the side-mounted IDE ports on our DFI motherboard aren't extremely easy to work with in the P150, but they are at least manageable.
Last, but not least, we thought that we should include a shot of the glowing blue ring around the power switch, which indicates that the computer is on. It's certainly subtle, but still a nice accent on an already stylish case.
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Tamale - Friday, January 13, 2006 - link
Thanks for the quick criticism guys. Article updated.Please continue to scrutinize :)
Viditor - Friday, January 13, 2006 - link
Another comment for your conclusion (which is important for those of us that do video work)...the P150 is the only one of the 3 that has Firewire connector in front (as far as I can tell). If you could list the specs of each case at the head of that cases segment, that would also help (e.g. number of 3.5 slots, front firewire connector, etc...).Cheers!
ceefka - Saturday, January 14, 2006 - link
The P150 also features a cable organizer. If you take of the right panel, you'll see it at the right side of the internal 3,5" drive bays. This can make your cabling a lot tidier than the picture in the review shows.The FireWire connection is S400 on an Intel standard. Those who wish to connect AMD boards might want to call Antec for an adapter cable.
All'n'all I think the P150 looks like a fridge. I bought it though because it made the most sense for its price.
Tamale - Saturday, January 14, 2006 - link
I've heard the P180 referred to as a fridge much moreso than the P150.. hehebut yah, good catch on the cable organizer.
andrewln - Friday, January 13, 2006 - link
i wonder if they suspended the hard drive or they used the brackets.... it makes a difference when the hard drive seeksyacoub - Friday, January 13, 2006 - link
For that matter I wonder if they had the 3-speed 120mm fan it comes with on the lowest setting for the sound tests or still ramped up to max from the cooling tests.gman003 - Friday, January 13, 2006 - link
Why only 3 cases in the roundup? Not much to compare to... :-(In any case, I would really love to see an Aspire case tested against these sometime. I've been building with them for a while now and IMO they look better and cool better than Antec or other so called "Gaming" cases.
Raidmax and Antec cases are nice, but Raidmax is too chinsy with their materials at times and Antec is sooooo overpriced sometimes that one really shouldn't even consider them anymore as their go to case because of so many other competing vendors out there with high quality cases at cheaper prices.
mindless1 - Friday, January 13, 2006 - link
True, Antec is often overpriced but (putting aside the possible issues with the power supply), it's expected that with the Antec one has a power supply they can use long-term. Raidmax power supplies I wouldn't even install in most systems. What would be most interesting is a P150 discounted due to no power supply until the issues with the present one are resolved.oofboi754 - Thursday, March 31, 2022 - link
This case isn't so bad. Put in some Noctua Fans in the front and back ant it keeps my 3060ti (EVGA XC) and 12700kf (NH-U12S) at a comfortable 40 Degrees Celcius when idling. The Noctua Fans combines with the quiet nature of this case keep my rig silent as possible. For it's age, the cable managment isn't bad, it just takes a bit of creative thinking. This case is great for a Sleeper PC like I made.