Antec P190
Introduction
The Antec P190 is from the ‘Performance One’ series from Antec- the ‘P’ series. This series of cases is aimed at mainly PC Enthusiasts and Gamers. Being an active gamer myself, I simply couldn’t turn down reviewing one of these cases- decent cooling, quiet operation and 1200W of pure power…This case’s specs simply do shine among other cases. Introducing the Antec P190…
Features:
- Dual chambers structure. The power supplies reside in a separate chamber to isolate heat from the system and lower system noise
- Dual-layer sound-deadening panels for Quiet Computing
- Flexible snake light (installed), lights your way while working inside the case
- Cable organizer behind motherboard tray minimizes cable clutter
- Fits up to ExtendedATX (12″ x 13″) motherboards to fit your dual processor board, or any other board you could possibly have
- Rubber grommeted ports on the rear for liquid-cooling tubes allow you to easily mount external liquid-cooling hardware
- Neo-Link 1200 Watt dual power supplysystem:
One 650 Watt Neo Power is responsible for powering the motherboard and add-in cards, while another 550 Watt, handles your drives and other peripherals - Advanced cooling system - Even larger fans than previous designs, move more air and turn slower for even quieter operation
- 2 top 140mm TriCool fan (standard)
- 1 rear 120mm TriCool Fan (standard)
- 1 lower chamber 120mm TriCool Fan (standard)
- 1 side 200mm Big Boy fan with air filter (standard) - External fan control on the rear panel (for the 2 top fans and 1 rear fan in the upper chamber)
- Front-mounted ports provide convenient connections
- 2 x USB 2.0
- 1 x IEEE 1394 (FireWire? i.Link?
- Audio In/Out (AC?7 & HDA) - Dimensions: (H x D x W)
- 20.28 x 23.35x 8.07 (in) - 51.5 x 59.3 x 20.5 (cm) - Net weight: 43.2lbs / 19.6kg
- Gross weight: 51.1lbs / 23.2kg
Packaging
The Antec P190 comes in a big black box. When I say ‘Big’ I don’t just mean big for a standard case box size…I mean HUGE! When I went to pick this case up from UPS, it only managed to fit into the boot of my car, this highlights the sheer size of this box.
To open the box, you have to lie the box horizontally flat on the floor and it opens by two doors on top - certainly not normal for a Computer Case.
Inside the box is the P190. It sits comfortably in the centre with thick padding protecting all its sides, edges and panels.
External Impressions
Included with the P190 are a whole load of accessories: Manual, Instructions for various add-ons, loads of screws, cable ties, optical drive rails, video card /SLI clips, clips to lock the hard drives in place, clips to install fans in the bays, 2 PSU cables and finally… the keys for the front lock.
Along with all this, you receive more than enough additional cables for the PSU- most of which you will probably never need.
The case itself is constructed from steel, but many of the panels on this case are backed with plastic. This is primarily to reduce noise but it also makes the panels feel much sturdier and I also quite like the feeling of more weighted panels.
The front door of the case is made from both layers of plastic and steel, just like the side panels, this helps to isolate the noise of the fans. The double- hinged door can swing 270 degrees, and will stop comfortably at 90 degrees. There is a lock on the front of the door which conceals the power switch, so if you don’t want people using your pc, just lock this door. When shutting this door you will notice that it is magnetic, this helps when closing it, but also if you swing it 270 degrees it will stick to the side panel comfortably.
After opening the front panel you will notice two large vents which allow cool air to be sucked through when the door is open. However when the door is shut, air is sucked up through a little groove in the bottom of the front panel.
If you click each vent on the front panel, it will swing open. Inside is a dust filer which can be easily removed and cleaned. We found this quick access to the fan filters very beneficial as it makes it easy to remove and clean each filter now. Also, as these filters are washable, all you need to do is get them under a tap and clean them.
The front of the case has a power switch, reset switch, firewire port, 2x USB, Audio ports and of course the lock.
The side panels are again backed in layers of plastic to prevent noise. To remove the side panels, you simply undo the 2 black thumbscrews on each panel and then pull the panels backward- like normal.
The right hand side panel has an ‘Antec Big Boy Fan’ installed. This 120mm fans can be ran at slow, medium and fast speeds via a switch on the back of the case which we will look at later.
The top is made from steel but is covered with around 3mm plastic on the outside. The top fans are dual 140mm fans and again have 3 speeds which can be controlled at the back. Just like the side fan, these fans also have black mesh covering them to protect our fingers.
At the back of the case there are a lot more features than your average case would have. At the top left hand corner is a three way switch which enables you to control the speed of the fans at the top and on the sidepanel. Beneath is a 120mm Fan to extract the hot air and there are also the normal motherboard mounts. Above these mounts are two rubber sealed holes which are for water cooling tubes. At the bottom of the case are 2 Power Supply’s (650W Neo Power and a 550W Neo Power) which are mounted vertically side-by-side, the power of these two PSU’s combined equals 1200W of power. These Power supplies are linked together with a cable that enables these PSU’s to work at exactly the same time.
Here is the Antec P190 next to a Lian- Li V1000 and a generic standard size case. This should show you the sheer size of this case.
Internal Impressions
The case’s insides are split into two main chambers. The bottom chamber holds the power supply and hard drives whilst the upper chamber holds all of the main components. The motherboard mounting plate in this case is fixed and therefore cannot be removed. However the case is certainly large enough to work in so you won’t really need a removable motherboard plate.
The other side of the motherboard plate has many holes and ties which should help you to route all your cables around the case to keep it free of cable clutter. Also there is a small black box which can be opened and used to store accessories such as spare screws cable ties etc.
Here is the side panel with the 200mm fan reversed. If we slide the fan off slightly you can see a large filter which will catch a lot of the dust. This filter is like the filters on the front of the case and can be cleaned relatively easily. Also the reversed side of the side panel you can see the plastic that backs it to reduce noise.
Inside there is space to install up to 4 optical drives. The drives are installed with the optical drive rails which are included so they can be slid into position.
Below these drive cages is space to install 3 Hard Drives, the bays for these hard drives can be slid out easily and they have anti vibration rubber installed to reduce noise from the hard drives. In front of these bays is a 120mm front fan which will cool the hard drives to an appropriate temperature.
Beneath these hard drives mounts is a mount to install either a floppy drive or card reader. This mount doesn’t have anti vibration dampeners like the hard drive mounts, although it probably doesn’t need it.
The bottom chamber has another hard drive bay with the availability to install up to 4 hard drives. Just like the previous bay, this bay also has anti vibration rubber which sits between the hard drive and bay to reduce noise. Behind this bay is yet another 120mm Fan.
The two power supplies are not joined together but are screwed next to each other via the back panel. They are linked together with a wire which ensures that both Power Supplies start up at the same time and shut down at the same time. The 550 Watt Power Supply has only SATA and Molex plugs, but also has sockets on which can be used to add yet more Molex plugs to the PSU.
Nifty Gadgets
Included with the case is a flexible touch light which can be powered via 12V Molex or the internal USB pins on the motherboard. This light is a good idea as the P190 is certainly a large case which you probably won’t want to move around a lot, so if you were upgrading your computer on your bedroom floor or under your desk, then this light would certainly help you out. My only fault is that this light is powered by an internal USB or molex, so your computer would have to be on for you to use this light- not an ideal situation.
The little black storage box in my opinion is a great idea. I now have space to store all of my spare case screws and small accessories. However I’m not totally keen on the idea since the box seems rather small for most accessories. A better idea would be to mount a horizontal drawer in the place of the 3 ½ floppy bay- like on the Antec Super Lanboy. This way a lot more could be stored and it would also be a lot safer.
The 3 speed fan controller on the back is a great little feature. This simple little switch box makes it super easy to adjust the speed of the side and top fans.
The two little ‘Trap Doors’ between the two chambers of the case make cable routing very easy. With the sheer mass of cables coming from the two power supply’s these little holes make cable routing much easier. Also, if you were water cooling in this case, these would probably help you out loads for routing tubes as well as the two holes on the back that are designed to route water cooling tubes.
On the edges closest to the side panel there is felt tape. This felt tape helps to reduce noise from the side panels rattling against the chassis.
Testing
Installation for this case was pretty easy. I installed a fairly low spec computer in this case and the whole installation took approximately 15 minutes. As you can see from the photo, that is without cable management.
However if you wanted to hide all the cables in this case, it would be fairly easy as there are lots of holes in the motherboard plate where you can route PSU, SATA and IDE cables. Futhermore, there are cable tidy clips already installed on the back of the motherboard plate making things so much easier. No more drilling holes in your motherboard plate now !!
Even though there are a lot of fans in this case, it’s actually still rather quiet. The side panel fan and two top fans don’t actually need to be running at high speed in most systems, so if you switch them down to low they are actually pretty silent. The two power supply’s run at a very silent noise level and I didn’t actually notice the fans in them at all. The sound dampeners in this case also play a large part in sound deadening, and I felt my hard drives operated much quieter than normal when using this case.
The PSU’s in this case bugged me a lot though. I really felt that two power supplies were certainly not needed and it would be better off just replacing them with a 1000w model. Having two power supplies creates a jungle of cables and also makes the P190 even heavier…making this case even heavier is one thing the P190 certainly does not need!
However I cannot fault the quality of this case. The case is easy to work with and also very enjoyable. There are no sharp edges in this case which you sometimes see in cheaper cases and much of the case uses thumbscrews and bays which are removable.
Conclusion
Here are some factors I really like about the Antec P190:
- The holes in the motherboard and the use of loads of cable clips make cable tidying very simple.
- The fan on the side panel does an excellent job of cooling and is very quiet.
- The features used in this case to reduce sound are certain positives.
- The easy clean filters.
- The build quality is very good.
However, these are a few factors that I dislike about the P190:
- It is very heavy; two people are needed to move this case.
- The two PSU’s are probably not needed in most cases and add alot of weight and size to this case.
- The case has an incredible depth, which certainly is not needed unless you’re using a massive extended atx board.
- It costs around £250
From this review, I reward the P190 8/10 as the build quality and performance of this case is amazing. You would have to look far to find a better quality case with my only real bugbear being the size and weight.
another great review ;)
what a great piece of kit, a bit too big though i think!!!