Antec P280 Case

I saw this in the store today and I had to buy it, it reminded me so much of my old P193 that was a very good case in its day. I got it home and opened it up quickly and was not disappointed, this is definitely a return to the Antec of the past that made high-quality cases that have a bit of class rather than 75 LED fans. It has the standard array of features for a case in this price range, USB 3.0 header, tool-less 5.25 bays, filtered fan intakes, sound deadening material on the side panels and front door.

The good:

- Filters for the fans are SO EASY to get out and clean

- Front fans and HDD cage fans are very easy to swap out, the clips are especially nice. Just be aware that the clips will not fit around 26mm thick fans like the Enermax Magma/TB silence.

- The front door opens 270*, basically to fold flat against the left side of the case. Very handy. The door is well made and will swing open by itself if you open your CD drive.

- HUGE amount of room for cable management behind the tray, 3cm deep so there is no problem with fat PSU cables

- Fully painted inside and out, although it seems more like powder coating, it is highly scratch resistant, I hit the top panel pretty hard with my screwdriver while swapping out fans and there was no mark.

- Excellent room for water cooling, you can easily mount a 240 on top, 120 on the back, and a 240 on the inside of the hard drive cage, which is what I will be doing.

- Plenty of options for air cooling, 2x front 120mm, 2x 120mm on the inside of the HDD rack, 120mm on the back of the case, 2x 120mm on the top, vented PCI slots and behind the motherboard tray is vented as well. The front intake does not make a suctioning sound, there are large gaps on the edge of the door to allow plenty of air to the front filter area. Very nice compared to some door setups that choke the fans.


The bad:

- Case headers for power/reset/led etc are varying lengths and colors, and BARELY reach if your motherboard has the pins at the bottom edge on a regular ATX board when routed behind the tray, it may not reach to an EATX unless you go through the inside.

- Hard drive caddys suck. There is no nice way to put this, the provided screws are too long for most 3.5" HDD (I tried 4 different brands) resulting in the drive wobbling all over the place. I guess the vibrations are dampened though. They also collapse sideways easily and fall down, I found this out when trying to attach my SATA power connector. Beware of these things.

The bad are only worth about half a star to me, overall this is a great case if you're looking for something elegant with no windows and lights.

I've owned (or done builds in) quite a few cases ranging from the cheapest steel cases to Lian-Lis and custom tech stations. So far, my favorite case has been this Antec (apart from my custom Syrillian-built tech station, of course ). Ever since doing a built in an Antec Mini P180 I had always wanted to try another one of their Performance series of cases and this was my chance.


How it looks. I really like the look of these case. The gunmetal finish is very nice and doesn't attract fingerprints as bad as anodized aluminum. There aren't any flashy lights or windows so if that's your thing you probably won't like this case.

The build of the case. The case is very well built and nothing I could find was assembled poorly. The interior is painted and there are no sharp edges. The fan filters fit snug but aren't difficult to remove. The door is solid and swings easily. The magnetic catch is also nice.

Ease of installation of parts. The parts all fit in very well. One reviewer didn't like the hard drive trays but I didn't mind them. They are a bit flimsy and while I didn't have any issues, I can definitely see why they would be an issue. The motherboard tray also has a HUGE cutout for changing aftermarket CPU coolers after the motherboard is installed. This also provides some good airflow behind the motherboard.

Cable management. This case has rubber grommet covers over the many cutouts for cables. The case is large but I didn't find it overly big. The one stretch I had with my power supply was the CPU power cable.

Overall, this case was very easy to use and had enough room to be convenient but not so much that it feels too large. I'd highly recommend this case, especially for the price.