Antec P160 Aluminum Case Review

by Don "Donster" Miller

Article Type: Review
Article Date: March 24, 2004
Product: Anodized Aluminum Super Mid Tower
Manufacturer: Antec
Model: P160
Price: $169 USD

The time had come when I decided I needed a change. She has been with me for 3 years. We knew each other well. Understood each other. What was expected from the two of us. Yes, she was always there for me everyday. I poured my heart and soul into her. My time...my money.
But she became mediocre, loud and uninspiring. I had to do something. I wanted more, much more. I needed my new love to be sexy, lighter and quieter. She had to be able to do more for me, and do it easily and without as much as a complaint. Yes, the time had come to say goodbye...goodbye to my old beige mid-tower PC case!

I did alot of web surfing, looking for a new case. Many I really liked, but either were very expensive, or didn't have a slide out motherboard tray, or looked like some alien creature's face or a TransFormer's head. Those are all well and nice, but I'm a bit old for that style. I guess what I was looking for was like a new Ford Mustang GT, but on a Ford Focus budget!

That's when I came across the case that filled the bill for me. The Antec P160 Performance 1 Series Anodized Aluminum Super Mid Tower Case. This is what Antec has to say about the P160 case. Here are the features directly from Antec's Web site.


Features:

• Stylish, durable 1.2mm anodized aluminum
  
• Swiveling front control panel:
  
  • Swivels up to 45 degrees.
    
  • Connectors: 2 x USB 2.0, 1 x IEEE 1394 (FireWire, i.Link) and 2 x audio jacks.
    
  • LED temperature display with two built-in sensors
  
  
• Removable motherboard tray.
  
• Accommodates any ATX12V power supply
  
  
• 10 drive bays
  
  • Color-coordinated CD-ROM & floppy drive covers
    
  • 4 external 5.25"
    
  • 2 external 3.5"
    
  • 4 internal 3.5"
  
  
• Rubber mounting grommets in hard drive trays
  
  
• Cooling capacity:
  
  • 1 x 120mm low speed fan
    
  • 1 x 120mm fan mount
  
  
• Fan Specs:
  
  • RPM: 1600
    
  • CFM: 56.13
    
  • dB(A): 28
  
  
• Built-in washable air filter
  
  
• Removable Side Panel
  
  
• Fits motherboards up to Standard ATX

Ok, now here is the P160's Specifications.

P-160 Spec Chart

That covers the technical specs, now I will explain what intriqued me to buy this particular case. One of the first things I mentioned above was I wanted a lighter case. As you can see in the specs, the P160 weighs in at only 14.3lbs. Ain't aluminum great? My old steel ATX case tipped the scale at just under 30 lbs!

Now I know beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but compare my old case and the P160....


I think you can see what I'm talking about. The Antec P160 just looks so much better!

Old case beside new case

And not just good looks, but she is functional too! Instead of a single door panel latch, the P160 has two knobs on the enclosures main (left-looking towards the front) panel. And one of these knobs has a fitted key slot! Also, when the side panel is on, the front fascia cannot be removed.

Side view of Antec P160 showing latches (one has lock)

Nowadays, many modern enclosures are fitted with Firewire, USB, and multi-media connections made accessible somewhere on the front panel. What I really like about this case, is the way Antec setup the aformentioned items, along with a two digit 8-segment LED temperature display, and the system's power and reset buttons which are found on a really cool all-in-one panel that can tilt up to about a 45º angle! This was a big plus in my book, as my case will sit inside my desk, to the left and just above the floor. The all-in-one panel is right at my fingertips, while my old case I had to reach down to use them.

Tiltable front-mounted jacks and temp display

Below the all-in-one panel, are the 5-¼ inch bays, the top two of which have stealthed covers for your optical drives, and they work very well. With these covers, you can use your existing colored optical drives, as they are hidden by the silver covers! The covers also have a clear strip for your drive's LEDs, and work with your usual eject and play buttons.

Stealthed 5.25-inch drive bays

Behold! The old DVD-ROM tray emerges from behind the stealth cover!

Continuing on, you find the panels for the 3 1/2" drive bays, one is also a stealth bay for your floppy drive. Below that, are three vertical slots, which are the front air intakes. Behind these are a washable filter, along with three blue LEDs that are on when the main power is switched on.

Big Daddy Don Garlitz would be proud of these air intakes.

Now the fascia IS plastic, not aluminum. But its fit and finish are superb, with a touch of chrome mixed in. It doesn't look cheap like some cases I have come across. Okay, so much for the outside, let's head on inside!

When I was shopping for a new case, even when I was looking back in 2001, one of my priorities was that the case had to have a removable motherboard tray. This baby has it. It doesn't pull out the back of the case like my old enclosure.

Removable motherboard tray

To remove the tray, simply undo one thumbscrew near the back of the hard drive cage, remove its latch, slide the entire tray towards the front of the case, and then lift it out through the side. The tray even has its own handle. Antec has added three soft plastic strips in behind the motherboard tray to help reduce vibration from your heatsink fan assembly.

Now we come to the hard drive cages. Antec did something a bit different here. They mounted the cages 90 degrees from how most enclosures are made. There are four slide out trays, each have four rubber mounts to aid in reducing vibration. The idea is less vibration, less noise. Another plus to this configuration is that the cabling to the drives can be done so that it makes hiding them easier.

Four outward sliding drive cages. Very nice!

Antec also designed a front fan tray. It sits forward of the drive cage. It houses a 120mm fan, but it is not supplied with the case. The only fan supplied is for the rear exhaust, also a 120mm (I'll talk about it more later). The front fan tray has a spring loaded thumbscrew. Loosen it and pull the tray out. Nice!

Front fan housing also slides out.

To remove the front fascia, there is a space at the bottom where you can grasp the fascia and pull outward to pop off the front panel. Don't pull out to far, as there is a wire connector for the blue LED's that you could potentially damage if you yank out too far.

Finger recess to pull of the front fascia.

Unplug the connector and then you can set the fascia down. Here is where you will find the washable air filter, and also two thumbscrews for the 3 1/2" drive bay.


Onward, or should I say rearward, to the rear case fan. Now I have to admit, when I first saw the included fan for this case, and the four soft rubber fasteners, I thought "What kind of a cheap setup is this? No mounting screws? What's up with that?" Then I realized (well I actually looked at the instruction sheet that came with the fan) what the reasoning for them were.

Plastic thingmie-mounted fan

The rubber fasteners not only hold the fan in place tightly, but reduce noise too. You just line the fan up, push the pointed part of the fasteners into the four mounting holes, pull them through until they are past the thicker portion of the fastener, then trim them off! Now I do recommend that you pull the fasteners a bit at a time, moving around to each one, not just pulling one thru one after the other. The fasteners are easily broken, and you don't get any extras in case you break one.

Detail of plastic mounting thingmies on fan

Below the rear fan are the seven expansion slots. They are all covered with a snap in double rail type cover. And then Antec decided to use thumbscrews to hold your precious cards in place.

Seven expansion slots with handy thumbscrews.

Now that I have covered the highlights of the Antec P160, I will continue with my conclusions on what type of results I had while performing the hardware installation...


The P160 doesn't come equipped with a power supply. But most should fit, and you can mount your power supply upside down if needed. I did this myself, as it made a big difference in how to route the PSU wires in such a way to keep them nice and tidy.

Note the power supply mounted upside down

Installing the motherboard was as simple as it can get. I like how the hard drive mounts in its tray, held by four sleeved screws into those rubber grommets. And with the cage turned as I have mentioned earlier, you can mount the drive with the IDE and PS cables facing the motherboard side of the case, so they are out of the way, helping to keep the case uncluttered.

Drive cabling much easier to keep tidy with this configuration.

Installation of the Floppy drive was made simple by the drive bay tray. You can use either the included color-coordinated floppy drive cover plate, or if you want you can mount the device to sit flush with the bezel front. Depending on which choice you choose, determines which mounting holes in your device you use.

Floppy can be mounted according to your preferences.

Now on to the 5.1/4 inch drives. Antec supplies drive rails to ease the installation of these devices. Simply attach one rail on each side, tab towards the front and angles away from the drive, using two supplied screws. Then slide the device into the drive bay until you hear a click. That's it. It's locked in place. To remove, simply depress the tab on each drive rail and pull forward. This is great for the user who likes to change his/her drives frequently.

Screw the supplied rails onto your 5.25-inch drives, then they just snap in. Sweet!

Now, I ran into a bit of a problem with my DVD ROM drive. With the drives snapped into place, the eject button on the case won't quite reach far enough rearward to the drives original button. To resolve this, all I had to do was to drill out one of the used mounting holes in each of the two drive rails. This allowed just enough forward placement of the drive to solve the problem. I did not have to perform this with my CD/RW drive.

I purchased a Digital Sound Level Meter at RadioShack, to measure how loud my system was with my old case and with the New Antec. Now to be fair, my old case had one 80mm intake front fan with filter, one 80mm intake fan on the side blowing on the video card, one 60mm rear exhaust fan, and my Allied 450Watt power supply has two fans. I have previously installed Akasa Pax Mate Acoustic Absorbtion material into the old atx case. Using the sound meter, the old system ran at 69 decibels.

After installing the hardware from the old case into the P160, with there being only the one included 120mm exhaust fan, the Antec tested at 58 decibels! I can hear you all saying "Well of course its gonna be quieter with 2 less fans". And I agree! But what really came as a big suprise to me, was the case temp and CPU temp change! The old system case always ran a temp of 40C at idle, CPU at 60C. (AMD Athlon XP2100, MSI KT3 Ultra 2 Mobo, using MSI PCAlert4 for measurement).

Now, with the old hardware installed into the Antec P160, the case temp dropped to 35C and the CPU dropped to 51C! I am very happy about this indeed!

With these results, I may reconsider even installing a front intake fan now. :-)


Conclusion
I am extremely happy with this case! I feel Antec really did their homework on the P160. The fit and finish are excellent, it is extremely quiet, lightweight, pivoting control panel, air filter, removeable motherboard tray, and lots of room for expansion for a mid tower. Well thought out, and affordable. I highly recommend it!  Printer Friendly