To P182 or not to P182 -- that is the question!

[blackwind]

Hi all,

I was just about to pull the trigger on a P182 purchase, but before I take the plunge, I'd like to know what my other options are in terms of mid/full-towers designed for maximum cooling. Are there any cases that will outperform the P182 in this regard? Are there any that are at least comparable? Any and all suggestions are welcomed.

 

[Eeyore69]

I have had a P180 for a couple of years now which is very similar to the P-182. I like it although routing of cables can be a bit adventurous; the P-182 helps in this regard because of the modified motherboard mounting plane. The P-182 allows routing of cables behind the motherboard plate. And the P-180 is heavy since it is steel! I think it weighs over 40 lbs with a power supply.

Two weeks ago I assembled another unit but I decided to buy another case because of the cabling difficulties with the P-180. I didn't want to pay more than about $100 (Stacker, Lian-Li and such were much more) and I ended up with an Antec 900 from Newegg ($90 after rebate and free shipping). It is not cutting edge; no toolless entry or drive mounting, no removable motherboard tray and such. While it is about the same size as the P-180 (only about 20 lbs too) it seems to have a lot larger internal space and is easier to work inside. Like the P-180 it does not include a PSU but it does come with 3 120mm fans (80cfm) and 1 200mm fan (130cfm). Like the P-180 the PSU is mounted on the bottom which can cause cable routing problems with PSUs with short cables. But overall I like it very much. It is much more convenient to work in and the fans and airflow are very good.

Eeyore

 

[Daverino]

I have an original P-180 as well. The newer P-182 and the P-180B both have space underneath the motherboard for routing cables that the original did not. This relieves some of the problems that the original had with cabling but the design, with the power supply on the bottom instead of the top, is still going to cause some adventures. The main issue is usually the 8 pin cpu power which tends to be on the top of the motherboard. This is fine when you PS is on top as well, but in the P180 it will have to stretch the length of your mobo. For my Seasonic, it was quite a stretch (mine goes through the small gap between my graphics card and the back of the case. Some have gotten extensions for that cable and routed under the mobo. All of my fan cabling and case front cabling is under my mobo (on the original, mind you) and it should be a snap to do that nice and tidy with the space the P182 is going to give you. The other cabling drama will be near the lower HD cage. You'll have cable going up to your upper IDE devices and the main mobo power, more cables going to the middle HD cage and yet more going down to the lower HD cage. This is going to make a big traffic jam right in front of your front intake if you don't think your cabling through.

Cooling, however, is great. I used to have three Tri-cools as case fans and a gigantic Panaflo on my CPU. I was able to OC my Prescott 3.4 to 4.1 stable. But even with the P-180's sound dampening, it was still pretty loud. I'm now using all YLs on the case and a Nexus silent on the CPU and I run at 3.96. Considering how hot the Prescott is, I consider that pretty good. The P-182 is set up to do water cooling easily as well, but I really think its forte is air cooling. I found that the best fan configuration was intakes on front and top and output on the rear. That's a bit counterintuitive, as heat rises and you would think the top fan would be better as output, but my cooler is a Si-120 and the fan blows down onto the mobo, instead of a newer tower cooler where the CPU fan would blow towards the rear. Having the top fan blow in puts extra air directly on my heatsink.

Here are some pics of my case, so you can get an idea:

With the middle HD cage removed to see all the cabling that hides behind it
http://i4.photobucket.com/albu...iwaza/CasewoHDCage.jpg

With the cage in place, keeping a nice path open for air from the intake fans.
http://i4.photobucket.com/albu...ishiwaza/Casewcage.jpg

 

[Eeyore69]

I forgot about that spot in the case where the power cables for the lower drives and the SATA cables meet in a bunce. I even went to the work of removing the lower middle fan bracket (since I wanted to keep a fan there) and nibbled away some of the bracket. I then had a slot beside the mounted fan so that I could route the power cables beside the fan and directly to the lower drive cage rather than running them up, over and down again. That is when I started to have doubts about the P-180. It does do a good job cooling though. But I believe the Antec 900 does a good job of cooling with it's possible use of 4 120mm and 1 200mm fans and I found it much easier to work in.

Both do a very good job of cooling and either would be good,

Eeyore

 

[ChefJoe]

Eeyore69, reading your post makes me glad that the 180 v1.1 fixed many of those issues.

My 180B 1.1 has all those extra holes around the motherboard tray, some nice cable ties premounted back there for holding extra cables, and the power to the lower HDD area can go around the lower fan mount (currently it's routed around the motherboard side of the fan) rather than up and through the hole/plastic cover thing.

I'm very happy with my case; only issues were the need for an 8 pin extension cable for my PSU to enable behind motherboard power supply cable routing and the fact that the plastic cover/divider thing seems like more of a pain than a help (why didn't antec just make a few prescored things you could punch out to make the holes bigger as needed..... any why put the hole in the center in front of a fan).

 

[Eeyore69]

The extra holes around the motherboard would have been nice; if I had known what a pain the routing was going to be I would have drilled or nibbled some in. I could have added them when I cut holes in the motherboard mounting panel behind the cpu heatsink and chipset heatsink areas. I found early in my career that it is sometimes necessary to get at the nylon retaining pins at the back to squeeze them to allow me to remove the heatsink. It is sometimes necessary to replace the heatsink or change the thermal paste. I do that with every case and motherboard and did it to my most recent Antec 900 and Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3R system. On my current system I am using a cpu heatsink that requires a backing plate and I certainly don't want to have to remove the whole motherboard if something comes loose back there. And I have two passive heatsinks that are held on by plastic pins that will need to be removed sooner or later. I can just grab my pliers, squeeze the back of the pin and away I go.

As for the plastic slider/cover I just removed it entirely. After routing the cables I took a couple of strips of clear packing tape and covered the hole. I bent one end of each strip back onto itself so that I could remove the tape easily. It covered the hole more thoroughly than the default plastic piece, was quick to apply and was certainly cheap enough!

The P-180/2 is a good case but tends to be cramped. Of course I have 6 hard drives, 2 DVD burners, 1 fan controller and a floppy drive. That is part of the cable routing problem; too many darn cables!

And, if you work on the front door and front panel often, the plastic tends to break. The pins that retain the door on mine finally broke off along with one of the front panel retaining tabs. I did without the door for almost a year because it was not truly necessary. The front panel was a different story since when I would move the computer the panel would bend. But the case has a 3 year warranty (mine is 2 years old) so I contacted Antec support. I will see if I actually get a replace door/panel. The support rep I talked to a week ago said they would send one if I still had my receipt. I emailed a copy and am waiting to see how good their support is.

Eeyore

 

[caferace]

Does any company make a case with a raised MB mounting plate (for routing cables) that also has cutouts for that same mounting plate? It would be great if you could take off the side of the case and get to the exposed bottom of the MB to reroute or add cables, and change out some of the HSF's that have backplates. Something like that, with P182-like quality and ease of use would be a hot seller, I think. I know I want one.

On the other hand, I suppose that's what removable MB trays are for. But it would be SO much easier if you didn't have to disconnect everything first just to make a simple change...

-jim

 

[MarcVenice]

I like the p182, at low the tricool fans are barely audible, but don't push a lot of air either, but still enough to give decent airflow. If you want more airflow, replace the fans. Also make sure you've got a quiet PSU, and it should be 1 hell of a quiet case. The way to put up the HD's and Optical Drives is also pretty neat, as is the couble routing behind the back of the motherboard like people mentioned. And yeah, most PSU's don't have a long enough 12v cable for the mobo, so you've got to buy an extension.

Besides, it looks good too, in black I like it best. The dust filters actually work, I think I've got the case for 2 weeks now or so, and they aren't fully covered with dust yet, but I'm gonna have to clean them soon. But it's really easy to do so, easier then dusting out your case thoroughly, so I'm not bothered. There's one thing I did notice, the back of my 8800gts 320mb get's pretty warm, ya know, where it exhausts air out of the case, as if it is being blocked. It's a 2 slot card, and with 2 slots opened up, it still gets rather warm at the top slot.

And I'm not the one to spend 100$ or so on a case, yet I did, and I don't regret it.

 

[snarl]

I just built a System with that Case and love it, I used an Antec Truepower Power supply so the Harness had enough length. Case is pretty quite and runs nice and cool, the three 120mm stock Fans work pretty good. I run them on High and although you can hear them they're not to noisy and cool nicely. I'd recommend the case.

 

[blackwind]

Well, since it appears the only comparable case is the 900 (which I don't much care for), P182 it is, I guess.

I've read some conflicting reports about how well the Corsair 620HX fits in the P182, but I suspect this could be due to differing revisions. Can anyone who purchased both parts recently weigh in? And can anyone comment on the P182/Ultra-120 Extreme combination?

 

[Ozoneman]

I have both the P182 and the Corsair 620. They work great together. I installed the PS with the logo right side up (fan blowing down) and the cables flow very well behind the tray. I also was able to run the 8 pin cable behind the mother board and bring it out at the top through the slot at the top left and plug it in without any extension. I have a P35-DQ6 mobo and the 8 pin connector on the mobo is at the top left corner. The cable was just long enough to reach it.

As far as cooling, I went from a Cooler Master ATCS case to the P182. My motherboard temp went from 51 C to 41 C. My cpu temp dropped 6 C. My graphics card went from 57 degrees to 48 degrees. I'm running my fans on the middle setting and I added a 120 fan to the front middle drive cage. Oh, and one final note, it is not very loud at all. It is about half as loud as my Cooler Master was. I'm going to check to see if putting the fans on low will keep my case as cool and if it does, it will be even more quiet.

 

[Ozoneman]

The only regret I have about my P182 is that I wish I'd had gotten this one.

http://www.performance-pcs.com...=162&products_id=21558

I took the time to manage the wires so well, I'd like to show off the inside.

I also considered this one.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16811129026

When I got my P182 I was lucky and found it on sale for $110 shipped. ZipZoomFly has them now for $150 shipped.

 

[MarcVenice]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16811129017

p180b is basicaly a p182 but I don't think it has the cable management behind the motherboard tray. There are p180b versions which do though.

 

[ChefJoe]

Originally posted by: MarcVenice
http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16811129017

p180b is basicaly a p182 but I don't think it has the cable management behind the motherboard tray. There are p180b versions which do though.

Sorry MarcVenice, that's incorrect. The currently shipping p180b is referred to as the P180B v1.1 and has the exact same innards as the P182 (the 180b v1.1 I bought even had premounted cable ties on the back panel)... the only difference is the color (black vs gun metal grey).

 

[VinDSL]

Originally posted by: Ozoneman
The only regret I have about my P182 is that I wish I'd had gotten this one.

http://www.performance-pcs.com...=162&products_id=21558

I took the time to manage the wires so well, I'd like to show off the inside.

I also considered this one.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16811129026

Dude...

Performance PC should make a custom SE with a bolt-on window too!

That would rock!!!

I wonder if they've thought about it?

EDIT

Kinda like this except with a P182SE...

 

[MarcVenice]

Heh, chef, I was partially incorrect, like I said there are p180b's who do have the cable management. I checked the pictures though and wasn't really sure if it had the cable management. Anyways, since it is in fact identical to the p182 except for the paint, it's an easy way to save some money ...

 

[NoDamage]

The B in P180 refers to the black color, not a B revision or anything like that. All of the modifications to the P182 have made their way into the current P180 rev 1.1 (makes sense, since Antec only then needs to produce one chassis design). The only difference between the P182 and the current revision P180 is the color.

 

[LiquidImpulse]

Originally posted by: Eeyore69
I have had a P180 for a couple of years now which is very similar to the P-182. I like it although routing of cables can be a bit adventurous; the P-182 helps in this regard because of the modified motherboard mounting plane. The P-182 allows routing of cables behind the motherboard plate. And the P-180 is heavy since it is steel! I think it weighs over 40 lbs with a power supply.

Two weeks ago I assembled another unit but I decided to buy another case because of the cabling difficulties with the P-180. I didn't want to pay more than about $100 (Stacker, Lian-Li and such were much more) and I ended up with an Antec 900 from Newegg ($90 after rebate and free shipping). It is not cutting edge; no toolless entry or drive mounting, no removable motherboard tray and such. While it is about the same size as the P-180 (only about 20 lbs too) it seems to have a lot larger internal space and is easier to work inside. Like the P-180 it does not include a PSU but it does come with 3 120mm fans (80cfm) and 1 200mm fan (130cfm). Like the P-180 the PSU is mounted on the bottom which can cause cable routing problems with PSUs with short cables. But overall I like it very much. It is much more convenient to work in and the fans and airflow are very good.

Eeyore

thats one way to describe it :

 

[omeganot]

I just finished building a new system with a P182SE this weekend. Got the SE when it was on sale for $150 at CompUSA, lower than the regular P182 at the time. Powered by an Antec TPQ-850, whose cables have more than enough reach for an EVGA 680i A1. CPU cooling is TR-120X, which fits with only about 0.5cm to the wall. The TR-120X was a little difficult to install given the space to work with. The top fan comes close to the HSF, making it hard to reach the fan retention clip, and on the other side the extra fan for cooling the NB gets slightly in the way of the other retention clip, but it's just a minor inconvenience.

Routing all the cables was an exercise in patience, but the payoff is worth it. Once you get it done, it looks great and provides excellent airflow. Cables are barely visible in this case if you set it up right. The only "in plain view" cables I have are the two PCI-E power cables that come up through the extra little hole right next to the sliding covers. I have both covers completely closed. Hard drives are mounted in the bottom, and I routed the SATA cables up and behind the MB mounting plate through the cable management system. For the front panel connectors, namely USB, Firewire, and Audio, I routed them underneath the motherboard when I mounted it. Also, as is mentioned elsewhere, putting in a 8800GTX requires the removal of the top HD bay. Not the entire piece, just the quick-clip part you mount the drive to.

Far as the SE is concerned, the black looks hella sweet, but I'll rarely see it since the side wall is on. Same goes for the light. The other irritating part about the black interior is finding mounting holes and the like. When working on the bottom section it was tough at times to find the mounting holes for the fan in the center.

 

[blackwind]

Well, I just ordered my P182. Thanks to all who responded! Sounds like this'll be well worth the investment!

 

[sentinel41]

I have the P182 and I have a support question for people here. The description said the front door can open 270 degrees, flush against the side of the case. I've tried doing this but the door seems to come to a halt at the 180 degree point. I know this is a double hinge case, and I can tell the second one is stationary. From what I can see there are two plastic tabs preventing the second hinge from swinging out. Ive read around and people have said that:

"The doors appear not to open like that but you have to unlock (jammed in place with a spiggot on top and bottom) the second hinge. It is a two part hinge and if you have not freed the second part it will appear not to open properly"

But I haven't found this myself. Any ideas?

 

[drakore]

You have to snap the front pegs out of their spots... it wont break anything so don't worry.

I have gone through atleast 2 x P180's/P182's and probably done 3 builds for other involving them.. For the money they are a good case... however if you want to go something better the Coolermaster 830-E stacker will kill it

 

[overCee]

While we're on the subject of the P182, does anyone have any experience with this case, the Abit IP-35 Pro motherboard and the Tuniq Tower 120? I just ordered them yesterday and am having some worries about everything fitting.

Please ease my mind if you can. Thanks.

 

[*kjm]

Originally posted by: drakore
You have to snap the front pegs out of their spots... it wont break anything so don't worry.

I have gone through atleast 2 x P180's/P182's and probably done 3 builds for other involving them.. For the money they are a good case... however if you want to go something better the Coolermaster 830-E stacker will kill it

Not so sure on the Cabling part!

 

[cytoSiN]

Originally posted by: overCee
While we're on the subject of the P182, does anyone have any experience with this case, the Abit IP-35 Pro motherboard and the Tuniq Tower 120? I just ordered them yesterday and am having some worries about everything fitting.

Please ease my mind if you can. Thanks.

P182 fits an IP35, Ultra120Extreme (similar size as Tuniq Tower), and 8800GTS with room to spare. It's an awesome, quiet, cool case!