Antec P183 v3

Testing

Methodology

To test a case, we feel the best way to do it is simply to play around with the case for a prolonged period and make sure to focus on a few key areas, describing our experience with them. These areas are:

Strength – how resilient they are. After all, it’s there to protect your internal hardware.
Cooling & Noise – will it cool your internals well enough and how noisy is it?
Features – what features does it have? Are they useful, novel?
Cost – Is the chassis cost effective and worth the money?

Results

Strength

This is one strong case. Even with a reasonable ammount of weight and force appled, none of the panels or frame bent or flexed in any way shape or form. Even the side panels, traditionally weak points of a chassis, have proven to be quite able to take a beating. Your hardware is certainly safe within a P183.

Noise and Cooling

Noise levels with this case are as good as any other Antec chassis with the fan controller allowing you to fine tune things to how you want. The problem is the lack of fans. With only two 12cm exhaust imepellers, there is a real lack of an intake. There is space to mount up to 2 front impellers, but I would have liked to have seen at least one at stock.

Features

Unfortuantely, there arn’t that many features to shout home about. Yes there is the USB 3.0 cable but as we’ve seen in reviews of the Nine Hundred Two v3 and Twelve Hundred v3, it only plugs into the back of your motherboard if you have a compatible slot. The SSD mount is nice but a little uneeded, though I do like the large cut out section behind the CPU coolers.

Cable management however is handled well and I really like the inclusion of a seprate PSU area, I just wish there were more options for cable routing behind the motherboard tray.

Cost

The P183 will run you around £120 depending on the etailer. This feels a little expensive for what you get.

Cases, Reviews

Antec, case, P183, Performance One

11 responses to “Antec P183 v3”

InaudiblePC

September 13, 2012 at 9:48 pm

As many have said, you missed it. This case was designed for silence. It uses a negative pressure cooling method. There are no vents anywhere except in the front, and the back. The reason there are no intake fans is that by using exhaust only, you keep a negative pressure system, and you keep the fans away from the user. The air flowing out creates negative pressure, and air wil come in where it can… The front. Right through the dust filters. Case design is not about cramming fans into a system, it’s about controlling airflow, and this case is amazing at doing just that. I’m not sure how a case can show it’s age, it’s a relatively simple item, and the only changes recently are by Silverstone, but the Raven and siblings are massive compared to this case. I’ve attained better temps with this case, in a negative pressure design than with any other case, and was able to do it with less noise from the system.

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Frizz

December 20, 2011 at 8:00 pm

no :)
external means accessible from outside (as opposed to internal 3.5″ mounts) while the door is open. You need an internal drive.

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1. Count Duku
  
  December 24, 2011 at 11:55 am
  
  Thanks, ya I’m glad I found out before I returned it for an external one :).
  
  Reply
Count Duku

December 17, 2011 at 10:08 am

I’m confused about the 4 5.25 external drive bays. You have to get an external dvd drive instead of an internal one?

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Adrian

August 20, 2011 at 4:25 am

The case is excellent. It brings the P182 and P183 to modern times, with SSD suport and cable management. I am also using a P182 and thought about modding it but now I will switch to this new case. I have owned and seen different cases from HAF X, to FT02, Define XL and Bitfenix Collosus. Only FT02 comes close to the quality of the build involved but its louder.

Take one P183 v3 (182 in my case), get rid of stock fans. Buy 4 Enermax TBSilence fix rpm (11db). Install 1 in the back and 3 in front (used 1 KamaBay). Cover the upper fan space. Now I have an i7 2600K with fan-less Noctua NH-D14, 8gb 2133Mhz G.Skills, GTX580 with Accelero Extreme Plus fan, 2SSDs + 1 HDD. The system is virtually silent (17db) and powerful. If you can mod and move the front fans 3 cm inside the case probably the noise will go down to 14db.

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Silence

May 17, 2011 at 4:03 am

I am sorry to say that you totally missed the point of this case the P18x series represents the top end of silent PC cases for high end users the reason for “redundant front dust filters” is to dampen sound as well as filter dust as the air flows from the front to back drawing noise away from user. the original was developed with input from silent pc guru Mike Chin and with the correct set-up you can have a whisper quiet gaming rig packed in here or a total silent high power desktop. the price point represents the high quality of materials used in the construction as you will easily see the higher level of quality when compared with some of the competition some use silicon grommets for HDD enclosure that are almost like hard plastic while P18x use super soft ones. performance one series is focused on silence and you missed it.

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1. Whoopty
  
  May 17, 2011 at 10:14 am
  
  I appreciate that this is a case designed with silence in mind, but the P183 is simply showing its age at this point. It’s not a new design by any means, and to not include any intake fans for £120 is a bit much. Likewise, there’s no interior paint job and it almost exclusively uses traditional screws. Not a thumb screw in sight.
  
  It’s still a good case, but it’s outshone by modern rivals.
  
  Reply
  1. russian guy
    
    May 19, 2011 at 2:05 pm
    
    The absence of intake fans is arguably a flaw, since most of users prefer to install the ones of their own choice. Again, what use is an interior paint in a completely closed case like this, which is designed to be a solid and ultimately silent solution? :)
    
    Reply
    1. Whoopty
      
      May 19, 2011 at 2:17 pm
      
      It’s a personal preference, but when I’m spending over £100 on a case, I want fans in the front and I want an interior paint job.
      
      Reply
      1. Chris
        
        July 17, 2011 at 4:32 am
        
        I bought a P180 way back, which I’m still using. That puts me firmly in the firing lines for this case. The cooling in the top chamber is absolutely spot-on, with three (one intake, two exhaust) Silent Eagle 1000s. What we actually need with cases like this is for the manufacturer to stop bundling fans altogether, as the sort of user who actually buys this case (as opposed to just reviewing it) will want to fit their own Silent Eagles or Scythe Gentle Typhoons. Bundled fans are for the same market segment as bundled power supplies; top-quality cases come without.
Cable Management in Mississauga

March 26, 2011 at 9:24 pm

Thanks for the review. This is the best case out there and we use it for most of our system builds, nice to see the V3 having SSD and USB 3 ports finally, this one is living up with the times.

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