Antec P160 & P4 3.2 high end system help

[golddogs88]

Dear Members,

I need your urgent help & advice.

I was looking to purchase the Antec P160 case to create a high end system but was wondering if it was suitable & cool enough.

The components i am going to use inside are as follows:

2 WD 10,000 rpm raptor drives
P4 3.2 HT 800 Mhz front side bus
ATI Radeon 9800 XT
1 8X DVD Writer
1 52X CDRW
& a 550 Watt enermax supply

You will notice that i am only listing the high heat generating devices, but i will be using more items inside the case, but no lights or mods, etc, etc.

I have read in some reviews that the case doesnt have enough cooling, & i have only seen this type of rig being reviewed with a P4 3.0 cpu & not a 3.2 cpu.

Also i may want to upgrade to a faster cpu in the future, therefore would this case be suitable for such a system indicated above or do you recomend another case.

Also does any one have any case, motherboard & cpu temp data on idle & full load with this case & such a system.

My last question is i was also looking at the Cooler Master Praetorian(PAC-T01-E1)case, in comparison what would you recomend for greater cooling the praetorian or the antec P160

Thanks

Golddogs

 

[mothballd]

I'm probably too late to save you, but the Antec P160 is [-peep-]. Or atleast mine is. When I purchased it the 'adjustable front panel' was broken in about 4 different ways. (clear panel pushed in, sticky power button) SO okay thats 2 right, so what about the other 2 ways... I got my system all hooked up and plugged it in... system immediately powered up... and then shut back off.... I wasted an hour trying to find the problem, and then realized that it was that sticky power button. The button was fitted poorly and was locked in the on position, it took me 2 hours to break down the Front panel assembly and put it back togeather. Then it refused to tilt anymore. (small gripe, its a useless feature anywho).

Other problems that I had....
5. Side panels are poorly fit.
6. Case has a shoddy feel to it, nutplates and screw attachment points strip easily.
7. PCI/AGP slot covers on back of case are a house design, so your expansion cards- and especially USB/firewire/gameport expansion plates will be left flopping in the wind.
8. The case has an...odd... set of pwr/reset/ide led/pwr led plugs. The PWR led plug is a 2pin design instead of 3-1, most motherboards use 3-1... which means you'll have to live without a PWR indicator light. plug set also doesn't include a speaker... mainly since the case doesn't have one. so you'll have to rely on your external speakers for POST reports. makes troubleshooting more troublesome.
9. Front fan plate is poorly fit, if you don't tie it down with string or tape it makes more noise then the fan itself! (and I use a fan rated at 45dba)
10. Gimmicky front drive covers stick up CD drive trays on them, they get stuck going out, stuck going in, and the covers block use of any drives equipped with headphone jacks and external volume controls. The floppy drive cover is nice though, mainly since it doesn't cover the floppy slot.
11. The whole front cover is cheap cheap cheap, and I mean cheap. When ever I push the reset button it sticks behind the transparent cover until I squeeze the frame just right. The materials on the front don't match the quality of the rest of the frame, being made of cheap plastic that smudges incredibly easily.

But hey, if you like pretty blue lights, a shiny lack of paint, and er... its got a nice mobo tray! this is the overpriced piece of crap for you!.

Final word, antec lovers- stick with the lanboy and sonata cases. Antec blew all their money on those 2 designs and used junkyard scraps for this case.

-Andrew