Antec Finally Announces Performance One P380 Chassis
It looks like we'll finally be seeing a new flagship case from Antec arriving soon.
After showing off the P380 (for the second time) at CES 2015, Antec has now officially launched the case. The P380 is the newest case to make it to the Performance One series of chassis, which is the manufacturer's lineup of silent performance-oriented cases. Back when we saw it at Computex we thought it was a beautiful piece of art, so we're happy to see that it will be making it to shelves.
Inside, the case has room for up to E-ATX motherboards along with graphics cards up to 465 mm long. There are nine expansion slots, meaning you'll be able to cram in up to four dual-slot graphics cards. There are two 5.25" optical drive bays in the case, but these are not accessible from the outside. Instead, they simply serve as a place to hide cables and clutter. Underneath this there are three hard drive cages, which together offer room for up to eight 3.5" or 2.5" drives.
One of the highlights of the case is that it features a design which allows you to place it on either side of your desk without losing functionality (except that placing it on the left side would block the window view, but that, we would argue, isn't losing functionality). The front I/O module can be removed and mounted on the other side of the case to keep it accessible, and both sides of the case have power and reset switches. The slim slot-loading optical drive bay can also be swapped from ejecting the disc on the left to ejecting it on the right.
"The P380 is impressive not only because of its fine aesthetics and high-quality finish, but also because of its remarkable features," said Jerome Francois, Sales Director Europe at Antec. "The chassis offers space and sufficient flexibility and design options to meet the high demands of gamers and enthusiasts, while ensuring a smooth running performance and best cooling performance."
Being built for silent operation, Antec also put plenty of attention into noise dampening. All the drive mounts have rubber grommets for vibration reduction, and the side panels offer plenty of padding to reduce noise, too. You may wonder how that works with the side window, but at CES we saw that the seam between the window and the side panel is so well-built that it couldn't possibly rattle, and that side panel still has a decent amount of heft to it, so we doubt the window will let all that much noise through. Antec seems to think the same thing, because this is the first time that we've seen the company build a silence-oriented case that is only available with a side window.
The front and top of the case are made of large aluminum slabs, making for a very clean appearance. These slabs are bent, 4 mm thick, and anodized black on the front and back. The sides aren't anodized, so they show a very shiny aluminum glimmer, which looks better than all the chrome we've ever seen. The top can be easily removed to access fan mounting locations and the front I/O module.
Antec told us that the price will be at $229, although chances are street pricing will be sub-$200. It should be available in March.
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Niels Broekhuijsen is a Contributing Writer for Tom's Hardware US. He reviews cases, water cooling and pc builds.
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thundervore So this is their flagship case that will cost over $200, have two 5.25 that customers cannot use for CD rom drives or fan controllers, and they still have a 120mm fan mount in the back instead of a 140mm?Reply
OMG. what is worse is that the IO panel cables route directly into the 5.25 bays lmao!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A-FPJuiuCxE#t=118
Ill wait for the new design team to get hired. -
someguynamedmatt Instead, they simply serve as a place to hide cables and clutter.
5.25" Reservoir, anyone? I don't understand why everyone's so offended by those two drive bays. What are you trying to put in this case that they're getting in the way of? If you need more than 8 hard drives, you probably shouldn't be using a desktop case in the first place. -
Robert Ostrowski why would anyone need 2 optical drives if there is a slim bay anyway? 2 5.25 bays can be very useful since it's not 2005 anymore.Reply -
techguy911 Who designed this case? what a horrible design i would not order any of these for my store.Reply
I have bought $180 thermal take towers that have 180mm on top, 2 120 mil fans in font led lit red ,180mm fan on side and 140mm fan at the back.
And is quiet had lots of customers comment on how quiet they were.
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Caanis Lupus I saw another case similar that had the 5.25" mounting area but not accessible walking through a big box store. Thought how ridiculous of a design point it was to waste the metal on supports for 5.25" devices yet not accessible. The case was nice looking(red and black) on the outside but I actually watch blu ray on my 2nd monitor and have not committed the disk space to rip ALL my discs down to the network. Yeah I am one of the dinosaurs still buying discs.Reply -
belardo There are better cases that cost less. I still don't see why its such a challenge for case manufactures to make a hidden door for an optical drive-cover to hide ugly drives.Reply
Some older cases, such as the white Antec P120 includes two drive covers. Of course, nowadays - a drive is rarely used - pretty much to install an OS and large programs. Either thou, for the most part *it should be* reliable to always install an OS from a flash drive...
The other issue is that some people have slow internet performance or limited bandwidth in which DL a 4~8GB ISO file is problematic ~ and far faster to get the disc from a store.
Or... what if the user wants to play or burn BluRay discs? -
RazberyBandit 15106181 said:...I don't understand why everyone's so offended by those two drive bays. What are you trying to put in this case that they're getting in the way of?...
Here's a short list of devices I might add that I simply cannot because I'd have no access to them:
A fan controller, a multi-card reader, and (brace yourself for this one) an optical drive/burner!
I have no issue with the fact that the 5.25" bays exist. The problem is that these bays are completely inaccessible when the front cover is installed. That's an issue that could easily be fixed by using something as simple and ancient as a hinged door. Take a look at the Fractal Design Define R5 for an example of that feature being utilized quite well. -
synphul It's not a terrible looking case and I'm not against antec (at least their older offerings when I believe the quality was better). I'm still using an old sonata ii. What I find hard to swallow is the price tag for what have become basic features in most cases. One of the cases I've been looking at (to give an example) is the phanteks enthoo pro which offers much more versatility, better cooling options, a decent side window, well organized extras (screws and mounts) and comes in at half that price. Those kind of design/layout issues if you want to call them that show lack of thinking things through properly and is more expected of a $70-80 case. Slapping some aluminum on it doesn't make it a mercedes.Reply -
someguynamedmatt
...I suppose there's the problem. This is a fairly nice case in itself, but it really falls a bit flat when you compare it to some of the cases already on the market, like most of Fractal's lineup and cases like Nanoxia's Deep Silence (I really wish all versions of this were available in the US). I can agree with that; they definitely could have done a much better job laying out the front half of this case.15114534 said:I have no issue with the fact that the 5.25" bays exist. The problem is that these bays are completely inaccessible when the front cover is installed. That's an issue that could easily be fixed by using something as simple and ancient as a hinged door. Take a look at the Fractal Design Define R5 for an example of that feature being utilized quite well.