Antec P101 Silent Case Review: Old-School Cool (and Quiet)
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Benchmark Results and Conclusion
All comparison cases were tested using our new Intel Core i9-7900X test platform. We brought in the Corsair Carbide 678C, be Quiet! Silent Base 601, Cooler Master SL600M and the Lian Li Lancool One Digital to give you a good idea where this case stands against others that are of similar size and feature sets.
With fan speeds manually set at 1,000 RPM, our processor temps maxed out at 59 degrees C over the ambient temperature of 25 degrees C. These results best all other case in our comparison group with the exception of Cooler Master's SL600M. Overall, we were a bit surprised that, even though there are three 120mm intake fans, the small vents in the front of the chassis did not impeded performance as much as we had expected.
Our GPU results mirrored our CPU results, although the gap between the comparison cases was much narrower. Still, these results are impressive given the fact that this is a chassis lined with a thick layer of sound-damping material and with small intake vents in the front of the chassis.
As always, we took sound level readings with two off-the-shelf dB meters from two different angles. With the fan speed manually set on high, our test system was barely audible 27.4dBA at idle. Under load, the sound increased to just 30.8dBA, lower than that of all the other comparison cases.
Cooling efficiency and noise levels are both ways to measure performance. Determining acoustic efficiency, also referred to as cooling-to-noise ratio, is a matter of averaging all five of our tests to determine a base value.
Bottom Line
Minor quibbles aside, the Antec P101 Silent is a fantastic chassis at a very reasonable price. If silent computing is high on your priority list, and you're on a tight build budget, this is the chassis for you. Sure, it lacks a USB 3.1 Type-C and the rear filter is really long, but at $110 (£84.64), you just can't beat the features and performance of the P101 Silent.
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Prev Page Hardware Installation and Test ConfigurationSteven Lynch is a contributor for Tom’s Hardware, primarily covering case reviews and news.