Antec P70 ATX Mid-Tower Case Review

Test Results And Analysis

Today’s test uses the same hardware and settings as the previous be quiet! and Supermicro case reviews, allowing us to produce comparable results without retesting previous samples.

Do those temperatures seem a little high? Generating test results on the P70 without encountering host processor thermal throttling was accomplished only after raising the CPU’s threshold (in UEFI) to 115 °C and lowering the room temperature to a chilly 15°. Though we might have been able to get the CPU temperature down by 10° by using a huge cooler, the P70 appears to be designed for lesser hardware. Perhaps a Core i5 at a similar clock rate and voltage?

Super-thin side panels do little to isolate internal component noises from the outside of the case. Even the Supermicro Gaming S5 with its vented side-panels is slightly quieter.

Hot and noisy are not good adjectives in a cooling-to-noise comparison, though the P70 has a lower price to help excuse its performance deficit. Cheap system builders don’t want canned heat, but cheaper processors usually have less heat to manage.

The point is seen in our charts, where even the combination of poor cooling and noise control isn’t enough to prevent a value win. We should probably recommend the P70 to someone as a result. But we still aren't quite sure who this case is built to attract. Even as the P70 occasionally dips below $60, we wonder whether we should do an exhaustive search for a higher-quality product at a similar price or drop an extra $20 on a true budget-oriented enthusiast chassis. Antec sells those too. Even its venerable Nine Hundred is available for less than $100. Given what we’ve seen here, we’d probably spend more on something better.