At CES 2015, Antec had a handful of new products on display, two of which particularly stood out to us. The Performance Series P380, which we saw in prototype form at Computex 2014, was one of those, but the company also showcased a smaller Performance Series case called the P50.
This polished P380 looks a lot like the version of the chassis that we saw at Computex, but it has a couple of small changes. It now uses 4 mm-thick aluminum, rather than 8 mm, for one thing. Further, instead of the front and top of the case built as one solid bent piece of metal, Antec opted to make them two separate pieces, as it's easier to manufacture that way.
The drive cages have been revamped a bit, too. The decision to go with thinner aluminum was made to save costs, which we're fine with because 4 mm is still quite thick. Inside the case you'll be able to house up to eight 3.5" drives, long-full-size graphics cards, and up to E-ATX motherboards. It also has a total of nine expansion slots, so you will be able to house 4-way SLI or CrossFire configurations in the system.
What Antec wants to show us with this case is that it is making a return. It is gauging a lot of feedback from the community and using that to improve and change parts of the case to better accommodate users' wishes. One example is that it doesn't have a 5.25" optical drive bay; instead, there's just a bay for a slim optical drive behind the front aluminum panel. This provides the user with the possibility to mount an optical drive if they really need one, and a clean front appearance regardless of the configuration.
Antec put power and rest buttons on both sides of the case so that users have the option to place either side against a wall. Front I/O can also be swapped from the left to the right side; the only thing you'll lose by placing the case on the left of your desk is the side window.
Antec told us that the P380 would carry an MSRP of $229, although the company expects street pricing around the $199 mark.
The Performance One P50 is a smaller Micro-ATX case, and it features a dual-zone design. Rather than having two zones above one another, though, the zones are placed beside each other, much like Corsair's Carbide Air Series. The motherboard, CPU and graphics cards sit in one side, with the storage and power supply residing in the other. Inside you'll be able to fit an ATX power supply, full-size graphics cards, two 2.5" hard drives, two 3.5" hard drives, one 240 mm radiator and four 120 mm fans. It looked to us like squeezing in a 240 mm would be tricky because of the barbs protruding potentially too far. Antec hasn't tried to do that yet.
The case is still in its prototype phase, so Antec couldn't comment on availability.
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