Customer Reviews

Antec Mini P180 Case

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I got this case to build a small home fileserver in, and it's worked out nicely for me. It's a bit pricey, but the construction quality reflects that - the design is well thought-out and integrated, there are no sharp edges to catch your cables or fingers on, and the sound deadening is effective. I took my components out of an antec Aria case (i.e. a small cube-shaped case) and put them in this one (plus a new power supply and 4 additional hard drives...) and the end result runs significantly quieter and cooler than before. I'm happy.

The minor downsides:
- You might end up needing longer cables than you expect because of the unusual internal layout.
- There's a good chance that your optical drive won't fit into the top 5.25" bay where you want it to. It's a short bay.
- Pricy case, _and_ you need to supply your own power supply. I'm fine with that, but the whole setup is not cheap.
- Despite the overall excellent cable routing arrangement inside, the power cables for the top and rear fans dangle awkwardly into the middle of the case. You have to get creative to keep them out of the way.

First off, I give this case 5 stars. I give Amazon 3 stars. This following paragraph is about Amazon's pricing, skip it if you just want case info. I bought this from Amazon for $109 and the expected ship date was in 3-5 weeks. Before they had shipped the product, 1 week later, the price lowered to $99. I'm thinking, "hey wait a minute, my order hasn't even shipped and I'm being charged a higher price". Well Amazon's policy in that case is to rebuy the item. Which would set me back an extra 1-2 weeks(checked with it in cart). I decided $10 was worth 7-14 days. Then Amazon decides that one week later the product is worth $79.99. My case had still not shipped, but inevitably the wait would be longer should I rebuy. I wanted to put my system together for winter break, but $30 cheaper??!?!?!?! really? (tldr; price changed, amazon doesn't care)

Now to the case, if you haven't seen the case outside of pictures, this case is bigger(wider) than you're picturing in your head. It's not going to sit gloriously on your desk, unless your desk is irregularly large, or your monitor is huge(>25"), or the presence of your room is so grand and spacious that it would fit right in like Texas. It is also heavy, which is something I like. It weighs somewhere near ~30lbs with parts in it. Its not going to fall over.

You can put a large heatsink in it. I put a Thermalright Ultra 120 /w fan in it and feel like I neglected the space available. Remember there is a 200mm fan right about this area. You can fit almost any heatsink inside this case. The two fans that come with the case are decent. However my 200mm fan makes an audible clicking noise at speeds above low. The other fan is silent. I ended up filling the two other fan slots with fans and pulling out the hard drive bays. I don't need to often turn the speed of the fans up, so this is a minor nuisance.

With the drive bays out I fit an nvidia gtx 570 with no problem. I used a corsair psu 650 watts, and it slightly overlaps the dust filter covering the air intake on the bottom of the case. I can't open the dust filter to clean it, but I imagine I can turn the case on its side and wipe it down.

Make sure your dvd/cd/blu ray drive is equal to or shorter than 6.7 inches if you want it to fit in the top bay. Otherwise it runs into the fan guard.

The case comes with cable management supplies and of course extra screws and such. No case speaker though

Pros: Great quality, great looking (inside and out), and great cable management.

Downside: If you are using a larger graphics card (5850 or larger) you will need to remove the lower hard drive bay. You are then left with 3 3.5 and 3 5.25 bays. If you plan to put an SSD in it while you have a large graphics card installed, you have to put the SSD into a 2.5 to 3.5 adapter and then a 3.5 to 5.25 adapter because the included 2.5 to 3.5 adapter will only make the SSD fit into the lower hard drive cage that had to removed due to the graphics card size. So make sure your SSD comes with a 2.5 to 3.5. Also, you could cut off part of the lower hard drive cage to make the card fit.

I personally would buy this case again because of the great quality and the attention to detail Antec has put into this case.

Brilliant design! This is a heavy duty quality case. Full steel construction and very quiet considering it has both a 120mm and a 200mm fan. The loudest thing is the fan I got for my processor. Excellent cable management by routing cables behind the right panel. There are 3 washable air filters, 2 on the front and one on the bottom. You really should keep this on a hard surface and not on carpet for best airflow.

This case is extremely quite, and well thought out. The lower 5.25 drive bays are a little cramped due to excess power supply cables, so it would have been nice if I had something modular. Everything inside is nicely cooled, I can feel the air being sucked in from the front panel about a foot away.

Good: Great case. Sturdy, organized. Clean-looking. Quiet. Modular. Fits large video cards and CPU coolers despite being micro ATX.

Bad: My Blu-Ray drive doesn't fit all the way in without being blocked by the fan in the top bay. Sounds like a design/size limitation, but you may encounter this. It's mostly an aesthetic issue, since the front panel still closes, it just looks odd sticking out when the panel's open. The wiring space in the back panel is very narrow, and getting the back panel secured is difficult as a result - the cables must be set as flat as possible to get in on.

This is a nice case, bought for use as a home media/backup server. It's built extremely well, although it's a little tight inside, so to speak. Installing a MicroATX board in the case with the CPU/heatsink already mounted is a challenge. Also, the power supply air intake is on the bottom, so if you have carpet, you'll likely have to remove one of the CD ROM slot covers to get ample air to it. The fans are pretty quiet, and the case does an excellent job of making the hard drives dead silent. The airflow is very good; my CPU fan rarely ever spins up, even under load.

Pros:
-Great quality, inside is painted black and nothing sharp
-200mm fan
-Can fit an HD5970 with no problems as long as you remove a lower hd cage
-Super silent even when fan is on high
-Supports SSDs
-gunmetal gray looks slick

Cons:
-Expensive
-Only supports mATX
-No USB 3.0
-Hinges on the door seem to be very fragile

Overall this case is perfect for me especially if you don't mind getting mATX and having a computer that's not as giant as the gaming comps but not too small.

The case is just gorgeous. I have the Asus P55 MATX motherboard and the combo is just beautiful. The case allows that the cables be hidden behind the motherboard which just makes it look really clean and neat. It has a fistful of hard drive bays and still looks nice and tight.
The only flaw I see with this case is that the hinges on the front door are kind of week and can break easily. Once they do break the entire case can be a let down. Just be careful when opening and swinging the front door.
Other than that the case is great. Would I use again? Yes. Just keep that one fault in mind.

I agree with almost all of the previous reviews. The biggest drawback of the case, contrary to its commendable cable management options, is the tricky cable routing due to the strange chambered layout, especially in regards to older IDE drives. Routing old IDE ribbon cables through this case is a nightmare, especially IDE optical drives which have to reside in the lower chamber. If all of your drives are strictly SATA, cable management is a breeze.