Customer Reviews

Antec P183 Advanced Super Mid Tower Shell Case

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This case is, in many ways, the best case I've owned.
It's the right size for my needs, can hold the largest graphics cards without any trouble if you remove the upper drive cage, has nice cable management features, excellent airflow, looks nice, and dust filters over all the intakes. The case also feels sturdy and durable, and does a great job at quieting hard drive noise. There are some things that might be negatives for some people though:
You do need to remove the upper drive cage to fit long graphics cards (e.g. nVidia 260 GTX and larger). This will only be a problem if you have more than 4 hard drives.
The stock fans are pretty loud for what is advertised as a quiet case. In the average office, the fans are fine, but if you keep your computer in your bedroom, consider getting replacement fans. After doing this, I can leave my computer on at night and sleep in the same room without noticing it.
The case is heavy, and not especially portable. Probably not a problem for most people.
You will want a power supply with long cables, especially the CPU power connector.
You can hit the power button with the door closed, an odd design choice.
Not tool-free. But all the parts end up very secure.
There is an excellent review of the case on [...], for those interested in making an extremely quiet computer. Removing the top fan grill (per their recommendation) made the case noticably quieter, and took 5 minutes.
Overall, I'm extremely happy with my purchase, as the case has excellent airflow, and is whisper quiet. But the case will definitely be at its best with a little planning on your part. The problems are not enough to keep me from enthusiastically recommending the product, but it won't meet everyone's needs.

I bought this case on the recommendations of a forum I frequent as a good solution for airflow and noise reduction. It is definitely the best case I've ever owned, but with the caveat that I only build a computer every few years, so I haven't been privy to all of the advances.

Positives:
1)Cord management system is fantastic. Both because of the power supply placement (on the bottom of the case, separated from the motherboard/main section by sliding partitions to keep the cords that aren't in use out of the main case airflow) as well as the nice areas to route cords behind the motherboard.

2)Removable Drive cages to make installation as easy as possible.

3)Dust filters in the intake areas to help keep your case clean and airflow good.

4)Airflow/Cooling - Due to 1 and 3 along with the layout and placement of things in the case, the airflow/cooling in the case is pretty fantastic out of the box.

5)Stylish and subtle. Not too whiz bang flashy, perfect for any environment.

6)Very sturdy, well built, solid.

7)Compared to my old computer's noise output, this thing is like night and day. Extremely quiet if the fans are running on low(which, if you aren't overclocking, is more then enough), I can barely tell it's running.

Negatives:
1)No removable motherboard tray. This didn't really cause me problems since there is so much space to work with in this case, but it was still a feature I was used to and I was surprised not to see it here.

2)It only comes with the two outgoing fans blowing out the back and top. Although it has slots for multiple intake fans, none are included. I really think it should have included one for the middle front. There is a slot there, but no fan included. If you plan on doing any overclocking, you'll probably need to do this.

3)Heavy. This is definitely not the kind of case/computer that you will want to lug around to lan parties. This is the kind of case that you build, put into place, and never move.

4)Still pretty noisy if the fans are on high, like when you first turn it on. Although more quiet then most cases, I'd bet there are quite a few out there that are better suited to your needs if this is your primary concern. If you don't mind making some modifications though, this case would be a good start. There are some tweaks you can find on the internet to help improve the noise output of this case to make it even quieter.

5)The design of the lockable front door of the case is pretty bizarre. The power/reset buttons are behind the locking door, but they have open slits that you can still reach into to hit the buttons. I'm not sure what other purpose this locking door could possibly serve, so it's a little bizarre. If the door didn't have a lock on it, I think I wouldn't have really given it much thought.

6)You need a high quality power supply with long cables to take full advantage of the cord management systems and/or to reach everywhere you need to with the cables since the power supply is in the bottom of the case. I had no problems here, but it did spring to mind while I was routing/stretching the cables into certain areas.

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Again, overall, I love this case, but use the details above to help decide if it is for you or not. So you know what I was working with when utilizing this case, below is the list of relevant equipment I installed into it:

Gigabyte GA-P55M - UD2 Intel Core Micro ATX Motherboard
Intel Core i5 Processor 2.66 GHz 8 MB LGA1156 CPU I5-750BOX
SAPPHIRE|100282SR HD5850 1GB R Video Card
Samsung 1 TB Spinpoint 7200 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 3.5 inch Hard Drive HD103SJ
Lite-On 4x Blu-ray Disc SATA Internal Optical Drive iHOS104
CORSAIR CMPSU-650TX 650W Power Supply

Great computer case. More than enough room for a 10.5" video card, 2 HHDs, and numerous add on cards. Easy to work in, quiet, and understated as far as custom cases go. Highly recommended.

I chose this case to build my new workstation because it felt very well put together. The design and construction quality of the Antec is top notch. Looking inside this case you will notice that Antec spent a lot of attention to detail. Originally I was not going to spend this much on a case but in the end it was a good decision. This case is running two Xeon 5500 series CPUs and the CPU temperature stays between 26-28c using the stock case fans and an Intel CPU heat sink. The video card temperature stays between 29-31c. For me the selling point of this case was the noise factor... or lack their of. Being a developer most of my day is spent sitting near my computer and I do not want to listen to it all day. As soon as I brought this machine to work my coworkers were coming over and trying to listen for noise. They could not believe how quiet it runs. It is that quiet.

The Antec P183 delivers on many of the claims made by the manufacturer while also committing design mistakes that are sure to aggravate purchasers.

The case is certainly quieter than any case I've ever owned that wasn't touted as 'silent', however, true silent computing enthusiasts would not be impressed by the decibel output of this tower 'right out of the box.' Having said that, for the average consumer the case is certainly quiet enough.

Equipped with both standard fans, and an additional after market 'silent' 120mm fan I installed myself, the only sound discernible from the case when placed beneath my desk is an extremely faint hum. Upon moving the tower to my desktop the hum becomes a faintly pulsing white noise that waxes and wanes as the fans rotate. This humming white noise quickly fades into the background unless I expressly focus upon it.

The case has ample room inside to install most any component desired. Extremely tall after market CPU coolers may cause some difficulty, but by and large, clearance should only rarely be a cause for concern.

The P183 suffers from a few small annoyances. The case door swings open to the left - something almost, but not quite, rare enough to be called an oddity - and this can make it awkward to use for some people. The sole reason I make a note of this is because most people I know tend to place their towers to the right of their chairs, either on the floor or on their desk. The reason for this? Perhaps it is because most case doors tend to swing open to the right! This may be an arbitrary comment and may in fact actually be viewed as a positive by some purchasers so your mileage may vary. It took me a few weeks before I quit attempting to open the door in the wrong direction but that may say more about me than it does about the case.

The door, in addition to opening the 'wrong' way, also covers the power button when fully closed. Since the door comes with a lock, this could perhaps be viewed as a security precaution, however, there are holes in the door that allow one to bend a finger through and turn off the power without ever opening the door. Why cover the power button when the door is closed if it doesn't prevent anyone from accessing the button? In addition to this, most power supplies have a master power switch that is freely accessible on the back of the case so this button issue is purely a pointless annoyance and nothing else.

The Antec P183 also suffers from a few minor quality control issues. Behind the aforementioned door are a number of small filtered gates that cover the various bays in the case. These gates are designed to add an additional sound buffer and to collect particulate matter that may be sucked through them by the case's airflow. Whether the gates succeed at these two goals is difficult to determine, however, while I can not comment on their noise reduction and filtration I can comment on the build quality.

The very first thing that happened when I attempted to open one of these gates is that it broke away from the case and fell to the floor. Upon closer inspection these plastic gates are held in place by a fragile nub of plastic - considering the rest of the case feels so solidly designed, this fragility truly stood out in a negative light. Luckily, even though the gate has broken off, it can still be clicked in to place and, for the most part, it stays put unless someone attempts to open it.

All in all, this is a solid case. I wouldn't advise anyone pay the full MSRP but if found at $100 - $150 dollars I believe it is a purchase that contains a lot of value.

Albeit heavy, this is a nice case for home use. Too heavy for gaming but classic style looks good in the Den. Even thought it does not have a lot of fans, my i5-750 doesn't have any heat issues with the 2 fans on low. Installed the custom power supply for this case which was a good value as well. Overall, pleased with the purchase. The box was also well-built, protecting the contents thru the stresses of shipping

I purchased the Antec p190 last year for my first build gaming rig but this p183 I bought for my newest build did just great.I also bought the Antec 850 watt power supply to go with it and it was very easy to install.I installed the GeForce gtx 260 video card which fit ok but I did remove the middle hard drive cage to give it plenty of room.

I have been using p182 for more than a year and had kept checking its price to buy another one. Then p183 come up and is slightly cheaper. So there is no reason to buy p182 any more. Basically p183 is very similar to P182 with some minor changes.
1. Move the lower chamber fan to the front instead of sitting in the middle to accommodate longer than normal power supply. But that will increase noise level somewhat. The middle position fan in p182 can cool the high end video card through the hole when installed in 2nd PCIex16 slot. I did that to spread the hit across the MB and that also allow me to install a fan in the middle chamber to further cool down the system. And since the middle fan is closer to the MB so it is more efficient and therefore quieter. However Antec does not include this fan in p183 anymore anyway. SO this change is not necessary a positive.
2. Make all the front covers(5") with air filter, while not used, to have better air flow. But to suck a meaningful amount of air from there, you need to turn up the back fan speed that will make too much noise. So this it is always better to anyone but little to me because when both fans are set to lowest position, it is still too noisy to me.
3. Install Esata connector instead 1394a on the front panel, which seems somewhat more useful.
Other than these mentioned. p182 and p183 are virtally identical. BTW, the front door look a little different.

I wanted a quiet case. My old case had way too much noise, even after I replaced the fans. I was visiting my son and he had a Antec p182 that was completely silent, It fact I couldn't even tell it was running. So, when I got home I wanted to purchase the P182, but they are no longer available. I purchased the Antec p183 because everyone said it was great. I found that it is about 30% quieter that my old case. I can still hear the whine of the fans. I'm happy for the noise reduction, but it is no where as quiet as the P182 my son had. I also had problems hooking up the power supply to my mb (my power supply is an Antec 500W). The main power cable worked fine but when I tried to hook up the second power cable to my MB it was too short - because the Power supply is in bottom of case and cable just wouldn't reach. I had to cut the cable and splice in a 6 inch cable to make it work. It was a pain, but I did get it to work. But, again I didn't get the noise reduction I wanted. For some reason my fans put out much more noise than the fans in the p182. There are lots of bays in this case and if you can stand the noise it is a good case. It is worth about ½ of what I paid.

Pros:
- It's robust.
- It looks great
- Silent
- Leds are discreet.

Cons:
- If the computer stands in the floor, the earphone/microphone jacks might be too far for you.
- Haven't used eSata port.
- Useless door key, it doesn't prevent anybody to turn on the computer