Antec P193
Average Online Price: $160
I've always been a big fan of Antec. Its cases, power supplies, and other accessories are universally top notch. Therefore, it's not surprising that the Antec P193 (an update of the popular P series that started with the P180) is an excellent all-around enclosure.
The most striking feature is a massive fan mount on the side of the case that sticks out from the left (and is visible in the images above). It houses a 200mm intake fan that keeps graphics cards nice and cool.
The cooling system is rounded out by a rear, 120mm exhaust fan, two top, 140mm exhaust fans, and three front 120mm intake fans.
As with most of the P180/190 cases, the front hard drive mounts pull out like drawers. This makes it easy to mount drives, but is an inconvenience at the same time. The drives are held in place by rubber-shielded screws to cut down on vibration. There's room for six internal hard drives, and externally the case supports four 5.25" drives and one 3.5" drive, all behind a front door.
The case isn't tool-free, but I'm not holding that against it. "Tool-less" cases are in vogue, but that feature alone doesn't make a case superior. It wasn't a big deal to turn a screwdriver to build within the P193; the bigger inconvenience was the use of drive rails. There's plenty of room in this case for long, 11" graphics cards and large, kilowatt power supplies.
The actual build in this case took longer than those within the other cases in this roundup. With all of the compartmentalization, there are quite a few complicated cable runs to deal with. The biggest hurdle was the need to route the power cables through openings at the bottom of the case, and this caused the cabling to bunch up and made it difficult to achieve clean airflow in the lower area of the motherboard mounting compartment.
Furthermore, the need to remove storage to get to the hard drives was a hindrance. Rubber screw sheaths meant to dampen vibration from the hard drive are easy to lose, as are the special screws used for mounting drives.
Once the build was complete, the case kept everything nice and cool. In all, the P193 isn't without its inconveniences, but it's a nice case nevertheless.
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"we first tool a dozen pics of each ..."
Um...isn't that ABS Canyon actually a Lian Li Tyr X-2000?
LePhuronn 12/10/2009 18:53 Hide -0+
Um...isn't that ABS Canyon actually a Lian Li Tyr X-2000?
Close but no cigar. Looks almost identical externally, but the TYR-X2000 has 3x 140mm intake fans, space for six hdds and a larger top "heat zone".
And its not the X500 either (which has only 2 "heat zones").
The Canyon 595 seems to be slightly more sensible than both Lian Li's.
'the coolest case both under load and idle was the panzer box'
interesting when the graph shows the antec to be cooler on all three criteria, in addition the antec and panzer under load both have the same gpu, the antec is lower for ambient and the panzer lower for gpu - the figures suggest a draw under load and a win for the antec at idle.
Yet another example of excellent scientific method and crappy interpretation of the data....
In the case of the antec the ambient temperature is actually lower in both cases, but especially in idle, so the actually difference between ambient temp and cpu/gpu temperature is smaller in the case of the panzer.
On a different note, I'd hardly call one test of one sample in one environment 'excellent scientific method'...
I agree with will_chellam, according to your results the antec wins out overall. plus i've seen few more hideous boxes than the panzerbox. spend the extra and get an antec
( i do not work for antec )
Where is the Coolermaster HAF932?
it would be nice to get decibel ratings and power consumption figures in future reviews
I love my cheap antec 300 case, low on cost, high on cooling as well as looks double its price..