Help! Which Case to buy?

[KrazyCrusader]

Which one should I pick up?
I'm going to be running an OC'd Opteron

 

[Corporate Thug]

P180 or CM stacker

 

[McPudd]

My choices today would be:
1) Antec P180
2) Thermaltake Armor
3) CM Stacker

Happy trailz,

 

[Fallengod]

Its hard to say. I can tell you I have the p180 and its great. Newegg.com has it on sale right now for like 109.

 

[nombrecinq]

Not on sale anymore.

 

[sinisterk]

HI,

I have the P180 as well. It is a GREAT case.
It all depends on what you want. I wouldnt even put the Thermaltake and the Antec cases in the same category. Price alone sets them apart.

Thermaltake is more like all in one, easy install case and alot of it is looks.
Antec P180 is for the quiet PC market (I use mine for HTPC, quiet is a must). The looks is there too if you are not after a side window panel. But, it is heavy and a bit hard to pick up. A scratch will really make this case look bad...looks great in the lounge room though

If you are after a quiet and quality then P180. if you are after the possibility to do case mod (cathodes, led fans etc) then go for the Thermaltake.

Once more thing, P180 doesnt come with a PSU and with its PSU section at the bottom of the case you need to be careful when selecting a PSU. Makesure the cable will be long enough to reach back up. I went for an Antec TruePower 2.0 with this case. Perfect combo.

Good luck.

 

[Corporate Thug]

compusa will have the p180 for $99AR on BF

 

[Fallengod]

Originally posted by: Corporate Thug
compusa will have the p180 for $99AR on BF

I saw that myself. Of course I just bought one for $124 shipped recently. Oh well.
It is a great case. I use a XP-90 with thermalrights 2500rpm fan, even at that speed the case is still pretty quiet.

 

[Eureka]

http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview...atid=40&threadid=1736439&enterthread=y

Just for the bling.

Norm

 

[RampantAndroid]

P180....very easy to work with, very nice case. Also very silent, and the included tricool fans are amazing. On top of all this, the P180 has removable easy access fan filters....something the guys at coolermster don't yet understand. All their cases use small wire mesh and denser foam filters, which when added really restrict air flow. my 6800U with a VF700 ran very hot in my Praetorian....in my bro's full tower, it runs nice and cool. I'll never touch a CM case again without first seeing the thing first hand.

 

[klocwerk]

I want a P180, but I'm not willing to pay for it. (me = broke)

it's definitely the best designed case I've seen in awhile. silentpcreview did a bunch of testing on it, and they all loved it too.

 

[mikester]

Another vote for the P180. I had narrowed my choices down to pretty much the same ones listed above (P180, Stacker, Armor) and the P180 was the clear winner. The cooling in this case is phenomenal. The rear and top exhaust fans are positioned perfectly for cooling the CPU (and memory on my DFI board, since the mem slots are at the top). Pretty quiet too, considering the amount of overclocking I'm doing. If I was running at stock voltage, I would have both the fans on low and it would be practically silent.

With an Athlon X2 3800+ overclocked to 2.6 GHz (1.55v) and an XP120 HSF, I am able to keep my load temps below 49C with the rear fan on medium and the top fan on low. I couldn't fit the air duct for the video card because I'm using a V-1 cooler, so I can't comment on how well that works (although I don't need it - load temps are never above 65C on my O/Ced 6800GT).

I took the fan out of the bottom chamber and just use the PS fan, and that seems to work fine. It's a Seasonic S12-600, which fits perfectly and the cables reach (and the fan is silent). I mainly took the bottom fan out to make it easier to route power and SATA cables to my harddrives, but I really don't think it's needed because the SMART monitor for my harddrives shows the harddrive temp at 48C, which I don't think is too bad at all.