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Antec P182 Case
Construction and Design:
Click on any of the images for a closer view
The front of the case has a double-hinged door to keep the front of the case looking clean and the double hinges assist with durability. The front door is not vented itself, but is distanced from the air intakes on the front by 1/2 inch and there is a vent that is located along the perimeter of the case door frame. This 1/2 inch of vent did not seem to be a limiting factor to the amount of air being pulled into the case (determined by the sound of the fans running while the front door was opened and the closed repeatedly and the internal temp of the case tested). The front of the case also has Audio in and out, two USB and one 1 x IEEE 1394 (FireWire®, i.Link®) port. These audio and USB ports being located on the front of the case have proven priceless for gaming giving you easy access to plug in your MIC and headphones and your thumb drive w/o any difficulty. We would not currently invest into a case without these features as we consider them just that important.
You can see here the well thought-out design of the case. The power supply resides in the lower compartment which is sectioned off from the upper compartments. There is also a piece of plastic that slides back and forth to allow enough but not too much access for cabling to transfers the different compartments. This helps limit the heat transfer from the power supply to the rest of the components.
Another design plus of this case is the hard drive compartments which are removable. With the removal of a simple thumb-screw the entire drive bay slides out from the side instead of into the case. These side removable hard drive cannisters are invaluable and really do assist with installation and any future work inside the case. The upper hard-drive bay has a small compartment attached the far side allowing for storage of possible screws or other small items. The compartment may be easily overlooked but when you need a screw, diagram, or other hardware it will come in very useful.
The rear upper chamber where the motherboard resides is shown here with two to the case fans provided. The case fans are connected to a selector switch giving the user the ability to set the speed of each fan. As shown, the switches are not very easy to read or change on the fly, but with a simple speed controller knob installation this can be upgraded later. For basic use these selector switches will suffice and it should be noted that even this feature is more than most cases provide you with. Also shown in the center photo are the two rubber grommeted ports for water cooling piping.