Additional Thoughts

As you’ve doubtless noticed by now, the P193 has quite a variety of fan mounts. Were one so inclined, one could have up to seven fans installed in this system at once, not counting any mounted on CPU or GPU heatsinks. Obviously this is overkill, and in the manual Antec even recommends not to install any more fans than necessary, to avoid excessive noise. As this system has only one video card and fairly efficient heatsink-fan units on CPU and GPU, I’ve elected to install two intake fans in the front brackets and leave the others unplugged. With these four fans running at ~900rpm at idle, the system is dead silent. I literally cannot hear it running with every other noise-making device turned off, listening in the hours past midnight when nobody else is up. At full load, the CPU and GPU fans spin up to ~1600RPM, at which point I can detect a barely audible hum.

As mentioned earlier, the included Tricool fans have three settings, and while the top two settings are audibly noisier than the low setting, at no point is the noise deafening. That said, the fans don’t really move that much more air on medium than they do on low, and even the high setting is not a huge bump, despite the marked noise increase. These fans are best used on the low setting, where they are dead quiet while still moving a fair amount of air. This applies to all of the fans, from the standard 120mm all the way up to the 200mm “Big Boy”

Another important point to note is the weight. Companies like Silverstone and Lian Li have been producing mostly aluminum enclosures, which help to save on weight. The problem with these light cases is that they are noticeably noisier than their steel cousins, both from increased rattle and from the thinness of the exterior walls. The P193 goes in exactly the opposite direction, opting to use 1mm cold-rolled steel throughout the chassis and in the side panels. Combined with the tight fit and conspicuous use of silicone in key spots, this serves to eliminate vibration transfer–a big component of computer noise. The all-steel construction makes the P193 sturdy and solid—and I do mean solid. Empty, it weighs almost 42 lbs, which combines with the size to make this case awkward to move.

Conclusion

I’ve had an abiding affection for Antec’s Performance One series of cases ever since the first P180 came out, and the P193 only reaffirms it. “Enthusiast” cases are usually flashy, loud and attention-grabbing; the P193 and its cousins are anything but. If you’re looking for a case that will take your noisy beast of a PC and swallow it into a cold, black pit of silence, this is the case for you. From fit and finish to raw performance, this case excels in all areas. At a MSRP of $199, it is definitely on the high-end of the price scale, but is easily worth every penny.