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Final thoughts and the Conclusion
Final thoughts and the conclusion
User experience
The user experience of any product is probably the most important factor and the Antec Performance One P280 will not disappoint in this department. The P280 looks good, runs very quietly, and cooling performance is excellent. I’m not a gamer, so I don’t even use a discrete graphics card. Removing the graphics card makes an already quiet enclosure almost silent.
There is more than enough room inside the P280, to ensure that installation of the motherboard and components is a breeze. The P280 will also have no problem accommodating even the largest motherboard, CPU air cooling solution, and the longest of graphics cards.
The cable management system is one of the best I have ever come across. It makes for a very neat build, and easy access to HDD bays and cabling, meaning swapping an HDD or SSD only takes a few minutes, and the cabling still looks very neat after this is completed.
The air intake filter arrangement works well, and possibly more importantly, it is very easy to maintain,
Conclusion:
Let us summarise the most important positive and negative points below:
Positive:
- Sleek minimalistic looks that just ooze quality.
- Excellent cable management.
- Excellent and easy to maintain air filter arrangement.
- Excellent noise and vibration dampening performance.
- Tool-less 5.25" drive bays makes for easy fitting and removal of optical drives.
- 6x 2.5"/3.5" drive trays with acoustic dampening.
- Dedicated 2.5" bay for 2x SSD or HDD.
- Good cooling performance with excellent air flow around the enclosure.
- Can accommodate motherboards with an XL form factor.
- Large CPU cut-out on the rear of the motherboard tray, allowing an aftermarket CPU cooler to be installed with the motherboard still in place.
- Front mounted USB3 and USB2 ports.
- Good value.
Negative:
- Power supply is not included.
To sum up, this is what I would say:
A good PC build should always start with a good quality enclosure, and the Antec Performance One P280 is certainly a very well built and designed enclosure. It has plenty of room inside, good cooling performance, and noise levels are very low. All in all, it’s an excellent PC enclosure.
Price
As I write this article, I found the Antec Performance One P280 for £109.99 including VAT.
The parting sentence is
“The Antec Performance One P280 is a good looking enclosure, with excellent noise suppression, and cooling performance.
You may comment on this review below.
6 Comments on Antec Performance One P280 enclosure review
And for only $120.00 at the Egg a great buy also
I'd disagree that "not including power-supply" is a con - ever look at cheapo cases with a '350w' power-supply and wonder why you're paying for it to be shipping around, AND then discarding it into YOUR landfill instead of leaving it in China? For me, "no PSU included" is always a plus, therefore.
I hate doors on cases. And I hate the cutey little rubberized hole-covers for cable-hiders, but I'm not a fan of holes anyway. I prefer a motherboard tray that's cut at the front edge of the MB so a wide open area exists for getting to SATA pedestals (another item I loathe) for easy multi-drive plugs and un-plugs.
Antec maintains its great spacing for those multiple drives, though, with enough air-flow space between drives.
Thanks for the excellent review and all the time and attention - your work makes it so easy to evaluate these products.
,since I got my NZXT 375 I have not gotten another one with a door. 
This one has even got more room than my Ultra M923's,
this looks like my next case 
After I take off the door.
Here's her photog of the case's motherboard-tray area:
http://gfx.cdfreaks.com/reviews/ante...w/image004.png
Of particular note - at the top-middle position of the motherboard, there's a screwhole for the screw next to every motherboard's RAM slot handles.
Some case-makers have mashed this upper edge of a motherboard into fans or the top of the case itself - and this one screw becomes most difficult to insert 'straight' - and everyone knows how FUN it is to do maintenance with crooked threadings. Some cases FORCE that on us, practically.
This above photog, however, shows us that THIS case makes all the screws for the motherboard easily accessible.
Now, here's a bad example...here's one for a Thermaltake VL84 case. (NewEgg has a better straight-on unangled photo, but you can extrapolate the positioning of this case's top-middle screwhole:
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-HAfnVfURdx...%2BEdition.jpg
This case jams that screwhole UNDER the lip of the case's side-panel railing. And if you have one of those 2-inch long screwdrivers, you're still going to be jamming your twisting fingers against the top edge of the case.
While this photo isn't great, I gain even more appreciation for Dee's choices of photogs.
Much thanks... it's probably a small thing to you now, but I really appreciate well-chosen review photos.
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