I like the dual rear 120mms on the Antec 1200.

A+++, thanks again for the SPCR take on trade shows!

very nice looking HTPC case there.

Did you get any dimensions for it? Im shopping for a htpc case for my brother and this one has best looks so far (IMO).

hmm...like the budget Antec case more than the mini P180--those front vent things totally ruin it for me. Otherwise nice stuff...nice writeup too.

Thumbs up for Antec Three Hundred.

Seems to have listened to some of my wishes in this thread although they probably had the same thoughts already.
P180B = best case ever.


Needless to say I prefer this over my P180B anytime (CM690 inspired =good).

Accelero Xtreme. Is this a new Thermalright HR-03 killer.
They already seem to lead with the Accelero S1, and now.....

Have a great time at CES and keep us posted, great read, thanks.

Edit:
More pictures please, much more, heck; have a photo session with the hardware for all I care

I love the mini P180. The only qualm I have with it is the top fan. It's going to house a matx system, so it won't really need two exhaust fans. Anyway once released, it's going to be easily the best matx case on the market. I almost feel bad for buying NSK3400, almost.

Btw, the article says: "Everything about the Mini is nearly identical to the original P180, from the double removable HDD cages to the large 200mm top TriCool fan." AFAIK, P180 had no 200mm fan.

I hope SPCR reviews Big Boy 200 asap, before people get hyped for nothing.

That new Accelero looks fantastic, can't wait.

Thanks rpsgc, those are excellent pictures.

It looks exactly like the sort of thing I have been calling for for ages - basically the same as the sock HSF but with bigger, better fans and even more fins.

I can't wait for it to become available.

Do you have any more details about those new antec PSU's?

As far as i'm aware, SPCR hasnt ever reviewed a PSU that doesnt use transformers to step down voltages. Is this a new technology?

Not. So. Fast.

Two major reasons why people typically go mATX:

1) Smaller Size
2) Lower Price

The mini P180:

1) Is huge for an mATX case. In terms of size, the mP180 is to the P180 family what the NSK3840 is to the mP180!

2) Is expected to retail for 160 dollars, nearly twice the cost of the NSK3480.

Although admittedly arbitrary, a third objection is that the ventilation holes on the front--and especially the top--of the mp180 make the case ugly in my eyes. I'm doing a new build in February and will probably be sticking with the NSK3480. The mP180 looks like it will be a cool, quiet case, but it achieves this in part by going against one of the primary benefits of the mATX form factor: size.

I agree with C Zoui. Its very big for a mATX case, and very expensive. Performance freaks that spend that kinda cash on cases dont usually go mATX.

Mini P180 is probably about the same size as the Solo/150, and other standard sized FULL atx cases. Why go from ATX to mATX if not to get a smaller computer? Thats always been the trade-off. Except now you lose expansion and gain no reduction in size.

Only people i can see that will really like it, are people that already have a P180, or were looking to get one soon, and didnt like how big it was, but still want the same case.

The 300 is NICE. Clean design, great airflow and nothing fancy. Expected retail price of $60? SOLD. Why anyone would buy the 1200 is beyond me. Any word on when it'll be available?

M-P180... ehh... it looks acceptable in white, for some reason. I like the dual 5.25" chambers in the bottom. Two enclosed 3.5" harddrives shouldn't make much noise in that position.

It's still smaller then P182. And who cares about expansion slots anyway. In the past it meant something, but nowadays everything you need is integrated to the motherboard, so 2-3 slots is more then enough. Matx motherboards are also usually a lot cheaper then your average ATX motherboard, and they come with the added bonus of IGP. That's why I'm never going to buy another ATX sized motherboard again.

One of the things some people miss is that if you remove the middle HDD bay, there's room for a full-length video card and it still holds 3 hard drives in the upper bay.

Sorry if some people don't like the vents on the front door, but when we made the case short, we lost a lot of air intake volume on the sides of the door that had to be made up for. We tried to make the openings stylish, but of course it won't be everybody's cup of tea.

The Signature PSU uses voltage regulator modules instead of the normal magnetic amplifiers. New technology? Not quite. It's used on motherboards to carefully control the power that your CPU and memory receives. For most everything else in the computer it's overkill, but the Signature is nothing if not quality overkill.

AntecRep already covered my imprecise language in defining the difference in the technology between a conventional PSU and the Signatures. We got Han (after a bit of good natured arm twisting) to open the PSU just for us...you probably won't see any other pics of the inside of them until MikeC gets one in-house for a review. Unfortunately once the PSU is open I'm really the wrong person to dissect the finer points. If Mike or Devon had been there they certainly would have been able to describe it in a more technically proficient manner. I went to art school...my reactions are more likely to be, "oh, shiny!"


As for the height of the Max..the upper portion of the case front is exactly the same as a regular fusion, so you can use that to judge. Antec doesn't list its dim's in the press info, but do call it "4U desktop height"

Maybe you haven't heard. IGP will be on ALL future chipsets from Nvidia and AMD/ATI.

You won't have a choice about getting IGP even on high end boards.

That safe looks pretty dodgy. It might be fireproof but that doesn't help if your HDD melts inside it.

Most fireproof cases are designed to stop your paper documents from burning, but if you read the small print most don't guarantee that they will be readable afterwards. HDDs and optical media might not survive that kind of heat, and a fall (if the floor/desk/shelf collapses) would probably kill a HDD too.

I think the Coolermaster V12 should also be mentioned.





This is a true monster with 8 heatpipes, 5 seperate alluminium fin arrays and 2 120mm fans.

This scenario won't happen in the near future. But of course I'd like to see some proof/sources for this claim. I know AMD is bringing Fusion processors in the near future, which have graphics integrated into CPU. What would be the point in Fusion, if there's already going to be an IGP in every chipset?

For nvidia: Hybrid SLI will be here within a couple of months, including IGPs in all nvidia chipsets for AMD cpus. And the next revision of intel chipsets will probably bring the same.

I don't suppose there is the slightest chance of it happening but I wish they would support Hybrid SLI on SLI mobos with two PCI-e cards as well. I'm not sure what the lowest SLI capable card is, but the 6600 at least supports it and can be found in fanless versions. Compared to the 8800 power consumption is excellent.

Au contraire, the very next refresh on both sides of the fence are going that way. It'll only take a few months to debut, a few more months to fill the channel, and a few months after that for prior generation products to empty out of the channel. In the grand scheme of life it is going to happen shortly.

If you think months are a long period of time you might say that isn't near future. I'd say it's roadmapped in and inevitable.

Wait a second you think Fusion is a near future project?


The point of Fusion/APU is low latency. Once you have Crossfire/SLI concepts fully developed there is no where near the drawback of an on CPU video controller like there was back in the early Celeron days.



I expect to see IGP across the board before fusion makes it to the masses.

I don't bookmark these sorts of things as I read them but here are two links.

http://www.dailytech.com/All+New+NVIDIA ... e10263.htm
http://www.anandtech.com/tradeshows/showdoc.aspx?i=3193

In the past enthusiast boards had chipsets that had the integrated GPU disabled just to keep it out of the way. Now the drivers and board level control will be there to use an IGP in a constructive manner no matter how many add in GPUs you have.

Use it for power saving, SLI/Crossfire, Physics, distributed processing. In some way or another most any user will find a use for it even if they don't know it is there.

[quote]Besides freeing you from the curse of the wall warts and their tangle of cords, the technology has a green side: Once the device being charged signals that it has reached its capacity the base shuts down, eliminating the “phantomâ€

Another issue I can see with wireless charging is that no-one can ever seem to agree on a standard.

It would be really easy to make a universal wired charger if everyone just used the same charging jacks. About the closest we have come is USB for charging, but most devices have their own proprietary connectors.

I suppose you could argue it's down to different voltage requirements, but it wouldn't be hard to produce a connector that supplies 3.3V and 5V. Or just 5V like USB, and then regulate it in the device.

So, instead of a wireless charging pad, you will just end up with the usual array of docks and pads, and still need 20 wall sockets for them all.

i can't wait for the mini p180 to hit the shops, it's exactly what i've been looking for !

my current PC setup with mATX makes so much noise i can't stand it anymore and i've been looking for a nice quiet case for it. i was about to buy the p182 anyway even though it was too big/heavy for my needs. now i can get a mini p180

i was just wondering if the side panels etc were made like that p180/2 ie multi-layered ?

(and a 200m fan in the top, the p180/2 only have 120mm fans don't they ?)

Antec NSK 3480

I have to agree with most of the other posters in that the mP180 is going for a niche market. I was motivated by size and cost in my purchase of a 3480 about 5 months ago. I'd probably make the same choice today.

One thing that did surprise me is the rigid hard drive mounting that they have in the Three Hundred. Just how rigid is it? Do they at least have the soft grommets found in the 3000B's HDD mounting system? A completely rigid hard drive mount seems like a step back for Antec, even if it costs $60.

I rate silence more important than size (even though i would prefer a mATX sized case) and from what i read about the 3480 in the review of it on this site it doesn't quite cut it. I was really looking for the better noise dampening of the p180/2 and (about) the size of the 3480. I know the mini p180 will probably be the size of a normal midi tower but that doesn't bother me that much.