Antec P280 or wait for Corsair 550D?

Enclosures and acoustic damping to help quiet them.

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TobiasGA
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Antec P280 or wait for Corsair 550D?

Post by TobiasGA » Sat Feb 18, 2012 11:20 am

Hi,
I'm building a system with SB-E and a HD7950 or similar (maybe the new nvidia series when they arrive), but I'm in doubt about what case to choose. I'd like it to be somewhat quiet and not sound like a hair dryer when I power it up :D But the cooling should be good too as I am using my computer a lot for intensive tasks and gaming and I may add another graphics card later.

I decided for the Antec P280 case, but I got in doubt after seeing the Corsair 550D - do you think I should wait for this case? I have nothing else to wait for really so maybe it's a bad idea to wait for potentially 1 month for a case? (I contacted Corsair and they said it should be available in Europe during the middle of march which is a quite long wait)

The Corsair might be a better case, but whats your opinion? I hope someone can help me decide :)

mkk
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Re: Antec P280 or wait for Corsair 550D?

Post by mkk » Sat Feb 18, 2012 1:58 pm

Going by your target system type I'd lean towards the P280. To improve the noise level you'd do well to cover up one of the two top exhausts (using one plus the rear is plenty cooling-wise) and maybe add some foam to the side panels, on top of the prefitted vinyl. There seems to be plenty of space in there for more material.

I have to say the 550D is better looking, but as far as the spiffy vent covers go you'd have to remove that upper one anyway.

TobiasGA
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Re: Antec P280 or wait for Corsair 550D?

Post by TobiasGA » Sat Feb 18, 2012 2:19 pm

Thanks for your reply.

Why dowould you think the P280 is better suited for my system?

I may add to first post that I'll probably be oc'ing the cpu (3930k) a little bit, nothing extreme but 4-4.5GHz probably depending on how easy it is (I don't have much experience in oc'ing) and when thinking about it I'll most likely wait for the upcoming nvidia cards, not that this changes much but maybe they will run hotter than the 79xx series which seems to be running very cool :)

Regarding the design both of them are about equally nice looking in my opinion, maybe the Corsair is slightly more stylish but the Antec is a nice looking case too.

CA_Steve
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Re: Antec P280 or wait for Corsair 550D?

Post by CA_Steve » Sat Feb 18, 2012 5:54 pm

Might as well wait a couple of weeks for the 550D reviews to start and then decide. At first glance, it looks to be a decent gaming case.

TobiasGA
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Re: Antec P280 or wait for Corsair 550D?

Post by TobiasGA » Sun Feb 19, 2012 1:53 am

Well the problem is that I could really use the computer now :) But it would be a shame if the 550d case really is going to be far superior, but I'm not sure it will?

PMcG
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Re: Antec P280 or wait for Corsair 550D?

Post by PMcG » Sun Feb 19, 2012 5:35 am

I like the corsair better for their moduvent system. Also if it is running hot a side fan will make a big difference and there are filters everywhere. Plus it looks better lol.

I say wait, 1 month cant hurt.

CA_Steve
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Re: Antec P280 or wait for Corsair 550D?

Post by CA_Steve » Sun Feb 19, 2012 7:05 am

I am curious - what apps drive the need for the i7-3930k?

TobiasGA
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Re: Antec P280 or wait for Corsair 550D?

Post by TobiasGA » Sun Feb 19, 2012 7:38 am

Waiting does hurt as I am looking forward to my new system very much hehe :D

You think a sidefan can make such a big deal? The P280 got two optional internal intakes and 2 external intakes, so in total I could run with 7 case fans. Wouldn't this be able to give high cooling performance (and of course sacrificing some quietness at the same time, but that would be ok as I can't get both)?

Steve, I'm using my computer for 3D work, more specifically I'm using Maya and rendering with mental ray which scales extremely well with the number of cores (alot of the time I'm rendering with 100% cpu usage on my current 4 year old quad core) :)

mkk
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Re: Antec P280 or wait for Corsair 550D?

Post by mkk » Sun Feb 19, 2012 8:59 am

The P280 design is a bit more truthfully oriented towards relative quietness with details like better drive grommets and material applied to the panels. Side vents aren't much use on a case like this which is so easily cooler withoit it, and would be a big tradeoff when it comes to noise. The vent covers are also thin which means they won't block noise as well as a solid panel, and the foam on the panels by the looks in their video appears to be more of a feature-checkbox material. If you aren't going to have several mechanical drives in there then the 550D might be a good choice too, I'm just convinced the P280 is even better.

On a side note I think the P280's front is quite ugly, not that that's important here. :)

CA_Steve
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Re: Antec P280 or wait for Corsair 550D?

Post by CA_Steve » Sun Feb 19, 2012 10:47 am

TobiasGA wrote:Steve, I'm using my computer for 3D work, more specifically I'm using Maya and rendering with mental ray which scales extremely well with the number of cores (alot of the time I'm rendering with 100% cpu usage on my current 4 year old quad core) :)
Sorry - I always ask why when people want to go with an i7 SNB or SNB-E. Most of the time, it's overkill for their apps. In your case, fast multicore is good stuff. Don't know if the SNB-E will provide benefit over SNB for Maya. Initial reviews were mixed. Don't know if it's due to early drivers/bios/memory controller.

TobiasGA
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Re: Antec P280 or wait for Corsair 550D?

Post by TobiasGA » Sun Feb 19, 2012 12:38 pm

mkk wrote:The P280 design is a bit more truthfully oriented towards relative quietness with details like better drive grommets and material applied to the panels. Side vents aren't much use on a case like this which is so easily cooler withoit it, and would be a big tradeoff when it comes to noise. The vent covers are also thin which means they won't block noise as well as a solid panel, and the foam on the panels by the looks in their video appears to be more of a feature-checkbox material. If you aren't going to have several mechanical drives in there then the 550D might be a good choice too, I'm just convinced the P280 is even better.

On a side note I think the P280's front is quite ugly, not that that's important here. :)
You say side vents aren't much use on a case which is so easily cooler without it - You mean I will be able to make the P280 a lot cooler by installing some fans in the optional slots even though it's not gonna be on the side? My only real concern with the P280 is how much better the airflow could get if I at some point decide for sli or just want it to run cooler, and then go for maximum cooling instead of silence.

I only have one hdd and one ssd at the moment, but when I get some more money (and hdd prices go down) I will add some more for increased safety if a disk will die :)

I haven't seen a P280 in real life so maybe I will get negatively surprised when seeing one, but based on pictures I wouldn't be bothered visually by having that case under my desk as I think it looks fine, simple and.. yeah simple :P

CA_Steve wrote: Sorry - I always ask why when people want to go with an i7 SNB or SNB-E. Most of the time, it's overkill for their apps. In your case, fast multicore is good stuff. Don't know if the SNB-E will provide benefit over SNB for Maya. Initial reviews were mixed. Don't know if it's due to early drivers/bios/memory controller.
Don't be sorry :) I based my decision on the fact that I see a 100% load on even a dual quad-core pc with ht when I render with mental ray in Maya, I guess that's a good indication of nice scaling with cores. So with a 3930k and a 2600k at the same clock speed I guess that would translate to a 50% increase in render speed for the 3930k?
I'm not sure about how they did their benchmarks, so it's difficult to translate it directly to what I will use it for, as it doesn't seem they did benchmarks with mental ray. There are of course cases where I don't get 100% utilization of all the cores when rendering, but it's a really nice boost when I do - and a boost of "only" 25-30% would also be very nice I think :)

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