of the 183:

Making the 5.25 cover see through like that is retarded IMO. Making the fan covers with out filters also ruin the looks and kill dust control.

And WTF is with the UGLY holes on the front cover?!

I like the changes to the Sonata Elite - might make me consider it whereas before I wouldn't have. I still don't like the power button behind the door like someone else mentioned though.

Makes me wonder if and when Antec will update the Solo/P150. I think the only major minus I have is that both the power and reset buttons are very flimsy. Besides that it's a pretty awesome case, but I could imagine there are some minor improvements they could sneak in.

I'm guessing the idea is that if you lock the front door people can't turn on the machine. I agree with you though. The small number of people that would use this feature or the lock would be outweighed by the people annoyed that they have to open the front door to turn on their pc.

If you have right motherboard you can set it to wake up from PS2 motherboard. That's how I set up mine. Press any key on keyboard and computer turns on. Really nice feature. The only downside is that you gotta have PS2 keyboard, it doesn't work with USB ones.




On other thoughts I don't like new P183. P182 brought welcome changes to already proven design. P183 leaves too many open paths for sound to escape.

I agree with many here, the P183 has problems. With all of those open noise paths, I think the new door is a mess. Seriously ugly too.

The only way that the P183 looks better to me, is the more open intake vents. Everything else, from the holes in the front, to the vented 5.25" bays, to the new front panel arrangement and power button, and the racing-stripe-esque top vent are all downgrades in my book.

The only things I'd want to see for the P18x are built-in hard drive suspension a la the P150, and a cover for the top vent that sits flush with the rest of the outside top of the case.

However P183 is improved when many peoples here complained how restrective P182 front was and Air wasn't moving, hindering the air flow. This is Antec engineers solution. Now I don't like the front at all but at least they got rid of the spoiler.

When I saw those large holes, I was saddened as well. I remove so much dust from my P180's dust filters every few weeks that otherwise would have entered it.

The dust filters keep the inside extremely clean for me, at least compared to many of the other cases I've used. There is barely any dust inside the case. And they don't seem to restrict airflow too much, at least compared to some readings I did with the door open and no filters versus door closed with filters.

It looks like I might have to keep my P180 a bit longer.

Quite frankly the P183's internals look exactly like my P180B's after I modified it a bit Good job there, Antec. The front on the other hand is just terrible, the holes on the door and the goddamn see-through 5,25" covers... What were they thinking?

I own a Sonata III, but I'm currently moving my computer to a Coolermaster Cosmos (needed more room). Some thoughts:

It looks like the sonata elite has some routing going on behind the motherboard panel. That's cool.

The blower fan is kinda dumb, though. Blower fans just tend to not work very well. I like how they are addressing the heat problem for the VGA, but I don't think this is the way to do it. I think the mount for the fan attached to the hard drive bay wall should have just been lowered instead. In the sonata III, it just blew air above the video card on my setup.

I would have liked to see them make a bit more room. That bar below the power supply makes adding large heatsinks difficult. I had a lot of trouble getting my motherboard with my TRUE attached. A bit more room for longer video cards would have been nice as well.

And, yeah, the power button behind the door is annoying as hell.

I'm not sure antec is going in the right direction by opening up the p183.

The industry is clearly moving toward mini-itx. You can fit almost everything a modern PC needs onto a mini-itx board. You CAN fit everything you need onto a mini-atx board, which is why the industry is moving to mini-itx instead -- mini-atx is too big.

So opening up the p183 for more air flow is questionably useful when even ATX systems are losing their need for crazy cooling. New CPUs and RAM are cool, and new GPUs are either cool or sufficiently self-ventilated. New hard drives are cool, and SSDs will begin to replace them in 12 months as they become affordable.

It is for these reasons that systems are moving toward mini-itx... but it is also for these reasons that ATX systems don't need as much cooling. And it is for that reason that the direction the P183 has taken is wrong.

The P182 is not perfect, and unfortunately neither is the P183 because for each problem it fixes, it also goes wrong in places. I could explain more but I don't think it would help.

If I had to get a case now it would probably still be the P182. I think it looks ugly like a fridge, but the P183 is actually looks worse. And not only does it look like a case for children, it will it leak more noise.

Haha... i was soo hopefull of antecs coming case.

Thank god i own the P182 before they replace it. If i ever feel this case isnt enough i will problably go onto a Cosmos 1000 and mod it instead... i feel its the only case that with a little changes to its structure like HDD cooling could be a perfect case.

Hopefully cooler master takes this opportunity and makes a new revision of the cosmos 1000 and gives us great cooling with great sounddampening.

debatable. sure, there are more boards now than there used to be, and they aren't as pitiful in terms of performance, and more affordably priced, but I don't see a mass shift towards them. they are still niche items, for novelty projects and carPCs, although they may gain some market share as low-end HTPCs.



low capability systems have always been cool (low heat), but gaming and high-performance PCs are just as hot as ever, quadcore, 100W+ GFX cards, the new GTX280 is said to take over 200W! so that one's debatable as well.

jaganath has point. TDP values of new era CPU's will grow Wattages and GT 280 has 284W TDP value. Current Nehalems have 135W TDP. So cooling is actually more priortized now than it has been since P4's...

When new architechture tech is introduced now and then we usually see spikes in TDP and power consumption until new production and tweakens take them down.

Those are the top of the line mega parts. They are designed to get as much performance as possible, cost, power or efficiency be damned. The mainstream mid ranged cards are a much better way to evaluating how power hungry a chip design is. But yes your right, they want their new chips to start with a bang, power efficiency comes later.

Hi
Just wanted to say that I was disappointed with the new P183, in regard for the top mounted fan.
I owned many Antec cases including a solo, P182, and currently a mini P180. And I personally felt what Mike chin mentioned in his review of the mini p180: it simply has a superior cooling compared to the P182! And from my personal experience this does not come at the expense of a higher dba. I currently have the mini p180 with the large fan set at low and replaced the rear fan with one running at 800 RBM and it’s both quieter and cooler than my previous p182.
I had hoped that they’d upgraded the cooling to catch up with mini P180 by the time the P182 is replaced, I guess that the current design dictates that the rear fan is limited to 120mm size, but I cant see why the top fan stays the same?
Also if they intend to make The front that much unrestricted they should paint the grey steel behind it in black!!

Your high power examples are fringe products and not representative of the general tide of things. The new Intel CPU is about the same power output per unit performance as every other Core 2 Duo, and the new ATI cards will be very high performance and low power compare to the Nvidia cards which are duds.

You can debate what I said but you'd be wrong, and you'll find this out very quickly. It won't be more than two years before the shift is obvious. You can see it happening already with high end low power systems.

Intel is already using mini-itx instead of mini-atx, telling you the middle-sized format is unnecessary. And regular enthusiast motherboard manufacturers are beginning to make mini-itx motherboards with almost the exact same features as ATX motherboards.

For ATX, motherboard makers are clamoring to add value to these larger boards because they know they don't need to be large anymore. Quad SLI, 12 USB ports, 12 SATA ports, 3 audio outputs, 3 video outputs, 2 types of memory, elaborate useless heatsinks. This stuff is fringe, this stuff is to differentiate from the pack, and they're doing it because they have the physical and financial room to. But most people don't need $300 worth of crazy features, and they will realize this very quickly as the alternatives ramp up in volume. People need the same features they always have, and those features can be made very cheaply and compactly TODAY.

If you need more convincing, look at this and consider what it cannot accommodate: http://www.commell.com.tw/Product/SBC/L ... 78-3DB.jpg

High end CPU, RAM, video onboard with pci-e 16x expansion, storage, peripherals.

That is months old from an industrial manufacturer. And you can build a high end PC out of it that is faster and smaller than an Xbox 360. This stuff is mainstream... the stream just doesn't know it yet Snap!

Are the filter doors of the P183 the unrestricted filter doors Antec said would be made available for the P182 as an add-on?

And I agree with dart22, the P183 would look much better if they painted the metal on the front of the case black.

Add me to the list of people disappointed with the appearance of the P183. I've got a P180B and a P182 and I like the black color of the P180B and the features of the P182. Since I've got some more system builds coming up this year I guess I'll be stocking up on P182's before they disappear.

If you consider a mini-fridge look "stylish". I personally have always thought it looked like crap. Though the new iteration has definately succeded in making a bad looking case look worse.

funnily enough you can actually see the power and reset buttons through those massive front holes.
all you really need are small fingers or a pen, perhaps antec can sell the case with a rod called the 'power button extender', 'turn on your pc without having to open a friggin door!'

....i need sleep and some panadol.

For months I opened the door of my P182 to hit the power button, then finally couple days ago I tried the wake on keyboard feature of the bios and I ain't never gonna open the damn door again except for cleaning the filters.

I do have a PS2 keyboard though, and my ancient mobo allows me to setup a password to turn it on, instead of just pressing any key, so I chose to hit the F key twice (easy key to find in the dark and very low chance of having the pc turned on by accident).

Basically a fancy overpriced non-case.

DIY version = box fan, dowel rod cut into four pieces, and a sheet of cardboard.

I really like the Sonata Elite, looks like a refesh of the current Sonata II which is a great case! Anybody noticed the holes for cable mangament? Any idea on the price and release date?

I am weird perhaps but i kinda like Antec P183's new look. Somehow its frontal panel makes me think of XA-series Pasi APC's... That just prooves that I am weird. Still Antec has well listened our complains of too restricted air flow. And they moved middle fan into forward.

I indeed like P183...

A DIY version would be four long all-thread bolts, along with 16 nuts. 8 nuts secure the motherboard to the middles of the bolts. The other 8 nuts provide places to secure strings that suspend a 120mm fan above the mobo.

I agree with you. So many consumers cried out for less restriction, for better airflow, for having the fans moved about and Antec has tried to heed your cries. But instead of the shouts of a thousand "thanks you" for better airflow, and fan placement, all Antec hears now is more cries.

Just the state of our world.

Personally, I like the new look. Its not as clean, but still better looking then most cases on the market. Yes the dust filters have been removed, but most people complained they did little to begin with and replaced them with paper filters from swifter dust mops or actual dust filters. The interior is cleaner from what I have been able to see, with the removal of the lower center fan mounting. This will make for easier routing of wires to either the HDD mounted below or running wires without the kinking to the upper section.

The slating is appealing to me, it gives it an edge. Also, someone could mount colored plastic/ paper behind the slatting. Someone might even mount LEDs to backlight the slatting. I am sure the number of reworks to this case will exceed even the P180/190 cases.

All in all, I think that we should say "Thank you, Antec" for yet anouther simple, clean elegant case. And get on with the modding that we know will happen.

Have they said when it will be released?

I've heard Q3-Q4 for the Skeleton and P183. And sometimes in 2009 for the Skeleton Mini.