Quick background. I wanted small and relatively silent, but high-end PC with a budget of $2000CDN including taxes. Being very particular with choosing a case, I was looking for a white case. My old rig was in a P150 and loved it. Antec's website showed a new P180 mini in white as well! I was excited and wanted to build my PC in this enclosure.
Specs:
Antec Mini P180 White
Core i7 920 with Thermalright HR01 plus and Nexus 120mm Orange 1000RPM
Asus Rampage II GENE m-ATX
Cosair XMS3 1600 2GBx6
MSI Radeon 4890 OC with modified heatplate and Thermalright T-Rad2, 2x92mm fans
Western Digital Velociraptor 300GB
OCZ ModXStream Pro 600W PSU
and random optical drive
Challenges with installation:
- Mini P180 was on backorder while I received the rest of the parts. Praying HR01 would fit in this case using blind faith.
- After the case arrived cable management was a nightmare. I could not route most of the PSU cables on the "backside" of the enclosure. The reason was related to the PSU being installed with the bottom fan facing up. All the power to the motherboard came up from panel seperating the PSU and rest of the case.
- Drivebay was a nightmare. Since the case is cramped, I was only able to retain one drivebay (top) and was forced to remove the bottom. Cause - front case fan did not allow for drivebay to be installed, and video card was far too long (including the PCI-E power cables) to be installed.
- Video card cooling. Installation of the Thermalright T-Rad2 was definately easy, but the cooling for the VRMs were terrible.
The included heatsink barely stuck to the 2 smallest VRMs. The pic is a bit blurry but it did not look proper after installation.
I read on Hardforum that someone used the original stock cooling plate (sans shorud, fan, and heatsink) with an Accelero. I tried installing the plate along with the T-Rad. Some parts of the plate impeded on the T-Rad. 3 areas needed modification.
First, the end point of the pipe that makes contact to the GPU and memory needed filing.
Second, where the heatpipes bend:
Third, on the top left part of the plate where it rises needed to be filed down:
Before:
After:
you can see the filing points that's not in red, and a big chunk to clear the heatpipes.
Here's the final build with some comparison shots with P150:
Finally here's some temps:
Code: Select all
\\Open Air Temps
CPU
-idle 35
-Prime95 63 @ 9hrs 59mins
GPU
-idle 35
-furmark 57 @1.5mins
\\Case Temps
CPU
-idle 32
-Prime95 65
GPU
-furmark 63@~7mins max (cpu 48)
--with oem mem/vrm hs 110@5mins
Prime95&Furmark 66 (CPU)/59 (GPU)
Code: Select all
\\Power draw
startup 274 watt max
off 6 watts
sleep 7 Watts
awake from sleep 170 Watts
idle 160watts
prime95 287 Watts
furmark 304 Watts
68W (52.2A)
Prime95&Furmark 345W @~4mins
Hope this information helps someone on their next build. Comments and questions are welcomed.