The P160 comes with a mother board tray which slides easily out of the case once you move the restraining screw. The tray itself is pretty solid and once you’ve got everything installed, you just slide it back in and re-screw it back into the case. The tray can be a little tricky to line up the first time but once you figure it out it’s very easy to install. Once again, I will state for the record that I hope I never have to own a case that doesn’t have a motherboard tray.
Installing hard drives is actually nice as well. The case has a hard drive cage that can hold up to four hard drives. An interesting difference is that the hard drive cage is turned sideways (facing the side of the case) allowing you easy access to the drive rails. To install the drive, all you have to do is pull the rail out of the cage, screw the drive into the rail and put it back into the cage. A nice feature of the rails is that hard drives are installed on rubber grommets which help reduce hard drive noise.
Once you’ve got all of the basics set up, it’s time to move onto some of the cool features of the P160. For example, you might want to hook up the front temperature displays. These two probes can be slid about anywhere in your case since the cables are long enough to reach the back of the case. There’s a switch inside the case to flip between Farenheit and Celsius. The display will flash when the temperatures gets above a certain point. These are exceedingly well implemented and easy to use. The rest of the front panel items are also easy to install. The USB and Firewire ports are easy to install (although the firewire ports are all separate wires which is a bit of a pain to get all of the thin wires installed). The microphone and headphone jacks are also separate wires which makes installation a bit tricky. Well, at least for hose of us with fat fingers, it’s a bit of a pain. I did have a problem here as the wires separated from the header but it was easily repaired.
I’ve been using the case for a few months now and I really dig it. It’s nice, quiet, and cool. I’ve been overclocking my processor and the temperature is still rather cool (and that’s without installing a second fan in the front of the case). The downer with the case is that it’s going to cost you a pretty penny and after spending all of that money, you’re still going to have to plunk out extra for a power supply. If you want a clear side window, you’re either going to have to do it yourself or plunk out another $30 for the Antec window. All in all, it’s a great case and something that’s worth showing off to your friends.
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Antec B+ | A fantastic case with a lot of cool features. The case is a bit on the expensive side, especially for one that doesn’t come with a power supply or side window |
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