Today we’ve taken a look at the P183, a case in the performance category from Antec. There is not much difference from the P182 apart from a few cosmetic changes.

So what has been changed?
Well we see new ventilation holes in the frontdoor, more easily removed drive bay brackets, replacement of a fan holder in the lower chamber, no fan guide on the top of the chassis and finally probably the most important thing.

The possibility to use the new kind of power supply, the CP-850 and probably more to come if Antec get its will through.

In terms of sound and noise they are pretty much equal, no noticeable difference. We’ll also take a look at the temperature in the table below, as you can see they are pretty much the exact same chassis.



The Idle test mean that the computer was just on, did not run any cpu or gpu intensive applications for around 30 minutes.

The Load test gives the components something to chew on that might be a bit to big for their mouths. So here we see some extreme cpu and gpu usage.

Temperatures was taken on the CPU, the northbridge and on the installed graphics card. Same amount of fans was installed in both chassis, meaning one 120mm intake in the front of the case and two exhaust fans together with the power supply exhaust fan in the back.

Components used was the following;

• Intel Core2Duo E6600 @ 2.4GHz 4MB FSB1066
• Gigabyte GA-965P-DQ6 iP965
• GeForce 8800GTX, 630MHz GPU 768MB DDR3
• 2 GB Corsair XMS2-6400 Twin2X2048
• 1x Western Digital WD2500JS 250GB 7200rpm 8MB SATA2
• Windows Vista Ultimate

Right now, date of posted review, it only differs 200 SEK (~18 EUR) between the P182 and the P183.

So, can I recommend one of the cases in front of the other? Well I must say that I can’t because so little has changed. But if you believe, like Antec, that the new style of power supplies like the CP-850 is the future then you must go with the P183.

Remember that you still can use the normal ATX power supplies in this case and also the full length ones, without any problems routing the cables that we experienced a little bit with the P182. If I had a wish in the production of P183 it would have been a fully black interior to both match the outside but also make it look a lot more sleek on the inside.

So the final question, can I recommend the P183?
Well of course I can, not because I can, but the case itself is as good as the P182 and it features some minor changes that can be appreciated by lots of users of the P182.

If you have an P182 already you might not need the few changes made on this product, but if you're looking for a new case with great looks, noise dampening features and overall a good case, then the P183 is the way to go.


I would like to thank Antec for sending out the review sample.