Antec P380 Full-Tower Chassis Review

Hardware Installation Inside The P380

Hardware installs inside Full-Tower ATX cases are generally pretty easy, simply because you have loads of room to work with. The P380 is no exception and has a nice layout, not to mention that nice massive hole on the motherboard tray for easy access to the rear of an installed motherboard. The 8800 GTX that Im using in this build is a golden oldie, but the card length is similar to cards that are out on the market today, measuring approximately 10-9/16-inches (~268 mm) long.

To start off, I had to install three more standoffs for the motherboard. The screw holes are not labeled like many other cases Ive looked at, so if youre a novice, youre left with guessing if you dont grab the manual. The extra standoffs were either in the bag or a couple were hiding on the other side of the motherboard tray, presumably just for storage. I went ahead and installed all of my components with ease. Since this case had top mounted fans included, I opted to just install an air cooler this time around. I decided it was not worth the hassle to rip apart the case to do a front mounted cooler, as there are far too many screws to pull out just to do such. If you wanted to do a top mounted cooler, you can simply repurpose the included fans and place them in the front. The only real gripe I had while installing my hardware was with the grommets. I feel that there could have been one placed above the bottom horizontal one, plus for the MSRP price of this case, I found the rubber to be extremely flimsy; I had them pop out a few times.

Drive installation was also easy, but could have been made easier if the trays were truly 100% tool-free. In this case, you still have to screw the drive to the tray, rather than the tray just hugging the drive. I did like the rubber vibration absorption pads on the trays, however they did make my drives feel like they bounced around too much.

Routing wires was made easy thanks to the large grommets, though as I previously stated, there could have been an extra above the horizontal one and the rubber could have been thicker and held in place better. Behind the motherboard tray are plenty of tie-down points for your wires. Ive never really been one to utilize these points, rather I usually let the wires roam free in the rear.

Firing up the system for the first time, I found the fans on their low setting to be very quiet, and even flipping them to high they were still quiet you could easily have a conversation over them.

There are no fancy lights, keeping this case very simplistic/minimalistic. In fact, the only lights that I saw were a very faint blue behind the power button. Unfortunately (or fortunately) its so faint that I couldnt get a good picture on camera.

Lets wrap this review up with some final thoughts.