Antec Performance One P182SE Case

Introduction

Antec P182SE is a “Special Edition” version of their P182 case. Both cases belong to Antec’s most high-end family of cases, Performance One. What is “special” about P182SE compared to the standard P182 is the mirror-like finishing, external speed control for the top and rear fans, holes for external water cooling system, black interior and an internal flexible flashlight. Let’s see how this latest high-end case from Antec looks like.

The first thing that catches the eye is the mirror-like finishing, as you can see in Figure 1.

Figure 1: Antec P182SE case.

In Figure 2, you can see this case’s front panel. It has four external 5.25” bays, one 3.5” bay and two meshes where air enters to cool down the hard disk drives. You can install one 120 mm fan behind these meshes, but the case doesn’t come with this fan. You can also see that there are two USB ports, one firewire port and mic in and headphone out jacks. Since this is a high-end case, we think it should have an eSATA port on its frontal panel.

Figure 2: Frontal panel.

In Figure 3, you can see the rear panel from this case. On this case, like several other cases from Antec, the power supply isn’t installed on the top of the case, but at the bottom. On the top section where usually the power supply is located there is a 120 mm fan that comes with the case. At the very top part you can see two knobs for controlling the speed from the rear and top fans. This case also features seven expansion slots (just like almost all cases) and holes for you to install an external water cooling system.

Figure 3: Rear panel.

In Figure 4, you can see how P182SE looks like inside. What immediately caught our attention was the fact that the case was also black inside. Usually black cases are black outside but silver on their inside. This case has six internal 3.5” bays. Pay attention how the power supply goes on the bottom of the case and how there is a 120 mm fan in front of the power supply. On the other side, behind the motherboard tray (not shown on our pictures) there is a cable organizer.

Figure 4: Inside P182SE.

On next page we will discuss what is inside P182SE in more details.