Antec P280

Antec P280 Review

From afar, there’s little to distinguish the Antec P280 from such long-in-the-tooth predecessors as Antec’s P183. The steel side panels are all black, without mounting holes for additional fans or windows to provide a look inside. There’s no LED glow, either. The only exterior visual clues that reveal this to be an entirely new chassis are the front-panel connections, including two USB 3.0 connectors with an internal header, which are located above the case’s front door. Remove the sound-dampening side panels, and you begin to discover just how modern the P280 is. Measuring 22.6 inches high, 11.4 inches wide, 24.8 inches deep, and weighing 26.5 pounds, this steel chassis is one of the most spacious we’ve built into this year. Unlike the P183 and its ilk, which kept the motherboard and PSU in separate compartments, the wide-open P280 supports motherboard form factors as large as XL-ATX. The cavernous interior is painted matte black, and the motherboard tray is endowed with one of the biggest CPU backplane cutouts we’ve ever seen. It also contains four cable-routing cutouts with rubber grommets, and an oversize cutout for an 8-pin auxiliary ATX power cable.