On the Outside



Beginning our tour at the front shows a design that is sleek and readily accessible. There is nothing out of the ordinary and nothing that appears overbearing. Though the bezel is made out of plastic, you will have no problems with a flimsy feel due to the overall weight of the enclosure.

To give you a quick run-down on the size of this thing, consider the overall dimensions of 20.28” x 23.35” x 8.07” (51.5 x 59.3 x 20.5cm). Add to this the steel construction and a total weight of nearly 50 lbs (or 23.6 kg) and you can easily see that we have a monster on our hands. But enough with the numbers, it is time to delve into this case and see what makes it tick!



Opening the front access door shows a clean design with everything you would expect to find on a mid-tower case. Let's break it down a bit to get a better look at the different areas of the front bezel.



At the top we see there are four externally accessible 5.25" drive bays. Whether you are looking to have a lot of optical devices or are looking for a handy place to stash that 5.25" water reservoir, you will find the room you need here.



Moving to the middle section shows the front I/O ports as well as a single externally accessible 3.5" drive bay. A quick glance shows that these I/O ports are in a very handy location and they can be used even with the front panel closed. This is a nice change of pace from having these ports on the side of the enclosure where you sometimes need to pull the system out a bit to access these ports.



The bottom portion is taken up mainly by ventilation grills to allow for ample airflow into your system components. What is more, Antec has listened to reviewers like myself who are always stating that any intake area ought to be filtered. Take a look at this:



Simply push in the doors and it allows you to open the filter for easy cleaning. They come out easily and can be cleaned with either air or with a mild solution. I always maintain that filters are needed for all intake areas where air is moving into the case and Antec has hit the nail on the head with this setup - nicely done indeed!



While windows are getting to be nearly commonplace on modern enclosures, the P190 went with a more refined look and only consists of a grilled area for a monster side fan. Be forewarned, however, that you WILL NOT want to purchase this case with the intent of modifying the side. While we will cover this feature shortly, the side panels are covered with a sound-dampening material that would make it a foolish idea to ruin for a window.



Turning once again shows the back of the enclosure. While it is nearly a normal looking design, a glance is all it takes to notice that the power is coming in from the bottom of the case rather than the top. There are a few other features in this area as well so we'll break it down.



The fan you see above is a very nice 120mm TriCool fan that also has three fan speed settings. To change the fan speed, simply flick the toggle switch on the right (situated in the upper left corner of the back panel). The other two switches you see are for the pair of 140mm fans that are mounted in the top of the case. All three of these fans are exhaust and so are not filtered.



Here is a nice feature that shows that Antec is thinking of the enthusiast; two rubber protected ports to allow for any commonly used size of tubing for water cooling. This allows those who prefer to have an externally mounted reservoir and/or pump to gain easy access to the blocks inside the system. The rubber grommets ensure that your tubing will be perfectly safe and even the slight vibration caused by the moving water will not harm your tubing. It goes without saying that the P190 is designed for the enthusiast / overclocker and it shows with features like this.



As noted earlier, the bottom of the back panel is where you will find the power mounted, but what do we see here? The P190 comes with not one, but two power supplies already mounted into the enclosure. What's more, this is not a redundant PSU setup, but a well thought-out dual design where a pair of power supplies work together to provide a very hefty 1200-watts of power for your high-end system needs. One PSU handles the needs of the motherboard, processor(s), memory and PCI-E components while the other handles the components within the system itself and the fans. This is a very interesting setup and unique from what I have seen so far, so it will be interesting to see how it works.

As for size, if you feel that a pair of power supplies isn't for you, the slots above are each sized for an industry standard PSU. A quick shout to Antec indicated that they are not making immediate plans for future dual PSU's like this with higher power outputs, so you will be covered in the event that 1200-watts just isn't enough for you.



Finishing out tour of the outside brings us to the top panel. We noted just a bit ago that you can adjust the fan speeds of the two top-mounted fans, and these are the ones we were referring to. This is a pair of 140mm TriCool fans to help get all of that heated air from the inside to the outside, where it belongs. As with the rear fan (and all the fans included in this case for that matter), you can adjust the speeds to handle your desire for either performance or silence. While not an entirely quiet experience, I found that these fans do not put out that much noise for the amount of cooling that they provide.