Antec used to be one of the world’s great PC case makers, but in 2021 they’re no longer on the forefront of the chassis industry. They’re still a presence, but rather than focusing on premium, silence-focused cases, the company seems to have somewhat lost track of what it’s trying to accomplish.
But not with the P82 Silent – this new chassis might not be a premium offering, but it is a case that focuses on acoustics, paired with a pleasantly simple design. Is it good enough for our Best PC Cases list? Read on for the full details, but if you’re after a quiet, non-flashy build and don’t want to spend more than $60, the P82 is tough to beat.
Specifications
| Type | Mid-Tower ATX |
| Motherboard Support | Mini-ITX, Micro-ATX, ATX, E-ATX (280 mm) |
| Dimensions (HxWxD) | 18.8 x 8.5 x 17.9 inches (480 x 215 x 454 mm) |
| Max GPU Length | 15.1 inches (380 mm) |
| CPU Cooler Height | 6.9 inches (178 mm) |
| Max PSU Length | 8.3 inches (220 mm) |
| External Bays | ✗ |
| Internal Bays | 2x 3.5-inch |
| 2x 2.5-inch | |
| Expansion Slots | 7x |
| Front I/O | 2x USB 3.0, 3.5 mm Audio/Mic Combo |
| Other | Fan Controller |
| Front Fans | 2x 120 mm (Up to 2x 140mm, 3x 120mm) |
| Rear Fans | 1x 120mm (Up to 1x 120mm) |
| Top Fans | None |
| Bottom Fans | None |
| Side Fans | ✗ |
| RGB | No |
| Damping | Yes |
| Warranty | 1 Year |
Features
Touring around the outside of the chassis, there’s really nothing exciting going on. The case is clad in painted steel panels, with no tempered glass to be found anywhere. Nor is there RGB, or any other fancy design elements.
The most aggressive element is at the top of the chassis, where you can spot the intake grille for air, which stretches down the right side of the front panel and the bottom. Also, notice that there is no top exhaust, as this would be a noise leak. The front panel is also shut on the left, again, shielding the user from noise.
Front IO is placed on the left of the front panel, along a piano black trim piece, featuring two USB 3.0 ports and discrete headphone and mic jacks. There’s no USB Type-C here, but that’s alright, given the case sells for less than $70. Below the IO you’ll spot controls for a three-speed fan controller, though it has to be said, its action is quite sludgy – heavy, and very cheap feeling.
Internal Layout
Turn to the interior of the case and you’ll again find very little worth calling otu. There’s room for an ATX board, big graphics cards, and along the reverse side a big power supply and a handful of drives.
There’s not a ton of space for cable management, nor a lots of cutouts for cable tie points – but this is clearly a case meant for simpler systems so chances are you won’t care.
What is nice to see here is the acoustic padding on the side panels. It’s not the thickest or heaviest, but should be adequate enough to absorb some high-frequency noises if the damping performance of the P10 Flux is anything to go by. Again, the days of tank-heavy Antec ‘Performance’ series cases with triple-layer side panels are over.
Cooling
For cooling, Antec provides three 120mm fans – two in the front and one as exhaust. A magnetic air filter is also provided, though it looks restrictive so I’m curious what cooling performance will be like. especially with the closed front panel. You won’t be able to mount a radiator at the top of this case, but up to a thin 360mm unit will fit at the front.
We are using the following system for our case test bed:
| CPU | Intel Core i9-9900K |
| Motherboard | Asus Maximus XI Hero WiFi |
| Memory | Corsair Vengeance LPX 3000 MHz, 16 GB (2x 8GB) |
| Graphics | Nvidia GeForce RTX 2070 Super Founder’s Edition |
| CPU Cooling | Noctua NH-U12S Chromax.Black |
| Noctua NT-H2 Thermal Paste | |
| Storage | Corsair Force Series MP510 NVMe SSD, 480GB |
| Power Supply | Corsair HX750i |
Motherboard Installation
To start the build, I first tossed the motherboard in with all its components, including the CPU, memory, and SSD pre-installed.
As a spacious ATX case, this went swiftly and without issue, though the three rightmost standoffs were not pre-installed, nor was there an anchoring standoff, so I did have to install those and lay the case on its side to get the motherboard in safely. The case does come with these extra standoffs in its screw baggy, but it doesn’t include a standoff installation tool – a small point of improvement for Antec: either give us the tool, or pre-install all the standoffs for us.
Of course, you can just twist them in by hand, but in my experience they don’t end up tight enough and when time to remove the motherboard comes, they come out with the screw and you’ll annoyingly have to use pliers and a screwdriver to get the screw-standoff off the motherboard post-de-installation.
GPU Installation
Installing the GPU also went easily, though I wasn’t a fan of the cover plate next to the IO. It slides off to the side, but it needs to be removed to get the GPU installed, as its top thumbscrew blocks access to the IO fastener. Not a major complaint, but an unnecessary complication.
After this, our large Corsair HX750i power supply slipped right into place, and we proceeded to do up all the cabling.
Cable management
Cable management is fine in the Antec P82 Silent. It’s not stunning, but it’s not terrible either. There’s enough space for simple systems. There’s no lavish amounts of space, no fancy Velcro… all you get are five zip ties thrown in the box and the odd tie-wrap in the chassis, but in all honesty, it doesn’t really matter.
The types of systems that will be built in this case won’t call for cable management excellence – there won’t be many cables, which makes it easy to just whack the side panel on without really giving it much care. So that’s what I did, and it worked.
The P82 Silent comes with rubber front IO covers and two extra expansion slot covers in its accessory box. Who will use these, especially the expansion slot covers, is beyond me, but they’re there, in case you find the 8th and 9th expansion slots somewhere.
Build Complete
With that, the build was complete, and it was time for a snack.
For thermal and acoustic testing, we are using the following software & settings:
| CPU Clock | i9 9900k: 4.6 GHz (46x 100MHz) @ 1.1v |
| GPU Clock | RTX 2070 Super: Stock |
| GPU Driver | Nvidia GeForce 445.87 |
| Case & CPU Fan Speeds | Stock Configuration 100%, Standardized CPU 100%, Case fans 50%. |
| GPU Fan Speeds | 75% |
Test Results
The three included fans might not be PWM models, but they offer an interesting RPM range: roughly 300 to 1000 RPM. That’s surprisingly low on the low-end for a DC fan, and 1000 RPM at the top end offers enough performance with pleasant acoustics.
Acoustic Results
For our acoustic tests, we run three scenarios: CPU full load, CPU and GPU full load, and an optimized idle. The CPU Full Load test runs the CPU and case fans at their maximum speed. For the CPU and GPU full load acoustic test we add the Nvidia RTX 2070 Super FE at 75% fan speed, because in practice it never runs at 100 percent and is far too loud when it does.
For the optimized idle, we run the GPU fan speed at 40 percent (the 2070 Super FE GPU does not have a Zero-RPM mode), and run the CPU and included case fans at the lowest speed they will spin at.
The acoustics of this case, which are surprising. Of course, this case does have ‘Silent’ slapped into its name, but I didn’t expect a chassis that offered performance that’s this much quieter than the competition. Of course, the majority of cases tested were mesh cases, so it’s not exactly a valid comparison, but even battling against be quiet!’s Silent Base 802 with its silent panel on, the Antec P82 Silent puts down a significantly better acoustic performance. The 1000 RPM fans help of course, but if you look at the damping qualities, Antec also gets something right with its foam as it’s able to keep the noise from the loud Founder’s Edition RTX 2070 at bay quite well. The foam is also in the P10 Flux, though that case came with much worse fans, placing it near the bottom of our chart, despite offering good damping qualities.
All that said, idle noise levels leave a bit to be desired. Even at 300 RPM, the fans do emit a bit of bearing noise, so for a silence-focused case, I was a little saddened not to be able to push it to inaudible levels under normal desktop use.
Thermal Results
For the thermal tests, all case and CPU fan speeds are set to 100 percent. The i9-9900K is pegged at a 4.6GHz clock at 1.1v on all cores to ensure consistent power consumption across test scenarios, and letting the GPU run at 75 percent fan speed enables it to maintain its power target while maintaining one set reasonable fan speed, so that the temperature is the only variable.
Of course, with acoustics like these, we had expected thermals to suffer, but they didn’t. Results had the P82 Silent pegged right around the middle of our charts, not offering the best performance, but I’ve tested many cases that performed significantly worse.
Of course, normally with a case like this I’d say something like ‘most people don’t throw a 9900K and hot GPU at a case like this,’ in an effort to justify warmer thermals – but not this time – go ahead, throw that high-TDP GPU in here. It’ll be fine.
Conclusion
All things considered, I actually quite like the Antec P82 Silent. It’s a simple chassis, stepping back to the barebones necessities, and I appreciate that about it. It performs beyond expectations, is pleasant enough to build in, doesn’t cost much at about $60, and doesn’t draw unnecessary attention to itself.
I only have two real complaints: at idle, the fans still make a bit more bearing noise than I’d like, and there’s a bit of fiddling necessary with the fasteners – a third of the standoffs don’t come pre-installed, which would be fine if Antec provided the tool to do it properly, but alas it doesn’t. The side panel thumbscrews aren’t held in when undone. And the sliding expansion slot cover plate? Its thumbscrew gets in the way of a fastener required to fix the GPU in place. Of course, these are minor complaints in the grand scheme of things, but I have to complain about something, right? Besides, these things interrupt a build flow, which is a bummer when so many other case makers, including Antec itself, get these kinds of basics right, at least most of the time.
But don’t let that stop you from considering the P82 Silent. It’s a great simple chassis for understated systems, offering extremely good acoustics paired with surprisingly decent thermals. The P82 Silent is literally just a case, about as unexciting as they get, but sometimes that’s exactly what you’re after.
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