FRONTPAGE Antec P120 Crystal Mid Tower Case Review

Antec has released a brand new Mid-Tower case in the P120 Crystal. This new chassis may be one of the cleanest and most elegant cases Antec has produced. The P120 Crystal hails from the Antec Performance series of cases and includes full tempered glass front and side panels as well as the ability to mount a pair of 360mm radiators internally which is but one of many features.

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Thanks for the thorough review! I have a couple of questions.
1) Do you have temperature data for load conditions or just ambient? The test setup describes load testing, but the graphs just show ambient performance.
2) Do you have any idea how one would mount a GPU vertically in the available slots? It's hard to tell in the pictures, but it almost looks like the screw on the horizontal slots block the innermost vertical one. Also with no PSU shroud to mount a riser card to, how do you think it would be best supported in that case?

Looking forward to your thoughts. Thanks!

Welcome to Overclockers.com Underpickled!

I fear you might be confusing ambient temperature with idle temperature. Ambient temperature is simply the room temperature outside of the case. Where I do my testing it is generally 21°C. During load testing the maximum internal case temperature was 25.2°C meaning the case was able to keep the internal temps about 4°C from the external (ambient) temperature. System component temps are not recorded during case reviews as they are not under review, rather serve as a heat source and means to test the cases ability to generate acceptable airflow.

I apologize for not showing a vertical GPU in this review. We make every effort to display all potential conditions for each case reviewed. I will post a follow up here displaying the GPU in the vertical slots and answer your question about the clearance to the horizontal screws. Stay tuned.

Most Vertical GPU's are connected using a riser cable like this one. This eliminates the need to physically mount a daughter card to the PSU shroud.

Thank you for your replies.

Thanks for clarifying the ambient vs idle. I'm used to seeing temp tests with idle vs load, so that was just a brain fart on my part.

Regarding the vertical GPU, definitely looking forward to your follow-up on that. I'm planning on building with this case, but it seems dicey to just have the PCIe slot screws holding up the GPU with nowhere to support the riser. Since the case was clearly designed with that in mind, I'm wondering what the best way to do that is.

As expected there are no clearance issues with mounting a GPU in the closest vertical slots. The PCI mounting bracket on the GPU is more than strong enough to support the GPU's weight in a vertical orientation, though I would be concerned if you transported the system frequently, as in a portable LAN build. There is approximately 6mm from the back of the GPU circuits to the horizontal mounting screws. Naturally, if your GPU uses a backplate there would be a little less but shouldn't be enough to cause concern. Additionally, there seems to be approximately 75mm below the GPU's PCI connecting pins to the bottom of the case in the event you choose to water cool. Keep in mind the PCI bridge cable will take up some space as well.







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