We have all heard of Antec, it is kind of hard not to. You walk into any retail store that sells computer components and you will see Antec cases, power supplies, fans, heat sinks, and a slew of other accessories. From their humble beginnings in 1986 in Freemont, CA, they have become one of the top brands in the high performance computer components industry. Quite an achievement. If you have been a reader of GruntvillE for at least a few months you know that it wasn’t too long ago that we gave away the King of the Hill PSU, the Antec trueControl 550, during a scavenger hunt. I personally have owned several Antec cases and power supplies. My first major mod, BlackDeath, was at one time an Antec SX1030B case.

In the past when you talked about Antec and cases, you were talking about heavy, strong, solid steel cases. You know, the type you can use as a support for a bench or a step stool. Made of steel, hard as hell to cut, and weighing in at something more then a toddler with the internal components. As part of the scavenger hunt mentioned before, one of the clues was to tell us which Antec case is “made from recycled fighter jets.” The answer (and by the way it is not true, it just sounds cool) was the new all aluminum Antec Performance One P160 case.

Antec has recently focused on quiet case designs. If you look at our reviews of the Overture and Minuet, you will see that they are designed to be low noise cases. With the P160 they try to take this to the next level by providing a case that not only looks good, has plenty of space, but can be quiet.

Does it hold up the Antec name? Will it make its forbearers proud? Can it compete with established aluminum case makers like Lian Li and Coolermaster? Well, if we answered all those questions on this first page, you wouldn’t have to read the rest of the review, would you? Since we can’t have that, you will just have to click and read the rest of the review.