Putting it all together
Obviously Antec has put a lot of thought into the P160's feature set, but the best way to evaluate a case is to build a system inside it. In order to really check out the P160, I took the components out of my regular case (the Antec SX-1030) and put them into the P160.

Additionally, this exercise gave me the opportunity to compare the P160 to a case that wasn't necessarily designed with low noise as a priority. Since the same components were used in both enclosures (except for the power supply) the noise measurements from each case should give you an idea of what kind of improvements to expect if you move your system from a more traditional case to the P160.

The manual for the P160 is about 40 pages long, but it also covers five languages, so the English section, for example, is only eight pages. Nonetheless, the manual provides fairly good instructions on assembling a system inside the case, though I ran into several instances where the design of the case had changed since the manual was printed. Antec even addresses this possibility in the manual: "[I]t's possible that your new P160 case may differ slightly from the descriptions in this manual. This isn't a problem; it's simply an improvement."

The installation went about as quickly as it typically does in a situation like this. Plugging the seven individual audio pins onto the motherboard header was a bit of a pain, but the removable motherboard tray made it easier to deal with. Without doing anything special to correct it, the P160 seemed to have less clutter inside that some other enclosures. I attribute this fact, at least partially, to the hard drive trays. Their orientation helps keep parallel IDE cables away from the motherboard area.

Once everything was assembled, it was time to power it up and look at some of the more illuminating features of the P160.

We'll start with the temperature display. Look to the right of the numbers, and you'll see that the top of two LEDs is currently lit, indicating that the first thermistor is being read. The display cycles between thermistors every three seconds.

Also in the LED department, we have the blue LEDs mounted in the air intake openings. As with the temperature display above, the picture makes the LEDs look brighter than they really are. Because the LEDs are mounted in the top of the openings, the effect isn't nearly as blinding as the Sonata's Death Star effect.

Here's the P160's optical drive cover in operation. The door is tall enough that it should work with just about any tray-loading optical drive.

The sound of silence
We'll close out with a graph of the noise levels of the P160 compared with the SX-1030. A few quick notes: The P160 used only the standard rear fan, while the SX-1030 used two 80mm rear fans but no fans up front. With the exception of the power supply, the same set of components was used in both configurations, so these results should be pretty representative of the improvement one might get from switching to the P160 from an older case. Also, remember that these readings are in decibels, which is a logarithmic scale. A small difference on the graph can be a much bigger difference to one's ears.

Readings were first taken with the sound level meter centered on the front face of each case, six inches away. Then, a second set of readings was obtained from two feet away at a forty five degree angle from the front left corner of the case.

In both cases, the P160 has significantly lower readings than the SX-1030. The difference is less pronounced with the second test, likely because the measuring position picks up more noise from the power supply in the back of the case.

Subjectively, the difference isn't even close. Even when stuck under my desk with a pull-out keyboard tray between it and my ears, the SX-1030 has a constant loud droning when it's turned on. Put in the same position under my desk, the P160 was so quiet that, even with the keyboard drawer pushed in and my head bowed down to listen to it, my attention was instead drawn to another machine running a few feet away. Antec's work to create a quiet case has definitely paid off.