A Closer Look - Inside

To gain access to the interior of the chassis, simply remove the pair of thumb screws holding each of the side panels in place. Antec has lined both with a thin sound absorbing material. I cannot offer hard facts about this extra protection, but I do have my doubts that something of this thinness is capable of really reducing the overall noise heard from the outside of the chassis. The entire insides of the P280 are black as well and the quality of the metal frame is excellent and there is a huge opening in the mainboard tray, so that you will be able to access a CPU backplate without having to remove the entire board in the process. There are a number of smaller holes, lined with rubber grommets around the mainboard area, with numerous large cutouts to attach the zip ties to. Another interesting aspect are the two large openings in the very top of the tray, allowing you to route cables through these and to the upper edges of the mainboard for example. With a whooping 30 mm of space for cables in this area, you should not have any problems hiding everything nicely within the Antec P280.


The chassis can hold up to six 3.5 inch drives, thanks to the included trays. There are clips on these bays to attach a pair of 120 mm fans to. I have done so in the picture above to show you, but this cooling unit is not included. The bays may also be used for 2.5 inch variants, but Antec has also designed the chassis in such a way, that there are two additional bays included - for SSDs and the likes. The three 5.25 inch bays above that are equipped with a tool-less system consisting of solid plastic locks which employ metal pins to hold a drive in place. It will be interesting to see how well these work.


In the rear, the bottom PSU bay does not really have any surprises Above that are the nine mainboard expansion slots, each with a separate cover and thumb screws. Just in case, there are also two large openings to route water cooling tubes through. In the very top you will find one of the afore mentioned TwoCool fans. A small PCB in this area allows you to power up to four units with a single Molex connector and thus cutting down on cable clutter. Antec ships the P280 pre-wired, which means that all three fans come attached to this PCB - one less thing to worry about.


The two top fans are of the same kind as the one in the rear. As you can see, none of these have LEDs, but are of plain, black color.


Before we dive into the assembly process, let us take a quick look at the cables. All of these are black, and are of the standard variety. Since the P280 comes equipped with a pair of USB 2.0 and 3.0 connectors, you will find an internal plug for each. It would have been nice to have a 20-pin to 9-pin adapter for those who still use mainboards without USB 3.0 though.