A Closer Look - Outside

Out of the box, the Antec Performance 1 FT is certainly a tall chassis. While it is categorized as a full-tower, it doesn't come across as too massive either. In terms of material mix, Antec sticks to their usual materials of steel, glass, plastics and mesh.


Looking at the front, Antec opted to make the front panel asymmetric to give it some additional depth and design. There are silver fins bent away from the user so that incoming air is drawn in at an angle. This is also why the chassis sports non-RGB fans as you would not see them anyways. In the rear, the layout is pretty standard, but Antec does make good use of the extra vertical space for the expansion slots as well as the space above the motherboard.


One key design feature of the Antec Performance 1 FT is the fact that it sports clear glass panels on both sides. These are essentially identical. To allow this without exposing too much of a cable mess, there are internal overs on the backside of the motherboard tray, leaving only the SSD plates exposed. Each panel is held in place by a single captive thumb screw and there are little Antec branded lips so that you may pull them off the push pins. Overall this looks great and feels sturdy at the same time.


You may remove the silver insert from the front of the chassis quite easily as it is only held in place by magnetic force. This is a good way to quickly and easily get to the fans, but we would have liked to see a bit more strength in the magnetic implementation. Antec designed the front in a way to offer enough room in front of the steel body for fan placement. That means you could potentially do a push/pull 420 mm AIO here, which is excellent. Alternatively, the whole front panel can also be pulled off if need be. Doing so reveals the embedded temperature display at the top of the chassis, which is not visible when the system is turned off.


In the rear, starting at the bottom, you will find a mounting bracket to slide the PSU into the chassis from the back. This is interesting due to the fact that it gives you an idea where Antec tried to keep height to a minimum to make this full-tower case not as tall as some other variants out there. Above that are the eight expansion slots. Each of them is protected by a reusable over and held in place by a thumb screw. As there are no bridges between the slots, you should be able to employ vertical GPU mounting brackets as well. In the very top, there is a 120 mm fan mounting position, which Antec has pre-populated with their Storm T3 120 mm fan, which is a 30 mm cooling unit. While this is otherwise retail-grade, the fans within the Performance 1 FT don't feature the PWM pass-through connector that is present on the store bought variant.


At the top, you will find a vent that runs the entire length of the case. It may easily be pulled off to reveal a magnetic dust filter covering a mounting surface for up to three 140 mm fans. Alternatively, this also allows enough room to have two 360 mm radiators at once - with one in the ceiling and another in the front of the Performance 1 FT. You could try to mix in a 420 mm unit, but Antec only endorses that size for the front, as such you do so at your own risk at the top.


As with most Antec cases these days, the IO ports are lined up at the right edge with the power and reset buttons in the front. Antec sticks to the usual, modern IO mix with an audio combo, two USB 3.0 Type-A and one USB-C plug. At the very back there is button labeled "Temp," which will allow you to toggle the embedded display to show either the GPU or CPU temperature.


On the underside, there is a full length dust filter that has the same design as the vent on the top panel, just in a much larger format. It may be pulled out easily from the front of the Antec Performance 1 FT, which is probably the best possible setup for this.