Phanteks Enthoo Evolv ATX Mid-Tower Chassis Review




/ 9 years ago

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Introduction


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Phanteks are quickly becoming one of my favourite chassis manufacturers. The Enthoo range is one of the most capable enthusiast series on the market, which ticks all the right boxes for those who want a high-end system, with minimal or no fuss in terms of component compatibility, high-end build quality and flawless designs. The latest model, the Enthoo EVOLV ATX, offers support for (you guessed it) full-ATX and EATX motherboards, giving you more room for multiple graphics cards and a whole host of other devices.

The ATX feature all-aluminium construction with thick panels and a gun-metal finish, which certainly sounds like a winning combination. Add to this, quick release side panels, a modular hard drive system, radiator brackets, high-quality PH-140SP fans pre-installed and much more, and you’re well on your way to a stunning system build. So what are we waiting for? Let’s jump right in and take a look at what this chassis has to offer!

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The first thing you’ll find is the Phanteks Accessory Box.DSC_3524

The box contains some cable ties, a few LED lights which can be used to change the colour of the front panel power LED, a screw box with all the screws you’ll need for your build, three 3.5″ drive trays and the user’s manual.

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First impressions of this chassis are very good, the gun-metal finish on those thick aluminium panels is a sight to behold. It has a smooth texture to it, with just a little bit of sparkle, giving it a mysterious and very premium quality vibe. The left side panel features a large window, giving you a great view of the interior and there’s an extra bit at the bottom showing off the interior logo and the front 2.5″ HDD mount, great for showing off your new drive.

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The right side panel is the same shape but obviously doesn’t feature the window section. Both sides have the same ventilation at the top edge, providing airflow to any top mounted cooling, as well as some passive airflow to the chassis in general.DSC_3495

The front panel is certainly unique, with that bold, yet understated appearance. There’s a pair of large cutaways on the sides, allowing extra airflow the front mounted cooling, as well as a small LED light towards the bottom for the master power indicator.

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Tucked away at the top, you’ll find a small flip-up cover which hides the main I/O.

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Behind it, you’ll find a pair of USB 3.0 ports, HD audio and the reset button.

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The cut away towards the bottom allows a little more airflow, but also acts as a handle; just grab it and pull to remove the front panel cover.

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The front panel is mounted using four durable pegs which lock the heavy metal panel very securely in place. Behind it, there’s a huge filtered panel which should do an amazing job of blocking any dust from getting in the system and it’s also easy to access and maintain when it gets a clogged up.

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The filter pulls away and behind it, you’ll find two very high-quality 140mm Phanteks fans. The front mount will support 120/140 width hardware, as well as 280/360mm tall radiators.

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There’s lots of ventilation around the back, around the edge of the top panel, behind the motherboard and to the sides of the expansion slots.DSC_3496

The rear fan is another high-quality 140mm Phanteks fan and comes with elongated universal screw mounts for 120/140mm fans/radiators.

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There’s some extra mounts on the ventilation too, which could come in handy for custom water cooling hardware.

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The PSU can be mounted normal or inverted, but it’s certainly better with the fan pointing down, as you can utilise the bottom fan-intake vents.

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There’s even a slide out dust filter for the PSU to keep everything running on clean air.

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The top panel is nice and flat, with just a stylish little power button located towards the front.

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The feet on the chassis are nice and side, giving it added stability and there are four tough rubber grips to prevent it from sliding around on harder surfaces. There’s good ground clearance too, which will help with directing airflow to the PSU air intake.

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Interior


The doors are held shut by push pins, two at the top, two at the bottom and three on the front edge, so it certainly locks shut securely, but it also means you can open up the chassis side panel like a door without the use of tools. This is great for when you need to quickly access the interior to tweak something, but when you’re doing more extensive work, the side panel simply lifts off the hinge completely.

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The interior of the chassis is vast, giving you room for ATX and E-ATX motherboards, 16.5″ long graphics cards, lots of storage space, room for high-end cooling and much more! There’s a huge CPU cooler mounting cut-out behind the motherboard, which is always nice to have, the motherboard stand-offs are pre-installed and it should be pretty easy work getting your hardware installed.

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There’s a small mount here, which can be used for a 2.5″ hard drive, giving you a nice way to show off your favourite SSD.

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The false floor hides away a lot of the cable-routing and the PSU, helping keep your build neat and tidy. There’s a small cable grommet in the middle, which is going to be perfect for graphics cards with side mounted power connectors, as it’ll save trailing cables over or under the card.

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There’s a cut-away here that allows you to see the PSU, although I’m not sure what the point is since this part is covered by the side panel window, perhaps it’s just a nice place to save on material where it’s not really needed?

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There are two large cable routing grommets to the edge of the motherboard, which are angled slightly towards the board, helping to reduce the amount of cable on show. You’ll notice the front hard drive bays are missing, but as you saw in the video on the first page, you can mount the included brackets on any of the available slots, allowing you lay this out just how you need it.

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The top panel cooling mounts are certainly versatile, with room for up to a 280/360mm radiators and loads of clearance from the top of the motherboard.

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Lots of cable routing space around the back, especially so once you factor in the space under the PSU shroud, which can be used to stuff a lot of excess cables.

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There are two stealth mounted 2.5″ hard drive brackets, handy for when you’ve filled the front of the chassis with water cooling and need somewhere else to put them!

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A powered fan hub, which should help keep excessive amounts of fan cables away from your motherboard, helping the build look nice and tidy.

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Cable management is certainly well thought out in this chassis and you’ll find velcro cable straps running down the middle. These are great for those who need to make quick cable changes, as it saves cutting the cable tie and fitting a new one.

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Tucked very discretely into the base of the chassis, 2 x 3.5″ hard drive mounts. Even better, should you not need them you can remove them, freeing up space for a water cooling pump!

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Complete System


Building a system inside this chassis was a lot of fun, whilst also being one of the easiest builds I’ve done in ages! The dedicated 2.5″ drive mounts at the back are very easy to work with, just pop it off, screw in the drive and pop it back.

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Even with our 1000W Seasonic PSU in place, there’s still a lot of room to work with here and I had no issues connecting PSU cables after it was installed.

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The final build really is a thing of beauty, with super tidy cable routing and absolutely no obstructions to airflow throughout the chassis.

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There’s a huge amount of clearance for large graphics cards, mother than enough room for a multi-GPU configuration and with plenty of room for airflow around the cards. The cable routing hole below the GPUs is another big win, as it means there’s less cable traveling through the front of the chassis.

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As you can see, there’s a huge amount of space left here, perfect for mounting the 3.5″ hard drive trays or custom loop water cooling hardware.

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The chassis is quite wide too, so those aiming to install a large enthusiast grade air cooler certainly won’t have any issues.

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The slightly angled cable routing works brilliantly too, as it means you don’t end up with that U-shape cable bend on the pass-through.

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All panels back in place and without a doubt this is one of the best looking final builds we’ve had in a while, the ATX certainly goes in my personal top-10 favourite chassis, it looks stunning!

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Final Thoughts


Pricing

The Phanteks Enthoo Evolv ATX Mid-Tower chassis is available from Overclockers UK for £139.99 and is available in both Gun Metal and black. This isn’t particularly cheap, but when you factor in the 3mm aluminium construction and capabilities, this is an absolute bargain in terms of price vs quality.

Overview

Wow, that’s pretty much all I feel I need to say about this case, job done, now I can go home and put my feet up. OK, so perhaps I should elaborate a little more. The build quality on this is as good as it gets. Unless someone builds one our of Carbotanium anytime soon, it won’t be beaten. 3mm aluminium is incredibly strong, but it also looks stunning, adding a visual and tactile quality to the chassis that simply cannot be matched by the often steel and plastic construction of many rival chassis designs. Aluminium is also lightweight, although this chassis is anything but, as there’s still a lot of metal here, but I guess you could say you can feel the quality of the construction in the weight alone. The finish is absolutely flawless and while I admit that my camera doesn’t quite capture the delicate sparkle of the gunmetal finish, it’s certainly one of the best-looking metal finishes we’ve ever seen on a chassis and it’s an easy match for virtually any colour scheme of components you choose to fit it with.

All the fixtures are right where you need them and fully modular too, which means you’re going to run into very few, if any, limitations with your build. The hard drive bays are add-as-needed, rather than removable. There’s room for two 280/360mm radiators, one in the front and another in the top, as well as a 120/140mm in the back. Then you’ve got dedicated screw holes and mounting hardware for the pump and radiator, so enthusiast water coolers will love this chassis. That being said, those aiming for air-cooling can reap the benefits of those very high-quality 140mm pre-installed fans, as well as the ample clearance for a large tower cooler and either water or air coolers can enjoy the 6-port fan controller that’s hidden discretely behind the motherboard.

All the main panels are tool-free, so opening up the chassis or accessing the front panel dust filter is a quick and easy task. Of course, with high-quality filters on all intakes, it’s unlike your system will become dirty, but at least you can just pop open the door and get in there with ease should you need to maintain your system.

Cable management is perfect, with plenty of routing holes, grommets, a PSU shroud, velcro straps and more helping keep thing organized. Even with a lot of hardware installed, you should have a fairly easy time getting something that looks professional.

Pros

  • Exceptional build quality
  • Room for large graphics cards
  • Excellent water cooling support
  • Modular drive layout
  • Huge side panel window
  • Dust filters
  • Changeable LED colour
  • Fan-hub
  • Perfect cable routing
  • PSU shroud
  • Tool-free panels
  • Flawless gun-metal finish aluminium

Cons

  • None

“If you’re looking to build a high-end gaming system, the Enthoo ATX Mid-Tower is without a doubt one of the best chassis in the world for the job, with build quality that simply cannot be beaten at this price range.”

Phanteks Enthoo Evolv ATX Mid-Tower Chassis Review

Phanteks Enthoo Evolv ATX Mid-Tower Chassis Review

Thank you OCUK for providing us with this sample.

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