We don’t want to push this point too far by suggesting that Phanteks has delivered a PC case that uses TARDIS technology however we are quite clear they have done something very clever indeed. The main letdown for me is the dual system implementation. Phanteks has been unable to accommodate a meeting with us the past four times that we've tried, so we figured we'd source the case separately and review it. CPU temperature averaged 51.2 degrees Celsius delta T over ambient in torture testing for baseline. There are six places to mount 2.5” drives on the inside of the metal cable covers, but they’re oriented so that the power and SATA cables point inwards, towards the hinge. KitGuru says: Phanteks Evolv X is clever, stylish, sophisticated and a winner. The RGB lighting that is built into the case looks great and if you connect it to an Asus or MSI motherboard using the Digital 5V connection you will enhance the lighting even further. We recorded thermal data for both systems, but the hard numbers here are of limited use without anything to compare them to. This helps reduce radiative heat trappage near the back-side of the GPU, which causes our 2-degree delta. Coolant: Mayhems Pastel Green UV Manual Phanteks Enthoo Evolv ATX. USER’S MANUAL MATX DESIGNED IN THE NETHERLANDS. Rendering on the CPU brought the Evolv X’s CPU dT to 37.9C, between the Lancool One and the 500D and still almost exactly in the middle of the chart. Storage drives: Samsung 960 M.2 SSD To put this case through its cooling paces we will be using a test system consisting of an Intel Core i7-8700K, EVGA GTX 1080 Ti and an SSD. The Evolv X is slightly taller and wider than the Evolv ATX yet it feels like it has 50 percent more space inside. Unfortunately, the mini ITX frame clamps the radiator mount to the chassis. There’s a steady supply of air along the bottom of the case from the lower intake fan, but it’s not quite as direct as with the CPU. NZXT's H700 is also a direct competitor, as is be quiet! Despite appearances of a choked front, Phanteks has done a good job of spacing the front panel away from the intake fans and leaving wide gaps for airflow. Those three modes showed that Evolv X was highly versatile despite being fairly compact. In fact, the factory cable management was a little overzealous, as the power button cable had been stretched too tight and unplugged when we received the case. View the Phanteks Enthoo Evolv ATX manual for free or ask your question to other Phanteks Enthoo Evolv ATX owners. Both CPU and GPU results are important to note this time since they’re the baseline temperatures for our dual system test. That’s within margin of error of the baseline, and so is functionally the same. You can certainly install your PC hardware along with an All In One and an air cooled graphics card and it will work well. Here’s the comparative chart. Removing the filter as well as the front panel did lower CPU temperature down to 45.3 degrees, though, revealing the real bottleneck. Note: if the above images are not displaying properly, you may need to disable Ad Block as it is known to interfere with our display code. Stand out of the crowd using the all time favorite Evolv Series cases. If you’re looking for dual system support with Mini-ITX in the roof you will also require the new Revolt X power supply that is due to launch in the near future. We moderate comments on a ~24~48 hour cycle. We even finished that review by suggesting that the H500P Mesh was a better bargain. 1x USB 3.1 Gen 2 Type-C, 2x USB 3.0, Power button, Microphone, Headphone, D-RGB Mode button, D-RGB Color button, Front: 3x 120mm or 3x 130mm (2 installed), Front: up to 120mm x 360mm or 140mm x 420mm, Top: up to 120mm x 360mm or 140mm x 280mm, Top Radiator + Fan Thickness: 65mm (no limit if mobo and components are 50mm or lower). Finish your build with water blocks and fittings from our Glacier Series line. Today, we're reviewing the Phanteks Evolv X case for build quality, thermals, cable management, dual-system assembly, and more. Thermal benchmarking is conducted for 1400 seconds (23 minutes), a period we've determined sufficient for achieving equilibrium. The arrival of the Enthoo Evolv X from Phanteks represents the next evolution in their range of stylish Midi-Towers, this time offering an array of ingenious design upgrades to make for the ultimate case for enthusiasts, overclockers and power users everywhere. Finish your build with water blocks and fittings from our Glacier Series line. This is clever design at work and we admire it hugely. Build quality is marginal in places, including the power supply mount. It can *support an ITX motherboard installation in the top, allowing for a second system to run simultaneously with your main system. If you go down that route you will have a PC that looks good and works well however you are paying a fairly large amount of cash for a case without taking advantage of most of the features. Dimension 240 mm x 520 mm x 510 mm M 9.45 in x 20.5 in x 20.1 in Form Factor Midtower Chassis Material(s) Anodized aluminium panels ... Phanteks>ENTHOO Series>ENTHOO EVOLV X … The mini ITX system was responsible only for streaming the output from the ATX system using an external capture card. Getting into the case is easy enough. For our lower system, we used Firestrike Extreme on loop, then captured its output with the top system. Standing tall at a grand 19.1” the Enthoo Evolv Shift is the smaller and more budget friendly of the two newest additions to Phanteks’ Enthoo Series of cases. We didn’t appreciate the “DLC” approach to cases with the P400, but it’s much more appropriate for a luxury feature like dual system support, since the vast majority of users have no need for it. 's Dark Base Pro 900. The case fans don’t need to run at maximum RPM all the time, but keep in mind that they will unless the fan hub is connected to a motherboard header. Buy from Overclockers UK for £209.99 inc vat HERE. Welcome to Phanteks! Fan mounts: 3x 120mm/140mm front, 3x 120/2x 140mm roof, 1x 120mm/140mm rear. And then there’s the gamer who wants to install a decent amount of cooling. The Evolv X has massive storage capabilities. The options for installing extensive liquid cooling with the minimum of hassle is what impresses us most about Evolv X. All that extra heat has to go somewhere -- it’s not going to just be cooler all-around -- and the extra heat is getting pulled through the primary CPU socket area. That means either GPUs that take up more than two slots can be mounted vertically (bad idea), or GPUs that take up two or less slots can be mounted vertically with decent clearance from the side panel (better idea). The surprising thing about Evolv X is that it is only slightly larger than Evolv ATX, standing 520mm high (Evolv ATX 495mm) and is 240mm wide (Evolv ATX 235mm) yet the number of features that have been added are quite eye-opening. The equilibrium performance is averaged to create the below charts. Graphics card: GeForce GTX 1080 Ti 11GB Not the H500P Mesh, and not the H500M. - Phanteks Evolv X Black - Intel i9-9820X - ASUS ROG Strix x299-E mobo - 64GB (4x 16G) Corsair Vengeance Pro RGB - Nvidia RTX2080 FE - Corsair RM1000x (going to upgrade to the Phanteks Revolt X PSU for a dual system) - Corsair H150i Pro I plan on installing the second ITX build in the top of the case once I figure out a good cooling scheme. By that token if you add more cooling in the roof of the case and run the fans above 1,000rpm we are confident you will increase the audible noise levels with this case. Processor: Intel Core i7-8700K Test System: We used a low-profile cooler on our mini ITX streaming system because the CPU cooler of the main system was in the way, and that’s likely the approach that most users will take. The EVOLV x features 3mm aluminum exterior with hinged tempered glass for convenient handling. Now in … This would likely become more of an issue with higher pressure fans. One pleasant surprise was the plastic box with various screws already sorted out in it. Here’s the test everyone has been waiting for: A dual-system build in the same box, testing thermals in a real-world use case. There are also some more conventional SSD bracket mounts on the back of the motherboard tray, but the SSD brackets are sold separately. If you want to go the whole hog we suggest you use Phanteks Halos fan frames to transform the stock Phanteks fans into fully illuminated versions that look superb, just as we did in the video. Phanteks has sprinkled in some features that we previously saw in the Evolv X to make this a premium case, some of which we like and some of which we don’t, but they’re toppings on a solid base. Specifications * Height With Feet Part of the problem is that the front fan mount is made of thin, flexible pieces of metal that can buckle inwards towards the fans. No doubt a full Mesh approach would help the Evolv X to breath even better but we are confident this is a good case that works very well. It is fair to say the Evolv X was one of the stars of Computex and was certainly one of the most anticipated products that mainstream gamers might actually buy (32-core Threadripper and 28-core Intel got more attention but that’s a different story). It worked fine using the smaller system exclusively for streaming, but any additional load or overclocking would push the limits of such a small cooler. The ITX bracket is available for purchase separately for $15 alone or combined with a x1 or x16 PCIe riser cable. We still wanted to test it, though, so we tried to think of the most logical reason to run two separate systems in a single case. The H700i is similarly priced -- or cheaper, if you go for the H700 -- and ends up a couple degrees warmer than the Evolv X. The stream test with two systems resulted in a lower GPU temperature than the ATX-only test. Four thumbscrews can be put through the panels to hold them more securely, but we’d recommend leaving them out unless the system is being moved--otherwise the front panel must first be removed in order to take the screws out. The mini speakers deliver a 2.0 audio system in a small and space-saving design that will fit any gaming desktop setup. You may wonder why the reviewers of the world were going nuts over a case that seems to be an update of the existing Evolv ATX TG that we reviewed in 2016. Internal drive bays: 10x 3.5-inch (4 mounts included), 9x 2.5-inch (6 mounts included). Fittings: Phanteks There is also plenty of space in the roof of the case to install a second radiator and, as we demonstrate, you can remove the top of the case in moments to give full access to the radiator mounts. I do not have the case manual and not quite sure how it's installed. The Evolv X supports dual-system computing when combined with the Phanteks Revolt X ( dual-system) power supply. EK-Quantum Reflection Evolv X D5 PWM D-RGB is a water cooling reservoir, routing and pump solution made to fit Phanteks Evolv X and P600s cases. The P3 is open but has no fans, and the 270R only comes with two 120mm fans, but they’re both average performers. The straight front-to-back airflow pattern between the upper intake fan and the rear exhaust fan benefits our CPU cooler, which sits exactly in between them. With all that said, $200 could also buy an H500M, another dual-glass-panelled case we liked and that performed better in our thermal testing. My understanding is that Phanteks cases generally need an adapter to connect to an RGB header on Asus or MSI boards. CPU Block: Phanteks Glacier C350iP GPU torture temperatures for just the Evolv X are next. Included fans: 2x 140mm front intake, 1x 140mm rear exhaust. For example, it’d help to have additional CPU cores in the system encoding the stream, but the R7s or i7s that fit the bill don’t have integrated graphics. That’s respectable company to be in and is a bit better than the center of the pack. Leo Waldock The vertical GPU test was also a bit cooler than the baseline test, which is truly impressive given how many times we’ve seen the GPU break 60C dT when mounted vertically.