Product Listing

NZXT Phantom - Cool Angles

By Vincent Chang - 13 Aug 2010

Interior Design

Roomy Inside

With a listed depth of 623mm, the NZXT Phantom is extremely spacious inside and supports even E-ATX motherboards. There's plenty of room between the 5.25-inch drive bays and our ATX motherboard and we believe even the longest graphics card now will have ample room, even when considering all the associated cables. While there's no removable motherboard tray, there are numerous cut-outs and rubber grommets for easy access to the bottom of your board (for those times when you need to remove the bottom retention plate of your CPU cooler) while cable management should be a breeze.

Of  course, as with most casings now, tool-free installation is almost a certainty, and besides the motherboard standoffs and their corresponding screws, there is little that you'll need a screwdriver for. The hard drive bays supporting both 2.5-inch and 3.5-inch form factors are all tool-free and the external 5.25-inch bays feature NZXT's own tool-free mechanism. Following current trends, the PSU sits at the bottom, far from the warmer CPU socket. It adds weight to the structure and NZXT has a dedicated vent for cooling the PSU.

The interior of the Phantom with all the side panels removed, stands out for the number of access points for users to route the cables and have quick access to important areas like the CPU socket.

There's lots of room at the 'back' of the chassis, allowing users much leeway to manage their cables and of course, access the motherboard from below. The pre-installed cables have already been nicely managed.

As you can see here, one gets at least one inch of space, more than sufficient for even the thicker cables.

One can also see how the drive bays have unrestricted airflow, with the meshed side panels on either side of them.

The 5.25-inch external drive bays are secured by NZXT's own tool-free mechanism. Align them to the screw holes on the drive, snap them in and then lock.

The 3.5-inch drive bay installed with a typical HDD (yes, it's an old drive on purpose). Vibration dampening materials are present in the tool-free mechanism.

There are seven expansion slots on the Phantom, all secured with thumbscrews for easy removal and installation.

Four rubber 'standoffs' are located at the bottom of the casing for the PSU, propping up the PSU and allowing a degree of airflow. This is aided by the ventilation hole below. The fact that the casing itself is resting on rubber feet means that air is allowed to flow underneath it.

Taken from NZXT's website, this shows how a liquid cooling setup can work in the Phantom, with the radiator mounted just below the top 200mm fans.

Installed with a motherboard, PSU and graphics card, it's easy to see how much space is left for users to manage their cables any way they want. We didn't route the cable underneath the motherboard tray, but this is precisely what we wanted to show that even with the cable clutter, it's not an issue for this case. The allowance for the graphics card is also very nice.

Overall, we found the installation process on the NZXT Phantom to be very smooth and simple. There were very few edges inside the chassis and while we tried our best, it would be quite difficult to cut your fingers or hands on the casing, though of course, there's still the risk of cutting yourself on the edge of your motherboard or graphics card.

The tool-free mechanisms helped, but that too is standard fare nowadays in many of the non-budget casings. We did have to use a screwdriver for the motherboard standoffs and the expansion slot thumbscrews were a bit tight at the beginning. As always, the onus of proper cable management lies with the user, but with the Phantom, there's no excuse not to do so with the numerous options offered here.

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9.0
  • Aesthetics 8.5
  • Functionality 9
  • Usability 9
  • Value 9
The Good
Excellent cooling potential
Spacious interior
The Bad
Plastic, glossy exterior can be a fingerprint magnet
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