Phanteks Enthoo Primo Case Review
by Dustin Sklavos on August 10, 2013 12:00 PM EST- Posted in
- Cases/Cooling/PSUs
- Water Cooling
- Phanteks
The Phanteks Enthoo Primo is, frankly, quite a case. At $249 it's definitely a luxury item, but I get the sense that Phanteks is following Corsair's lead in the enclosure market: start at the top and work your way down. You'll remember the Corsair 900D was warmly received, and the Phanteks Enthoo Primo is without a doubt going to earn a fairly healthy following.
Externally, this is definitely one of the more attractive cases I've tested. While I'm starting to feel a little bit of black box fatigue, there are clearly still ways to reinvent the wheel. There's a beautiful blue line of LEDs that lights up along the trim on the right side of the case when it's powered on, very subtle but very attractive, and if you don't like them you can just turn them off. Overall there's a lot of good geometry and fairly smart ventilation design.
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The internal design of the Enthoo Primo is a little trickier. I feel like Phanteks is on solid ground; the way the power supply bay is oriented and separated from the rest of the interior is smart, and there's plenty of space for routing cabling. The problem I think we run into is that the front intakes are somewhat obstructed, causing the Enthoo Primo to rely more on the bottom intake. That's not so bad, but the result is that the flow of air is a little awkward. The radiator plate is also a nice touch, but needed to be thought out just a bit better to accommodate the types of high end graphics cards that are likely to find their way into a case like this.
What are we left with? Excellent build quality, smart thermal-acoustic balance owing to the PWM-driven fan controller, good looks, esoteric design, and a high price tag. The Phanteks Enthoo Primo is a project case similar to the less expensive Corsair Carbide Air 540, but lends itself much more to watercooling. At the $249 price tag, you essentially place it as a less expensive alternative to the monstrous Corsair Obsidian 900D, and I think it compares very favorably in that respect. Unless you need fifteen hard drives, four graphics cards, and/or a dual-CPU motherboard, the Enthoo Primo is going to be a more ideal option.
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f0d - Sunday, August 11, 2013 - link
pre order placedAbot13 - Tuesday, August 13, 2013 - link
meh, just go to caselabs, resistance there is futile for sure, untill you realise that that kind of beauty costs.... still cheaper then a girlfriend though ;) (and depreciates less quickly too)Barbarossa - Wednesday, August 14, 2013 - link
Haha, Obsidian 1080D.JamesWoods - Saturday, August 10, 2013 - link
Frankly, this case is not at all worth the cost when you can get a case to house your PC and do just fine for $40. Fools and their money are soon parted.zero2dash - Saturday, August 10, 2013 - link
Having owned several high dollar cases (including a LL PC-V1000BW Plus II and a SS FT02), it's all in what you prioritize.That being said - at this point, I'd rather stick with <$100 cases (ideally <$75) and spend the extra money on more RAM, a better GPU, or a bigger SSD, which is precisely what I've been doing the last few years.
noeldillabough - Sunday, August 11, 2013 - link
Buying an expensive case will last you a long time, compare that to say your sli videocards that are crap in a couple of years. The worst possible investment is computer hardware; doesn't stop me from wanting the latest!Ilias78 - Sunday, August 11, 2013 - link
40$ with horrible cable management, acoustics, airflow and ergonomics.Sure bro, whatever you say.
JamesWoods - Wednesday, August 14, 2013 - link
llias78 - Horrible? Apparently you haven't been shopping in awhile. There are $40 cases now that have fantastic cable management. Maybe you just suck at building PCs. Cable management isn't some big mystery. Personally, I prefer to spend the extra cash on quiet fans and still have some extra left over from what I save.noeldillabough - You don't sell your entire system...I find it's much better to do so. Remember the switch up from USB 2.0 to USB 3.0? It's easiest to just sell the entire system and build a new one than have to buy USB 3.0 PCI cards, or USB 3.0 connection boxes for your bay drives.
waldojim42 - Wednesday, August 14, 2013 - link
While cheap cases do work, and I still own some that are 10+ years old, I actually don't like working with them the way I do my more expensive cases. The Antec 1200 for example, has enough room that I can move things wherever I need them. So when I am running 4 video cards, I can move all my hard drives to the top of the case, and open up the air flow down below them. Something a $40 case simply won't allow.Also worth consideration, is the filtering. I live in a dusty environment (Texas), and am constantly cleaning my filters. Better filters than dead/overheating components in the case!
rpg1966 - Saturday, August 10, 2013 - link
Surely you can plot the temperature and noise levels on a single chart (temp on X, noise on Y, for example), to make the numbers understandable at a glance?