Phanteks Enthoo Primo Case Review

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.

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.