# Phanteks Enthoo Evolv



## Darksaber (Oct 26, 2014)

The Phanteks Evolv aims to transform what a mATX chassis should be capable of. Catering to the liquid-cooling crowd without compromising on air-cooling capability, the Evolv comes with the great feature set we have come to expect from Phanteks - all while combining quality with an enticing price.

*Show full review*


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## HammerON (Jan 9, 2015)

I really like this case. Might be time to "downsize"...


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## beardofnails (Jan 9, 2015)

I bought one and it is awful. Building inside the case is really easy and cable routing is great, but the build quality of the case is just flat out bad. My case has several loose rivets, the window is cloudy/wavy/milky/foggy/anything-but-clear. I bent the rear of the case inward when swapping out the factory installed fan just by tightening the screws. Both doors came with gouges in the front facing edges. The dust filters were torn in various places. The drive cage has to be completely removed if you want to install dual 140mm fans up front, as the screws that mount the fan bottom out on the side of the drive cage by about an inch. The drive cage itself is the same paper-thin steel as the rest of the chassis frame, and it sounds like a diesel engine when my hard drive is reading or writing from the complete lack of any vibration dampening. The top radiator/fan mounting points are also so thin that they sag from the weight of the fans, not a rad, just fans. Super disappointed in the complete lack of QC on this so-called premium product. I'll stick with fractal and silverstone for my high end builds.

I think the worst thing is all the rave reviews that this case is getting on all the review sites. It's as if they only built 10 good ones for the press, and the rest were outsourced to a terrible factory in china. If you go to the phanteks forums you'll see numerous posts regaurding the phanteks qc issues on ALL of their cases.


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## Hood (Jan 9, 2015)

beardofnails said:


> I bought one and it is awful. Building inside the case is really easy and cable routing is great, but the build quality of the case is just flat out bad. My case has several loose rivets, the window is cloudy/wavy/milky/foggy/anything-but-clear. I bent the rear of the case inward when swapping out the factory installed fan just by tightening the screws. Both doors came with gouges in the front facing edges. The dust filters were torn in various places. The drive cage has to be completely removed if you want to install dual 140mm fans up front, as the screws that mount the fan bottom out on the side of the drive cage by about an inch. The drive cage itself is the same paper-thin steel as the rest of the chassis frame, and it sounds like a diesel engine when my hard drive is reading or writing from the complete lack of any vibration dampening. The top radiator/fan mounting points are also so thin that they sag from the weight of the fans, not a rad, just fans. Super disappointed in the complete lack of QC on this so-called premium product. I'll stick with fractal and silverstone for my high end builds.
> 
> I think the worst thing is all the rave reviews that this case is getting on all the review sites. It's as if they only built 10 good ones for the press, and the rest were outsourced to a terrible factory in china. If you go to the phanteks forums you'll see numerous posts regaurding the phanteks qc issues on ALL of their cases.


Some reviews I read claimed the  case is "built like a tank", "the best-built case I ever reviewed".  Thanks for your eye-opening review - I was seriously going to order one until I saw this.  The concept is great, and the thick aluminum panels look very solid, but cheaping out with paper-thin steel on the chassis structure is a deal-killer for me.  It would have cost maybe 5 bucks more to use heavier gauge steel. I guess the bean-counters are to blame, engineers know better than to build a tank out of beer cans.  The bad QC is inexcusable for a "premium" case, dented panels and scratched windows are the province of $30 cases, not $150 "premium" cases...


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## ryun (Jan 12, 2015)

My experience was overall positive when I built this case. I had a similar/very different experience from beardofnails. I rearranged some of your quotes so I could easily show the similarities and differences.



beardofnails said:


> I bought one and it is awful. Building inside the case is really easy and cable routing is great, but the build quality of the case is just flat out bad. My case has several loose rivets, the window is cloudy/wavy/milky/foggy/anything-but-clear....
> 
> ...Both doors came with gouges in the front facing edges....
> 
> ... The dust filters were torn in various places...



Yeesh. Yeah, that is bad though I'm happy to say I didn't have those issues. I did have a slight chip in the case just below where the power supply sits, which I was disappointed in but happy it wasn't elsewhere. I also did have some small tears in the front filter like you, but mine where along where the filter meets the plastic. I figured if it bothered me I could purchase some of this and fix it myself: http://www.frozencpu.com/products/1...rial_500mm_x_400mm_x_3mm.html?tl=g47c223s1706

*Edit* Oh I forgot to mention that while my case did not come with loose rivets the screws that hold the hinges for the side panels were a loose, which made a rattling noise whenever I opened the doors. I fixed that after tightening the screws, though.

Still, I thought myself that this was pretty bad for a $130 product.



beardofnails said:


> I bent the rear of the case inward when swapping out the factory installed fan just by tightening the screws....The drive cage has to be completely removed if you want to install dual 140mm fans up front, as the screws that mount the fan bottom out on the side of the drive cage by about an inch. The drive cage itself is the same paper-thin steel as the rest of the chassis frame, and it sounds like a diesel engine when my hard drive is reading or writing from the complete lack of any vibration dampening. The top radiator/fan mounting points are also so thin that they sag from the weight of the fans, not a rad, just fans.



This is where my experience was very different. I'm not sure how there would be such a discrepancy but my case is very strong. I experienced no bending when tightening fan screws and, in regards to the top fan mounts it maintained it's shape even when I lifted the whole case up by the middle dividing bar (see this picture: http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Phanteks/Enthoo_Evolv/images/casetopoff.jpg ). Without anything installed, though.

As for the hard drive noise, yes I can hear my hard drive but it sounds more like an echo than anything else. Anyway, I didn't feel like there was more or less noise from my previous case. If I remember, I'll open up the case and check it out. There are some anti-vibration grips on my hard drive cages. Hard drive noise never bothered me though, so I can't really comment on their efficacy. Overall though I find the case to be pretty good at filtering noise.

You do not need to remove the drive cage to install dual 140mm up front -- at least I didn't. My only issue with this was that they did not send me enough of the long screws to install dual 140mm fans. Perhaps this was your issue as well? At any rate, I contacted phanteks and they sent more screws for me in the mail and I received them a couple of days after contacting them.

Overall though, I'm really happy with the case.


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## beardofnails (Jan 14, 2015)

I'm guessing I just got a sour apple, but after shelling out $140 and getting something shoddy I was pretty irate. I will still love phanteks as a company as this is my first bad experience with them. Been using their fans and cpu coolers for a couple years now in my builds and customer builds and they've been phantastic.


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## Rylan (Jan 16, 2015)

beardofnails said:


> I'm guessing I just got a sour apple, but after shelling out $140 and getting something shoddy I was pretty irate. I will still love phanteks as a company as this is my first bad experience with them. Been using their fans and cpu coolers for a couple years now in my builds and customer builds and they've been phantastic.



How is it that you didn't return the case?  $140 is a good chunk of money to wind up with a defective item.


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## beardofnails (Jan 16, 2015)

Rylan said:


> How is it that you didn't return the case?  $140 is a good chunk of money to wind up with a defective item.



Indeed. I am torn between returning it and having to wait for another chassis or just using it until I can get something else. It hurts to be without my precious!


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