1. For the last 7 years, Phanteks has led the way in case design bringing home the "case of the year" from Computext almost every year.
2. Their fans have else been the leading perfomance / noise ratio fan during time, with the only competition coming from the Silent Wind 3's.
Take the fans off a Noctua cooler and replace them with Phanteks, at the same rpm, your CPU is 6C cooler.
140 mm fans from Noctua, Phanteks, and Xigmatek battle in our latest fan roundup with one emerging as a clear winner in both thermal performance and acoustics. May 21, 2013 by Lawrence Lee Last month we staged an epic shoot-out among some popular 120 mm fans. Some great sounding fans emerged but...
silentpcreview.com
You have to scroll down quite a bit to get to the performance chart but Phanteks beats all comers.
"The Phanteks PH-F140HP/TS is the clear winner in every respect. It edged out the new Noctuas every step of the way, delivering the best overall results of any fan we’ve tested thus far. To top it off, it had cleanest, smoothest sound of all the new fans in this roundup. "
3. The China complaint is hysterical ...who doesn't have their manufacturing facilities in China ? If you don't want China, you can't build a PC or own a laptop. 95% of people can't even name a brands of laptop that actually "makes" a laptop ... they are all bought from ODMs with heaquaterters in Taiwan but fabrication facilities in mainland China. US desktop assemblers got crushed by Trump's tariffs because while they could but CPUs made in Malaysia fab instead on China Fab, most components have no fabs outside of China. Hi end case suppliers in US went out of business because of the Tariffs.
Meanwhile most companies that sell computers were unaffected because PCs 100% manufactured in China were exempt from the tariffs.
Who made better cases than Case Labs ? ... their products were in the $400 and up range and the widely accepted pinnacle of case design
U.S.-based PC case manufacturer, CaseLabs announced on social media that "We have been forced into bankruptcy and liquidation," CaseLabs said in a statement. "The tariffs have played a major role raising prices by almost 80 percent (partly due to associated shortages), which cut deeply into our margins." The trade war being enforced on Chinese imports by the United States government. cause many US companies to lose money, lay off employees, or close entirely. So the claim that China sourced products are all cheap flimsy things is simply a fabrication.
Material selection is about addressing competing needs of performance, strength, weight, cooling and other factors. Buying a 5,000 pound hoist to pick p a 400 pound engine, doesn't benefit you in any way, it just makes yo spend more money. This build I'm typing this messsage on is 7 years old.... when do you think these plastic caddies will fail ?
4. The commenter above who said "What moron building a $2k+ system uses stock case fans?" hit the nail on the head ..... except for the exception ... the person who buys a Phanteks case with their fan already in it. I actially like buying the fans separately for the accessories, well at least back then. When preinstalled they don't come with the larger rubber grommets ... I have 16 fans in this build ... the 5 that came with it didn't have the large grommets, i called Phanteks and they sent them to me. The ones bought separately all had them... I buy them a couple of dozen at a time when newegg has a special.
5, In the 1st 10 years I was building PCs, every HD was a 10k SCSI drive with heat sink and fan. But the days where a HD warranted any concern for cooling disappeared a decade ago. I have phanteks metal caddies ... I have phanteks plastic caddies ... the SSDs are centered in the metal caddy with air flow above and below, the metal doesn't tough the SSD so passive cooling does not exist; when mounte fertical, voncection proide all necessary cooling.. The plastic frame around the SSHDs is an open design allowing air flow to pass over 95% of the HD area. Right now the PC I am typing from, the (2) SSDs are 33C and the (2) SSHDs are 34C .... ALL FANS ARE NOW IN PASSIVE MODE as I am typing this message, no fans are spinning. So exactly what are we to be concerned about cooling wise ?
6. I would love to hear an explanation as to why ....
China Fab w/ Taiwanese design and management is OK
China Fab w/ European design and management is NG
China Fab w/ US design and management is NG
Yes, every purchaser should think before purchasing, but think about things that actually matter and can be demonstrated by testing, not by looking at a thing and making an uninformed decision.