Test System

Assembly

Installing the motherboard is done by traditional means, with the use of supplied screws. Even though it looks like a tight fit, it is not, which is due to the tray's shallow placement. The downside here is the limited CPU cooler's maximium height of 82 mm. The be quiet! Shadow Rock LP in our review rig clocks in at just 75 mm and is more than capable of cooling modern desktop CPUs.


Thanks to the removable GPU bracket, you may install large graphics cards with ease as well. Simply place it unto the PCIe x16 slot and secure the card with traditional screws.


Then, you may lift it back into place and use the two traditional screws and a thumbscrew to hold it in place. Phanteks allows you to slide it in horizontally so that wider GPUs will fit as well.


Adding a 3.5" drive is done with the elongated screws Phanteks provides. You should really install this drive as a very first step, even before adding a motherboard or GPU, as the screw mounts will not be accessible otherwise. There are more user-friendly ways - with the use of rubber-ring-equipped screws which then slide into holes along the mounting surface, for example, which would give you much more flexibility.


Interestingly enough, SSDs use that exact approach in reverse. The rubber-ringed screws are mounted to the surface, which means you just have to fill the metal tray with the drive of your choice and slide the whole contraption into place.


To add a PSU, you first have to remove the bottom cover to gain access to the screw holes. The SFX or SFX-L unit is held in place by traditional screws, and you can pick to have the fan facing outward or inward. In our setup, having the power supply pull cool air in from the exterior seemed to be the best choice.


With everything installed, everything still looks surprisingly clean, with the bottom half mostly empty as we did not go for any liquid-cooling elements. The GPU is clearly accessible to make sure you can upgrade things quite easily, and the motherboard and its cooler are completely unobstructed as well. Phanteks has done an excellent job in terms of the internal layout.

Finished Looks

With everything in place and the system turned on, the Evolv Shift has no fancy or flashy lights that would distract you. Besides the barely audible swoosh of the fans and the visual hints within the chassis, there is very little to draw your attention. In the ceiling, you have access to all the connectors that are usually facing toward the rear of the chassis.


Being able to look at all the parts work is great, and if you have a CPU cooler with RGB or a fancy new RGB-equipped graphics card, the Evolv Shift could really be a head turner at a public event.

LED Color Options

As the power LED is RGB, you are able to cycle through the colors with the use of the button at the top of the chassis. Below are the default color options: