Phanteks Vertical PCIe 4.0 Riser Cable

On top of sending us the chassis, Phanteks included their PCIe 4.0 riser cable. It ships in a simple brown cardboard box with the unit itself inside a sealed anti-static bag.


The riser cable is all-black and feels really sturdy. Two sets of flexible flat-band cables connect both ends.


The base into which you may plug your GPU comes with a high-quality PCB that seems to have grounding across its layers, if the little bumps across the surface are any indication. On top of that, none of the leads for the PCIe slot are anywhere close to the screw holes, which is good to see. On the other end, you have a straight connector to plug into the x16 motherboard slot of your choice.

Phanteks SK PWM D-RGB White Fans

We also received a triple-pack of their recently announced SK PWM fans, in the white 140 mm with ARGB (or D-RGB, as Phanteks calls it) variant. These ship in a full-color box meant to be hung off a store shelf. The front and back have little windows for a closer look before buying these. While these would easily fit inside the Phanteks Evolv X on top of the already included fans, we will be using an AIO in our setup instead. That said, these fans are the same as those found within the case. That means this retail kit allows us to take a closer look at what you can expect from the chassis, and shows that seamlessly expanding that fan setup is an option as well.


The fans feel quite sturdy and come with white cables, which is a nice touch considering many such variants still have black wiring instead. Some assembly is required with the included foam spacers, but you could simply skip those if you'd like. In fact, the units the case ships with by default, while identical, don't have spacers on them either, which causes no issues whatsoever. Unfortunately, these fans don't actually ship with a controller, whereas most other triple-pack fan offers out there do. Lastly, the extension leads are black, which is fine as those can be hidden from view anyway.


The SK PWM fans sport ARGB elements in the hub of the unit, and Phanteks refrained from branding the center of the blade assembly. On the back is a Phanteks sticker, with the white cables running across one of the spines.


Simple arrows on the exterior of the frame will let you know which way the air will be pushed, as well as the directions the blades will spin. The wires are long enough for clean all-white build scenarios, and while the LED lead comes with the proprietary Phanteks connector, using the included black adapter cable, you may convert it into a generic plug to mix and match with other brands.