A Closer Look - Inside

Both glass side panels of the Phanteks Evolv X are 4 mm thick and can be swung open as soon as you remove both thumb screws at the front. Insulating foam strips of high quality are run along the edge of the panels as well, so you won't have to worry about the panels rattling against the case because of vibrations once your system is up and running.


The white steel shroud has a line running across the window-facing edge. As we will see later on, this is actually an ARGB strip. Two openings on the shroud allow for cable management along the bottom edge of the motherboard, and a large one in front allows for a radiator. There are two sets of mounting holes for the plastic PCIe riser slot base, should you want to install your GPU vertically, and pushing back a small cover reveals an opening through which to run PCIe power for your graphics card.


The backside of the motherboard tray comes with two separate covers which are very well designed, albeit of simple engineering. Each of these is held in place by plastic tension clips and may be swung open easily. White rubber covers ensure things look incredibly clean through the window as well, which is a very nice touch.


Phanteks has wisely drilled holes into these to allow for up to six 2.5" drives, three on each. The only cosmetic issue is that the supplied screws are black, so any installed storage device will stick out a bit.


You will also find three sets of rubber-ringed mounting screws for three additional 2.5" trays, which Phanteks sells separately. So if you need even more storage, you may max out this side of the chassis at a whooping nine 2.5" drives, and that is not even considering the larger trays. Towards the front, you will find plenty of pre-installed Velcro strips with which to secure any and all cables. This area of the case resides underneath the individual covers inside the Evolv X. Removing them allows you to easily mount a liquid-cooling reservoir or up to six hard-drive trays. In the top edge is an eight-port fan hub with three 3-pin and five PWM connectors, so you may easily control an elaborate liquid-cooling setup with just a single PWM header on your motherboard.


Speaking of those, the four included ones may easily fit underneath the shroud, with two stacks of two, but with an extreme cooling setup in the front, you may compromise and still keep a single stack of two 3.5/2.5" trays. Overall, this means you can have up to 19 drives within the Evolv X with the right accessories, which is rather mind-boggling. Above that are the two 140 mm SK ARGB fans with space for one more or even a 420 mm radiator in the front of the Evolv X.


The PSU bay on the bottom can hold a unit of up to 195 or 250 mm (4 vs. 2 HDD bottom brackets), thus giving you plenty of space, which is important, especially if you are going to run a dual-system configuration. Above that, you will find the ten (7+3) expansion slots, each protected by a reusable cover held in place with a thumb screw, followed by the 140 mm exhaust fan and that ITX backplate cover secured by two screws in the very top.


Looking at the ceiling, you can clearly see where any fans or AIO will be held in place with clear line of sight to the exterior top panel and through those two air vents.


All the leads within the Phanteks Eclipse P500A are sleeved black. You will find a single power switch cable, as there is no reset switch or HDD activity LED. You may miss the HDD activity LED if you have nothing but SSDs installed and want to know if your system froze or something is just taking a long time to load. Then there is a motherboard header should you want to control your lighting through the motherboard software. In addition to all of this, you will find two SATA power plugs, one for the ARGB elements and another for power to the fan hub itself.