NZXT Phantom Full Tower ATX Case Review

Installation and Case Cooling

For the installation portion of our review, we decided to install an Intel LGA 1156 system with basic watercooling for the CPU in the Phantom. We needed to install an ATX motherboard so we used nine motherboard standoffs to prep the case for this setup.

Next, we used one of the seven available hard drive cages to mount our SATA hard drive. This process only took a minute and actually felt pretty sturdy when it snapped into the cage itself. 

To install our watercooling unit, we had to remove the 120mm fan from the back panel. This involved removing four fan screws and the fan came right off.

Before we moved on to installing the watercooling unit, we moved the back panel fan to the front panel to give us better airflow throughout the case. NZXT didn’t include a fan on the front panel, but that’s probably because they thought the two side panel fans would help bring cool air into the case. They included four fans with this system, but there are actually seven fan options that users can work with to improve overall cooling in the Phantom.

We ran into a snag trying to install our Corsair H50 watercooling unit onto the back panel because it kept hitting the 200mm fan that was originally located right above the processor on the top panel. To fix this issue, we moved the 200mm fan to the second fan hole on the top panel.

Are moving both the side and top panel fans we were able to install the watercooler, CPU, motherboard, and system memory. The ATX board is dwarfed by the massive interior of the Phantom.

Next, we installed the power supply by securing it with four screws to the back panel of the case. We didn’t actually use a 400 watt power supply for this test bench, but just to take images for this review.

Installing our DVD burner was a snap using the custom optical bay clips that did a pretty good job of securing our optical drive without screws. Popping off the optical bay cover was also very simple because they added a small button on the right side on the exterior portion of each optical bay cover.

After about 40 minutes, we completed our installation as well as all the cable management for this case. I must say it looks pretty clean and the only power cable we weren’t able to route around the back of the case was the 8-pin power connector. Everything else was wrapped in a bundle at the bottom or hidden at the back of the case. You can see there is still plenty of expandability options available with the Phantom so the sky is really the limit with a PC case like this. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen a case like this with so much interior space for a plethora of different hardware.