Inside the Enthoo Primo
With the side panels removed the Enthoo Primo has a more classic layout than many of the cases we've seen recently, with a large chunk of space on the right side devoted to 5.25 and 3.5-inch storage.
There is still plenty of room for larger motherboards, however, with E-ATX and SSI EEB form-factors supported. There are plenty of holes for cable routing, and very substantial rubber grommets for all of them.
Looking toward the back we see a pre-mounted 140 mm exhaust fan, and just above it on the top of the case we have another.
The first thing you'll probably notice looking toward the front of the case is the stack of storage leading up to the front panel.
The second thing is probably going to be the bracket that partially obstructs the area to the right of the motherboard tray. We've seen panels designed to hide cable mess before, and they have a habit of getting in the way of longer graphics cards. We'll have to see how the build progresses.
The case bottom reveals yet another 140 mm fan, this time positioned as intake, and the floor also supports radiators via a removable bracket.
With the bracket removed it would be a simple matter to mount a radiator up to 280 mm (or an additional intake fan), and with the bracket removed the case floor also presents mounting points.
Next we'll take a look behind the motherboard tray, and into the most cavernous cable-routing area I've ever seen.
Here we see six 3.5-inch tool-less hard drive bays, a pair of SSD trays (and three total mounts counting the spot below the CPU), a fan header right below the CPU cutout, and velcro straps to secure cables. It's a clean layout, and there is a ton of room. How much? Here's a look down to see just how much depth this area offers:
Massive! It should take zero effort to close the back panel with everything installed, but with this much room and all of the provided velcro straps, I feel its the builder's duty to make a clean build of it. In reality, it doesn't matter how you stuff your cables back here; that back panel is going to close.
Speaking of panels, it's easy to remove the front panel below the optical storage, as this panel latches with a spring closure.
Once removed the panel reveals a removable dust filter for the front intake.
The other filters include a pair on the bottom of the case, and these pop out with a spring closure as well.
The rear panel is vented in two places, with magnetic filters providing protection from dust behind the openings. These vents are necessary if the rear PSU mount is used, or the optional radiator/fan bracket from the accessory package is installed behind the motherboard tray (the opening is covered with a plastic panel by default).
And finally we have a filter built into the top panel.
Notice there are some components installed in that last photo? I'm getting ahead of myself here! We'll cover component installation with the build process on the next page.
Hardware Canucks did an aio
Hardware Canucks did an aio test in this case and got 7’c difference between the case being open and closed.
so either they deliberately skewed the results to favour the aio or this case has air flow issues.
reason i mention it is my old antec 902 barely shows any variation in temps (1-2’c max) whether the case is open or not.
so saying as you have the case at hand could you confirm Hardware Canucks results.
I have this case an I love
I have this case an I love it.
Only issues I have with it (and this isn’t specific to this case) is that the brushed aluminum gets marked up very quickly. Would honestly rather have plastic that looks like brushed aluminum that can’t get marked up or maybe matte or flat aluminum/metal.
I really don’t understand why
I really don’t understand why cases this large aren’t designed to hold 10-slot mainboards. Yeah there aren’t many of those around, but what I want in a huge case is to be able to install the largest MB’s in it.
Thanks for the review Sebastian, nicely done as usual. 🙂
“We will provide a followup
“We will provide a followup to this review soon with Phanteks’ dual-PSU adapter, which is a very interesting solution to high system power needs with two lower-wattage PSUs acting as one”
Seems like this makes more sense as a way to provide a system with a redundant psu with out being limited to enterprise grade hardware and pricing.
Good write up Sebastian
Just
Good write up Sebastian
Just a query interesting choice of installing Windows 8.1 x64 instead of Windows 10 latest build x64??
…. better late than never I
…. better late than never I guess, considering this case was a rather high profile release soon to be three years ago.
It is one of not even a hanful of “consumer” cases that will accomodate a 2 x 480 radiator setup and still have room to spare.
It s an awesome case and it s not that humonguous and I have zero issues with thermals considering side panel on or off, it s a couple of degrees so dont know what HC did in their review.