Completed Build, Performance, and Conclusion
To say the Enthoo Primo was "easy" to build in would be an understatement. It was a dream to build in, and the result is a very clean-looking system. You can see the panel on the reservoir bracket to the right of the motherboard was removed to allow for my GPU installation, and while it doesn't look quite as nice this way there is still little visible cable mess.
Back behind the system we see a fairly tidy result with little effort, thanks to the massive amount of room and generous number of velcro ties – which, I will add, were installed very intelligently just where they needed to be.
There is a powered fan header back here as well, and while it connects to the included case fans with standard 3-pin connectors, it is actually PWM controlled. This was the only tricky part of the build, as I initially didn't take seriously the label that told me to connect this PWM cable to the CPU fan header. I attached it to a PWM system fan header instead, and all of the fans spun at 100%. Switching to the secondary CPU fan header on the motherboard eliminated this, and I was able to control the fan speeds using the same linear curve as the CPU cooling fans. I haven't figured this part out, but the CPU header works as intended so I just accepted it!
Performance
We'll look first at results with our Corsair H75 cooler on the CPU:
Outstanding results here, with only the very high performing RIOTORO case ahead of the Primo. The GPU results, however, stand alone:
The card I use for all enclosure benchmarks uses an aftermarket cooler, rather than a blower, and I think this is why the Primo destroyed the other enclosures in this test. There was a significant amount of airflow from the bottom to the top of the enclosure (leaving the fans in their default configuration with one below, and one above the motherboard), and it seemed to exhaust a lot of the the warm air that otherwise builds inside the enclosure with this type of GPU cooler. Fantastic results here!
Now we'll look at noise levels:
Here the Primo was less impressive, but I will point out that load noise was greatly affected by the included fans spinning up with the CPU (the controller connects to the CPU fan header). If the fans were manually controlled doubtless the temperature results would be less impressive, but noise levels under load would be lower, as well.
Conclusion
True to its name, the Phanteks Enthoo Primo is a premium enclosure in every sense of the word. It houses just about any system, offers a ton of cooling support, has excellent storage support, and includes no less than five 140 mm case fans with a PWM-controlled header. The design is not exactly exciting, but it's not monolithic thanks to the (switchable) blue LED effects and large double-windowed side panel.
Temperatures were some of the best we've ever seen, and though noise was a bit higher than some enclosures, I can't say I've ever benchmarked an enclosure with more pre-installed fans (maybe the Antec S10?). In all, building with the Enthoo Primo was a breeze, and I was impressed by the organization that is possible so easily given the depth of the area behind the motherboard tray.
If you've been thinking about a premium enclosure, this is a great option. If you need SSI EEB server motherboard support or even dual-PSU support (more on that last one in a follow-up article soon), this is an even better option. There's really no system it can't accommodate, and you could continue building in this case for a long time.
Strengths:
- Very high quality construction
- Ideal cable management
- Outstanding component support
- Immense cooling support
- Excellent storage support, including 5.25-inch bays
- Excellent cooling performance
Minor weaknesses:
- Average noise levels
- Cost
$229 is steep for an enclosure, and noise levels will depend greatly on component selection, given the lack of noise insulation. These are fairly minor complaints against an enclosure of this quality, however, and I would easily recommend the Enthoo Primo to anyone looking for a high-end enclosure.
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.