NZXT Phantom 820 Case Review

Most of us custom PC builders have been waiting and watching for NZXT to finally show us what they’ve been hiding for these last few weeks.  They let very little slip about the newest in their line of Phantom cases.  They gave us sneak peeks at parts of the chassis… but very little else.  And now the time has finally come.  That irritating countdown on the NZXT website has run out.  The Phantom 820 is here.

The Phantom 820 is NZXT’s sidewinder missile, and they have it aimed right at the top of the market for gaming cases.  The nice man from FedEx showed up at my door just a few hours ago, lugging this huge box through the pouring rain.  And when I say huge, that’s exactly what I mean.  It’s 12” wide, 27” long, and 29” tall.  That’s almost two and half feet tall.  With a total weight of 32 pounds.  I put the monstrous box on my kitchen table and cut the packaging tape off.

And here is some info on it:

SPECS:

FEATURES:

Fully equipped with one 140mm and three 200mm fans for the high airflow and low noise

• Integrated HUE lighting for illuminating the exterior/interior of your enclosure with option to turn on/off and allow you to customize the colors at your heart’s content
• High-end water cooling solutions up to three fans for a push-pull configuration: 90mm of internal top space with top 280/360mm and bottom 240/280mm radiator support for unmatched liquid cooling
• State-of-the-art integrated 4 channel digital fan controller with 15 watts per channel and LED indicators that progressively gets brighter on high speeds and dimmer for low settings
• Easily removable filters located in the top, front, side, and bottom to prevent dust from entering your rig and simple maintenance
• Adjustable interior pivot 120/140mm fan slot for directional airflow
• Removable HDD cage and large storage capacity for 6 hard drives
• Dual USB 3.0, quad USB 2.0, microphone, and audio jack along with a SD media card reader for high-speed data transfer and quick access to multimedia
• Stylish acrylic window with a view to show off the interior of your rig
• Unrivalled Cooling Capacity to mount up to nine fans for a maximum airflow
• Rear I/O white light for visibility in dark environments with a toggle switch
• Extruded right side panel for an elegant look and achieves 36mm clearance for cable wire management
• Equipped with a stylish pedestal that lifts your enclosure off the ground for increased airflow.

On the next page we break open the box…

As soon as I got the tape off I saw a white box with NZXT embossed on its top.  It was filled with various screws, thumbscrews, bolts, and zip ties.  All gloss black.  A nice change from the little plastic baggies that stuff like this usually comes in.  And they were all neatly organized in their own compartments.  I got the large piece of foam off the top of the case to reveal the instruction booklet.  I thumbed through it and found that it was a bit difficult to read.  They tried to fit the instructions for each part of the chassis in six different languages on every page.  Fit that in with some small, albeit detailed schematics and everything becomes a bit of a blur.  Or maybe I need stronger glasses.

I put the booklet aside and grabbed the case with both hands.  It was inside a large plastic bag, as most cases are, and cushioned on both ends by large pieces of Styrofoam.  It was a bit of a workout getting it out of the box.  A lot of wiggling, shaking, and putting my foot on the box itself to pull it away from the case and foam.  As I suspected, there was a good deal of packing material taking up some of that large box, but not as much as I expected.  I got the foam off the ends and took the bag off, and this thing is seriously huge.  Nothing surprising considered that most full size cases are monstrosities, but it’s still a little off-putting when you first take something this big out of the box.  I had to clear off a whole section of my desk just to get it up to where I could check it out.

The case is clearly aimed at gamers, with sharp edges and a sexy gunmetal grey, made out of steel and plastic.  The left side of the case (the side that opens to the insert the motherboard) has a single clear plastic window and two honeycomb mesh windows.  I have, over the years, grown to associate honeycomb patterns with NZXT cases.  Thanks a lot for that, guys.  The larger of the two had one of the 200mm white fans mounted on the inside of it.  I’ve noticed so that a lot of other people aren’t fond of the designs that the windows on the side make up, but I think it adds a rather nice aesthetic to case as a whole.   The front of the case also had a mesh-covered opening which allowed airflow for the 120mm fan that blows across the six 3.5”/2.5” bays.

A look at the case’s other features next…

The top of the case has the same black mesh at the back offering ventilation for the 200mm exhaust fan, coming forward to slotted vent holes, and then to the USB ports, fan controls, and audio jacks.  And like a lot of NZXT’s high-end cases, it has the signature V-shape running from the top to the front, with a LED light bar running down the left side from the fan control to just above the bay door.  The fan control is pretty low-tech stuff.  A simple push button setup that allows you to take the fans from off to full blast with four speeds in between.  The back of the chassis is pretty standard for NZXT.  There’s a single 120mm fan for exhaust, nine punch outs for expansion card slots, four ports for water cooling hoses, and a place at the bottom for the power supply.

Next I opened the swinging front door to the external drive bays to check out the digs.  I was happy to see that it swung out to the right instead of the left.  That was a deal breaker on a case I wanted to use for a build before.  Who the hell wants the door to swing toward them?  It had a nice, strong magnet to hold it shut, and the door itself didn’t feel flimsy in the least.  A thick, sturdy plastic.  There are four honeycomb punch outs covering the four 5.25” external drive bays.  But instead of the usual metal tab holding the punch outs in, the Phantom 820 has a spring-loaded thumb tab on each one, allowing them to be removed and replaced easily.

Above the drive bays are three buttons for controlling the case’s lighting system.  You can use these to change what parts of the case lights up, turn the lights off completely, or change the color of the lights.  You can also control the I/O lighting from here.  And right smack between two of the buttons is something that I was excited to see.  An SD card reader.  The only other computer in my house that has one built in is the laptop I use for writing my reviews.  As much as we use these things, why aren’t they built into every freaking case?  But I digress…

A look inside the titan on the next page…

Once I got the side off I could get a real good look at the inside of this titan.  The space behind the motherboard tray was very roomy.  I measured right at an inch of space between the tray and the right side.  Not much chance of heat getting trapped back there.  It also offered more room for the host of wires that ran behind the tray.  All of the connectors for the power, reset, audio, USB ports, and LEDs ran from the top down through the right side so they came out right beside the lower right side of any would-be motherboard.  This gives direct access for the audio, power, and USB connectors on the board.

One thing I noticed right away, and it’s fairly annoying, is that you can only access two of the hard drive bays from the left side.  The bottom two have their own dock that slides out after pinching two release latches.  Once it’s out you can get to the connectors on the hard drives, which face the left side of the case.  It doesn’t make any sense at first, but it’s something that should have been done with older cases that were around when PATA drives were in high use.  Those wide ribbon cables blocked a lot of airflow if you didn’t position them correctly.  So having them running along the right side of the case would have freed up a lot of airflow space.  The idea is that the builder will route the SATA and other cables behind the motherboard tray and connect to the hard drives out of sight.  More airflow and a cleaner look.   I get it.  It’s just annoying.

Now here’s the annoying part.  If you want access to the other four bays, you have to take the left side of the case off.  It involves removing only three thumb screws, so it’s not that big a hassle, but the concept of not being able to access them from the traditional side of the case is a bit on the ridiculous side.  Considering how much thought they put into every other aspect of the case, I’m sure they had reason for it.  They just forgot to include that sticky note in the instruction booklet.  At least they threw in that nifty fan mount beside the hard drive bays.  It tilts.  Slightly cool.  I can only assume it was intended for cooling high end video cards.  You could cook an egg on those suckers.

Now to the final part of the case.  The bottom.  Most of the time I don’t pay any attention down there and neither do the case designers.  But this case was designed with cooling in mind.  The bottom of the case stands a full two inches off of the surface it rests on.  The case has a built in stand that is capable of accepting two 120mm fans for even more airflow from underneath.  And one of these is right under the PSU, which is raised off the bottom of the case with stand offs by about half an inch.  And to add more fun each fan dock has a dust screen that pops out with ease.

We render our verdict on the next page…

In conclusion, I would say that NZXT has a winner here.  It’s extremely roomy, lots of space behind the motherboard, lots of accessories, adequate cooling with the choice of adding more fans on a whim, and looks damned aggressive.  My only issue is the size.  It’s heavy even when empty and comes to my mid-thigh when it’s sitting flat on the floor.  Fitting it under most desks might be an issue.  From where it’s sitting right now it looks like a futuristic heater/radiator from a sci-fi novel.  And I can only imagine what it would be like for a scrawnier PC enthusiast who has to move it by him/herself when it’s full of hardware.  I can imagine it reaching the sixty pound mark when fully loaded.

But other than size, I can’t find anything that I don’t like about this case.  And even that is hardly an issue for me.  While some can’t move past the less desirable aesthetic choices made by NZXT, I say that more people are going to like it than not.  It was certainly worth the countdown.