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Phanteks Enthoo Evolv ITX Tempered Glass Build Guide & Review: White Knight

When I first set eyes on the original Phanteks Enthoo Evolv case, I knew they’d just made a top-selling case. The design was minimal yet tasteful and the case itself was as functional as it was modular. Phanteks sent us Enthoo Evolv ITX Tempered Glass in white and we couldn’t wait to see how they downsized such a stellar case. In this build we took an 8700K processor cooled by a massive Noctua heatsink and paired it with an EVGA GTX 1060 SSC to build an affordable and capable workstation machine.

Case Overview

The Evolv ITX Tempered Glass, true to its name, has a tempered glass side panel that covers the primary side of the case. The tempered glass side panel is secured via 4 thumbscrews. System builders will appreciate being able to see their beautiful components on display 24/7 with the large clear cutout.

The rear side panel is made of metal and is secured via 2 thumbscrews located at the back of the case.

The front of the entire Enthoo Evolv lineup is among my favorite case designs. It simply looks stellar. The ventilation cutouts, the curves and contours of the front panel give it the appearance of a very modern and relevant computer case.

The I/O is located above the front panel and consists of:

There is a small slit at the bottom of the front panel which displays an RGB light. The color can be changed via the RGB button in the front I/O and the light is powered via a SATA power connection.

The rear of the case has plenty of airflow vents and has cutouts for the I/O backplate, two PCIe slots and the power supply. There is also a fan mount where either a 120mm or 140mm fan can be installed. The case comes with a 140mm Phanteks fan pre-installed. The power supply area has a dust filter that can be removed by simply pulling it out from the bottom of the case.

The power button is located on the top of the case. There are also 4 small vents on each side which help with airflow when mounting fans or a water-cooling radiator on the included bracket.

The front panel can be easily removed by gently pulling it apart it each corner. Behind it is a removable dust filter and up to a 240mm radiator can be mounted in the front.

Taking off the tempered glass side panel exposes the inside of the case which is spacious for an ITX case, however the Evolv ITX TG is on the larger end of the spectrum when it comes to ITX cases. On the right side is a cover which hides your video card cables. This is great if you don’t want to invest in custom cables but still want to look at your build every day.

An SSD, 3.5” hard drive or water-cooling pump can be mounted above the cover, however you will need to purchase a mounting bracket in order to do so.

There are a few cable grommets to route your power cables, etc. A slide-out bracket is installed up top, it’s secured by 4 Philips head screws, two in the front and two in the back. You can mount fans or up to a 280mm radiator on the bracket. The bracket also has several mounting points, making the radiator/fan installation location very customizable.

The back-side features two velcro ties for cable management, a 2.5” SSD mount and two 3.5” drive bays. There is a large motherboard cutout so CPU cooler backplates and M.2 drives can easily be installed. You can also optionally purchase a PWM fan hub that mounts below the motherboard.

A small box is in the lower hard drive bay. It contains an instruction/assembly manual, cable ties, additional thumbscrews and motherboard and hard drive/SSD tray installation screws.

Parts List:

Build Process

We started by installing our trusty Intel Core i7-8700K in the ASRock Fatal1ty Z370 Gaming-ITX/ac ITX motherboard. The ASRock Fatal1ty ITX motherboard is a very capable overclocking board that includes nearly all the features of larger ATX boards minus the additional PCIe slots. Everything is here including M.2 support, USB 3.1 ports and even a USB type-C port with a Thunderbolt 3 connection which is very rare among motherboards, especially ITX boards.

Next, we installed the gorgeous Teamgroup Night Hawk RGB RAM to go with our white/black color scheme. This is among the highest quality computer memory that can currently be purchased and has excellent overclocking capabilities.

We flipped the motherboard over and installed the WD Black NVMe 1TB M.2 SSD in the rear M.2 slot. Western Digital knocked this drive out of the park and at its current pricing, you cannot buy a better NVMe M.2 SSD.

One of the most exciting parts of this build is the behemoth CPU cooler. Noctua sent us their NH-D15S and we were thoroughly impressed with everything from the packaging to the sheer quality of the heatsink. A complete review will follow this build guide, however in short, this heatsink is fantastic!

Noctua also sent out their NA-HC4 chromax.white heatsink covers and an NF-A15 HS-PWM chromax.black.swap fan to match the theme of the build. Both parts were incredibly easy to install with the provided instructions and take an otherwise bulky looking heatsink and turn it into the main attraction of our build.

Installation of the D15S was straightforward, however we should note that this heatsink can be installed in two orientations and the vertical orientation would not fit because our RAM was too tall.

Next, we installed our EVGA GTX 1060 SSC graphics card. It’s a solid card that fits extremely well in this workstation class build. This build won’t be tasked with 4K video encoding or gaming at extremely high resolutions. The solid design of the GTX 1060 SSC and the top notch build quality EVGA has built a peerless reputation on will provide many years of service.

Finally, we installed what I consider to be one of the most beautiful power supplies ever made, the SeaSonic Prime Snow Silent 650W. This platinum rated premium power supply comes with a 12-year warranty and is among the quietest yet most capable in its class. Its white color is a welcome feature in the computer building world which seems to exclusively have pitch black power supplies.

Conclusion

Overall the Phanteks Enthoo Evolv ITX Tempered Glass takes a great case and downsizes it with minimal compromises. Yes, there fewer drive bays and airflow isn’t as quite as good as with the ATX version but those are sacrifices that nearly all ITX cases force systems builders to make. What’s great is the same build quality is present in the ITX version and despite being much smaller. Furthermore, it’s possible to build ultra high-end systems with either large heatsinks or complex water-cooling loops, all within a much smaller footprint.

If you are building an ITX computer and are considering the Phanteks Evolv ITX Tempered Glass case, we highly recommend it! Between the build quality, diverse cooling capabilities and excellent Phanteks customer support, this case is a winner.

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