A Look Inside
Swinging the windowed panel open we find a gloss black interior that is basically wide open. Immediately we notice the large cutout and the rubber grommet equipped pass throughs. A generous shelf shrouds the main space from the PSU area and serves to hide all your cables. Mainly though it’s the wide open space that is the attention grabber. Like on open plain on the way across the midwest there is nothing inside to hinder airflow or limit your imagination for what can be done. It’s nearly a blank canvas for the modders imagination.
Aside from the ability to have basically nothing in your case, the Evolv ATX is also very feature rich. You will find cut outs everywhere you would need one for passing cables through, as well as in some places you wouldn’t expect, such as one specifically for the GPUs and one for the SSD mounting location on the front of the shroud. Of course you will also find three 140mm Phanteks fans. Two are mounted in the front of the case with one more in the top rear for exhaust. These have black bodies with white blades and provide the only contrast in the interior.
Opening the back panel we find a very generous amount of space for cable routing. On the back of the motherboard tray you will find two SSD brackets and mounts, Phanteks’ integrated fan controller of choice, and in the bottom a traditional HDD cage with two trays in it. The trays easily slide out and feature a tool less mounting system that we’ve found works quite well. Nearly as easy to install, the SSD brackets slide up and down to release and attach.
From the back of the case we can now remove the accessory box. Pulling that out we find a large space for the PSU and cables to be hidden in. Overall there is a ton of space behind the motherboard tray for cable routing and possibly even water cooling tubing.
Phanteks is quite known for their dust filters, let’s check out how well equipped the Evolv ATX is. On the bottom rear of the case you will find one for the PSU intake and if we remove the front panel by pulling out on the bottom you will find another larger one for the full front intake. Both of these filters are easily removed for cleaning. As was mentioned earlier the top intakes also have dust filters on the inside under the top of the case.
Perhaps one of the neatest tricks of the Evolv line is the removable radiator/fan bracket. Unlike most chassis’ which require you to hold your radiator or fan in place inside the case while you mount it Phanteks has engineered a removable bracket that allows you to do this outside of the case. This gives you the room you need to easily and properly install your components. In the case of the Evolv ATX, you have enough space to mount up to a 360mm radiator in the top of the case. The bracket is held in place by two screws on the front and three on the rear. Remove these and the bracket slides right out.
Finally let’s take a look at that accessory box we pulled out earlier. Inside you will find a manual, the standard Phanteks screw box, zip ties and LEDS in a bag, and several brackets in foam bags.
Removing the brackets from the bags we find 3 large HDD brackets and a water cooling pump bracket. The HDD brackets are trays that can be installed into the main bay of the case. This increases the drive capacity to 5 HDDs + 2 SSDs and additional HDD/SSD brackets can be purchased if needed. The pump bracket is an old favorite we’ve seen since the Enthoo Primo. Both bracket designs feature vibration dampening foam and install quite easily. The drive trays install on hooks on the motherboard tray and are secured from behind by thumb screws. The Phanteks logo on the back of the tray area is removed for easy cable routing.
Another nice touch is including LEDs in three additional colors to the white that comes preinstalled. These include Blue, Red, and Green.
