Phanteks Enthoo Primo Full Tower Case Review

Phanteks Enthoo Primo Overview
After you’ve got the Enthoo Primo out of the protective plastic you will find a well finished exterior with aluminum accents, and great finishes. There are two windows in the side panel, one for the bay of the case to showcase your components. The other is a sort of accent window that shows off the Phanteks logo. The front of the case has a nice door that covers the 5.25” bays.

Phanteks Enthoo Primo Full Tower Case Phanteks Enthoo Primo Full Tower Case

The the case is built mainly from steel and plastic but has the look and feel of an aluminum built case. On the left side of the case (from the front) there is a sort of notch where the case extends wider than the average case. In this space the usual front panel items have been installed. This includes four USB 3.0 ports, audio jacks, reset, and on/off rocker switch for the lighting. Below this on the right you will find the power switch and LED.

Phanteks Enthoo Primo Full Tower Case Phanteks Enthoo Primo Full Tower Case

There is plenty of venting around the exterior of the case, and the mesh used matches the build well. Behind much of the mesh there are removable dust filters that ingeniously click into and out of place. You will find one on the top, the front, and two under the bottom of the case. There is also a magnetic filter for the PSU intake on the back side of the case.

Phanteks Enthoo Primo Full Tower Case Phanteks Enthoo Primo Full Tower Case Phanteks Enthoo Primo Full Tower Case Phanteks Enthoo Primo Full Tower Case

On the rear panel you will find the usual space for your motherboard backplate with 8 expansion slots below that. Then one pre-installed 140mm fan with tracks to slide the fan up and down up to 2 inches. Below the fan is mounting holes/tracks for a watercooling reservoir. And finally mounting points for up to two PSUs! That is a huge bonus considering the size of this case.

Phanteks Enthoo Primo Full Tower Case Phanteks Enthoo Primo Full Tower Case

Removing the panels, you will find a very unique and spacious setup. Typically you will find the PSU in the bottom rear or top rear of the main compartment. It’s ugly, the logos often clash with your design theme, and worst, it dumps heat into the main compartment near your components. For years modders have made a PSU shroud a staple in the must mod category to fix this. Well, in the Enthoo Primo, that won’t be necessary. The folks at Phanteks have ingeniously built a larger than normal space behind the motherboard for the PSU to be mounted on it’s side. Then they formed a metal shroud that puts the PSU completely outside of the main compartment. It’s really surprising to me that no one has thought to do this yet, it’s definitely some creative thinking on Phanteks part. And that is just the beginning of this cases tricks.

Phanteks Enthoo Primo Full Tower Case Phanteks Enthoo Primo Full Tower Case Phanteks Enthoo Primo Full Tower Case

The next most obvious thing are the hard drive racks. Typically your drives face into the rest of the case forcing you to either get creative with your cables or just decide not to worry about the way they look. Phanteks took the worry out of it for you here. The simply put a panel on the main compartment side and have the hard drive trays accessible from the back. Admittedly this may not be ideal for someone who does a lot of drive swapping, but for most of us, it’s awesome.

Phanteks Enthoo Primo Full Tower Case Phanteks Enthoo Primo Full Tower Case

A lot of attention has been paid to water cooling when this case was designed, and it shows. There are many mounting options for radiators. Including up to a 240mm or 280mm in the bottom of the main compartment. Up to a 420mm or 480mm in the top, and amazingly up to a 240mm on the back side of the case!

Phanteks Enthoo Primo Full Tower Case

In addition to the rad mounting space, there are two locations to mount reservoirs; on the rear panel and the cable cover plate. And lastly there is a pump mounting plate with anti-vibration pads and adjustable mounting locations for that as well.

Phanteks Enthoo Primo Full Tower Case Phanteks Enthoo Primo Full Tower Case

On the back side of the case you will of course find the previously mentioned hard drive racks with space for up to 6 3.5” HDDs. Plus an additional 4 2.5” SSD’s can be mounted as well. All of these can be removed if you do not need them or need the space. Removing the HDD cages is as simple as unscrewing 4 thumb screws and pulling the cages out. The entire HDD cage system comes out easily to accommodate the 240mm radiator mounting bracket.

Phanteks Enthoo Primo Full Tower Case Phanteks Enthoo Primo Full Tower Case Phanteks Enthoo Primo Full Tower Case Phanteks Enthoo Primo Full Tower Case

The SSD mounting brackets also have an alternate mounting location below the gigantic CPU cut out. They simply slide and lock, making installation a breeze.

Phanteks Enthoo Primo Full Tower Case Phanteks Enthoo Primo Full Tower Case Phanteks Enthoo Primo Full Tower Case Phanteks Enthoo Primo Full Tower Case

To power the fans, Phanteks has installed a fan splitter board with support for up to 8 fans natively. This board is PWM controlled meaning you can control the fan speeds through your motherboard by attaching the connector to an open header. However if that is not enough power for all the fans you need, there is an optional Molex connector as well.

Phanteks Enthoo Primo Full Tower Case Phanteks Enthoo Primo Full Tower Case

Back in the main compartment, in addition to the 10 grommeted cable pass throughs, there is one other item that catches the eye. That would be the cable cover. Intended to cover up your cables where they connect to the motherboard, this piece also serves as a mounting point for a tube reservoir. Simply remove the faux aluminum cover, to reveal a selection of mounting holes. The entire cover comes off by removing 4 thumb screws from the backside.

Phanteks Enthoo Primo Full Tower Case Phanteks Enthoo Primo Full Tower Case Phanteks Enthoo Primo Full Tower Case

Finally you might have noticed that large brown accessory box in an earlier photo. Inside you will find a great selection of additional included items. There is of course a manual, very important considering the various mounting options of the case. A neat box containing all the screws you will need for most any installation. Two additional straps for the myriad of cable management attachments. There are a handful of zip ties, and two anti-vibration pads with adhesive backings. Lastly you will find the side radiator bracket. This bracket installs where the HDD cages are normally installed.

Phanteks Enthoo Primo Full Tower Case Phanteks Enthoo Primo Full Tower Case

Wanting to see what and how easily the accessories could be removed. All the items were removed in maybe 5 minutes and did not require tools aside from the top HDD cage mounting brackets, and they didn’t need to come out.

Phanteks Enthoo Primo Full Tower Case