NZXT Phantom 630 Case Review

Built as a trimmed-down version of the award winning Phantom 820, does NZXT's Ultra Tower Phantom 630 have what it takes to compete in a circa-£150 case market? We reviewed NZXT's Phantom 820 full tower chassis in February and were thoroughly impressed by its useful features and unique design. But for many consumers who weren't interested in multi-GPU configurations and extreme watercooling, the full tower dimensions and £200 price tag made the 820 overkill for their requirements. With the Phantom 630, NZXT has shrunk the case and slashed £50 off the asking price, making it a more viable option for the upper mid-range market. Other than the reduced dimensions, perhaps the most noteworthy loss from the Phantom 820 is the 630's omission of an integrated LED lighting system. The Phantom 630 still supports a large number of storage drives - 8 - and motherboard compatibility is practically limitless for most users. Quad-VGA configurations are easily tackled by the Phantom 630's nine expansion slots, and watercooling users still have room for 360, 240/280 and 120/140 mm radiators simultaneously, without modifications. NZXT seems to have managed to cram an impressive number of features into the ultra tower Phantom 630, but has this process introduced any flaws along the way? Specifications: Motherboard support: ATX, Micro-ATX, XL-ATX, EATX (347mm x 272mm). Expansion slots: 9. Included fans: 2x 200mm intake, 1x 200mm exhaust, 1x 140mm exhaust. Fan mounts: 4x 200mm & 4x 140mm or 1x 200mm & up to 8x 140mm. 5.25" drive bays: 4. Internal drive bays: 6x 2.5/3.5" and 2x 2.5". Special features: Single channel 30W fan controller, SD card reader, rear IO LED. Dimensions: 245mm(W) x 627mm(H) x 600mm(D). The Phantom 630 ships in a large box that features NZXT's typical styling. Images of the case's key features are shown on the rear side of the box. A manual shows the Phantom 630's specific features and relevant installation hardware, while NZXT's small leaflet outline's the company's current products. NZXT packages all of the installation hardware in individual bags which is an excellent move. It makes working with the case a much easier task when one doesn't have to sift through over 50 screws just to find the one that is required. Very similar to the Phantom 820 in appearance, the 630 features an intelligently-positioned side panel window that can be used to show off the CPU area and some of the VGA cards (when looking from an above angle). NZXT mounts one of the company's 200mm, 800 RPM fans in the side panel, behind a filtered mesh cover. This should help multi-VGA users keep their graphics cards cool, even when they are packed tightly together. The uniform right side panel features no divergences from the Phantom 630's gunmetal colour scheme. Gunmetal is a unique colour that NZXT has shown support for in its recent releases. We're sure that it won't appeal to all users, but if gunmetal isn't for you, the Phantom 630 does also ship in matte black and white variants. Two angled halves of the plastic front panel converge to form a sharp, eye-catching protrusion that spans the entirety of the Phantom 630's face. A mesh panel and dust filter mounted behind it ensures that that front fan receives cool, clean air. Opening the magnetised front panel door reveals four 5.25" bays and an SD card reader. The door itself doesn't weigh much, but it is constructed from thick plastic and feels sturdy. One annoying feature is its insistence to automatically close unless the holding force is removed in a pinpoint location. As shown in the above picture, one has to hold the door open, or let a DVD drive's tray do that job in an everyday scenario. We like NZXT's continued inclusion of an SD card reader on its higher-end cases. This feature adds very little to the cost of the chassis, but is a convenient addition for many users. A recession to the nine PCI slots and IO panel makes protruding cables less of an interference-causing issue. I think the half-and-half design of the Phantom 630 roof panel's rear area is one of the most eye-catching designs on the entire case. And function isn't forgotten either; both the black mesh and the plastic cut-outs lie above dust filters and leave plenty of room for fans to be mounted in the roof. The front panel IO consists of two USB 2.0 ports, two USB 3.0 ports and 3.5mm jacks. Power and reset buttons, as well as the 3-speed fan control system and rear LED toggle reside on the right side of the Phantom 630's roof panel. Three LEDs indicate the current fan speed (low, medium or high), while a larger strip acts as the system activity indicator. A strip of rubber located on each of the 630's four feet acts a vibration damping mechanism that reduces noise. Two sturdy and easily-removable filters prevent the entry of dust and dirt via the power supply and bottom fan locations. A very roomy interior for the Phantom 630 comes as a by-product of its ultra tower form factor. With its nine expansion slots and appropriate clearance, NZXT gives the Phantom 630 support for large XL-ATX and E-ATX motherboards. Four main rubberised grommets, backed up by additional cut-outs, should make the Phantom 630's cable management system an effective one. Expansion card clearance is 320mm with a fan installed in the internal mount (but not tilted), meaning that even the 305mm-long HD 7990 can fit inside the Phantom 630 without clearance issues. NZXT's tiered motherboard tray presents users with cable management clearance of 28mm - a value which increases to 35mm directly behind the PSU. 37mm of cable room is located behind the hard drive bays, while the 5.25" area gets 40mm of clearance. We are very glad to see NZXT equipping the Phantom 630 with a large amount of cable tie-down points. A large CPU cooler cut-out should give access to the rear of many motherboards on the market. By default, NZXT mounts the three hard drive bays on top of one another in a location directly behind the 200mm front intake fan. As with many of NZXT's latest cases, the Phantom 630 loads its HDDs from the rear side, meaning that only one panel has to be removed in the process. Thanks to their modular design, the hard drive bays can be quickly unscrewed and fastened in a new location. This helps to give users the flexibility that is required when using watercooling or other non-standard configurations. It can also make cable management an easier task and improve airflow. The trays are fastened to a 'drive rail' when mounted at the bottom of the case, or they can be secured from beneath the 5.25" bays. Removing this drive rail will give users access to a pair of 140mm fan mounts that can be used to house a thick push-pull radiator configuration. Making additional use of the clearance behind the motherboard panel, NZXT also includes a pair of 2.5" drive mounts. This unique location is convenient for users who want to go all-out with their watercooling efforts, as they are free to remove every drive bay and make use of just the 2.5" mounts that don't interfere with radiators or reservoirs. The Phantom 630 sees an updated 5.25" tool-less securing method which I like very much. A lever controls the easy-to-operate metal mechanism that clamps 5.25" devices tightly in position. Screws can also be used for further stability. Even the largest power supplies on the market, such as Seasonic's excellent Platinum-1000, can be housed in the Phantom 630's 235 millimetres of clearance. If that isn't enough, the bottom drive rail can be removed to allow for even larger units. Six rubberised feet damp noise-causing vibrations that exit the power supply. NZXT includes a 140mm, 1000 RPM fan in the rear mount. This fan's location can be adjusted by a few millimetres, thanks to the mount's flexible design. Nine vented PCI shields allow hot air to escape through them. We are perplexed by NZXT's decision to omit a tool-less fastening mechanism for expansion cards. This simply isn't good enough for a case of this calibre, especially when nine thumbscrews would have changed the cost by a handful of pennies. As is shown in the above picture, the Phantom 630 doesn't feature a specific grommet for the 8-pin power and fan cables. Instead, the cables are routed up behind the motherboard tray. While this is a perfectly acceptable method of routing small fan cables, thick power cables will be harder to force through the small gap. Situating the 200mm roof fan outside of the Phantom 630's internal compartment helps to free up 48mm of clearance above a motherboard. For watercooling users, this clearance will allow some of the market's thickest 240/280 and 360mm radiators to be mounted in the roof with its fans will residing above the case's internal compartment. A 200mm, 800RPM NZXT fan is situated behind a dust filter. Removing the 200mm unit allows a pair of 120 or 140mm fan to be installed in the front location. A 10-port hub connects 3-pin fans to the Phantom 630's controller. Rated for a 30W output, the included four fans draw just over 15 Watts of power. With 15W of power output remaining, users are free to install five to six high-quality 140mm fans, such as Be Quiet! Shadow Wings 1000 RPM. The 30 Watt hub should be sufficient to power the Phantom 630's fans for an air-cooled build, just don't expect to daisy-chain fans to the unit when using push-pull watercooling configurations. Despite widespread criticism with the first batch of Phantom 820 reviews and user opinions, NZXT has continued to use flexible plastic drive trays. There's no way we would feel safe shipping a system with drives installed in the plastic trays. NZXT really needs to design and implement a sturdier mounting mechanism. Securing a 3.5" drive is a tool-less procedure, while 2.5" drives require four screws irrelevant of whether they are installed in a 3.5" tray or a native 2.5" holder. A 3.5" drive helps to give the flexible trays the rigidity required to remain positioned inside the bay provided the system isn't moved about. Using a 2.5" drive, the tray isn't particularly secure when inside the bay. Thanks to its large internal space and excellent cable management system, the NZXT Phantom 630 is a very easy case to work with. Our mid-range ATX build is dwarfed by the sizeable interior, giving a clear indication that multi-VGA configurations will be easily housed by the 630. NZXT's grommet positioning is faultless. Cables exiting and entering the motherboard's 'business area' can be routed through any of the three adjacent grommets. Front panel cables have a grommet to themselves which is located just beneath the lower-edge of an ATX motherboard. Thanks to the 28 to 35 millimetres of clearance behind the Phantom 630's motherboard tray, cable management doesn't have to be a time-consuming or meticulous procedure. We simply routed the cables to their intended location, taking care not to make too many overlaps, and compressed them against the motherboard tray when attaching the side panel. Even with the additional PCI-E cables brought about by multi-VGA configurations, the rear area still has plenty of room to house the mess without requiring a careful routing plan. Despite the exclusion of a specific grommet and hole, routing the 8-pin cable behind the motherboard tray was still a possibility. A specific grommet would still be preferable because a fair amount of force was required to push the cable through the gap and a greater length is also important. With a maximum clearance of just over 200mm, the Phantom 630 makes large CPU coolers such as the Thermaltake Frio look small. There wouldn't be any problems fitting a high-end CPU cooler, such as Phanteks' PH-TC14PE, in the Phantom 630, along with a thick roof-mounted 360mm radiator for a GPU-only loop. Our small Sapphire HD 7850 Dual-X graphics card is easily housed in the 630's 320mm of expansion slot clearance. Mounting Seasonic's high-quality Platinum-1000 in the NZXT Phantom 630 proved a close call. The modular cables run directly above the case's bottom drive rail, but aren't quite blocked. A larger power supply may require the drive rail to be removed. Around 37mm of clearance behind the 3.5" drive bays makes connecting and routing SATA power and data cables a hassle-free procedure. Connecting cables to the specific 2.5" mount won't be an issue, thanks to the Phantom 630's healthy clearance behind the motherboard tray. A 5.25" optical drive is securely held in place by the Phantom 630's sturdy tool-less mounting mechanism. As has been commonplace with NZXT's recent up-market cases, the Phantom 630 features an LED on the rear IO panel that provides assistance when searching for cables and ports. It would have been nice if NZXT had designed the window to show off more of the graphics card area, but we prefer the 200mm intake fan over increased visibility. It's now when the LED lighting system that is featured on the Phantom 820 would be welcomed. The window is good, but it feels somewhat wasted when the case's internal area is dark and difficult to see. NZXT's decision to omit the LED system was probably the best one; lighting won't appeal to all and it increases the chassis cost which can have big implications on the Phantom 630's viability to system builders such as PCSpecialist and DinoPC. Scan sells the NZXT LED lighting strip for just over £10, meaning that users can fit their own lighting without too large a purchase required. To put this case through its cooling paces we will be using a test system consisting of an AMD FX-8350, Radeon HD 7850 and multiple storage drives. This system allows us to produce a substantial amount of heat and effectively test the NZXT Phantom 630's cooling capabilities. For stress testing we use a mixture of Prime95 and FurMark to create the maximum heat output. Prime95′s ‘Small FFTs’ setting allows us to stress our CPU. FurMark’s ‘GPU Burn-in’ mode creates the maximum amount of load our GPU is ever likely to see. Test System: Processor: AMD FX-8350. Motherboard: ASRock 990FX Extreme9. CPU cooler: Thermaltake Frio (100% fan speed). Memory: 8GB Patriot Viper 2133MHz. Graphics card: Sapphire Radeon HD 7850 1GB Dual-X ('auto' fan setting). Power supply: Seasonic Platinum-1000. Storage drives: 128GB OCZ Vertex 4 (OS), 320GB Seagate 7200.12. OS: Windows 7 Professional 64-bit. Thermal Performance Test Procedures: The case’s default fan configuration is used to give an accurate interpretation of the out-of-the-box performance. The NZXT Phantom 630's default fan configuration is: 1x 200mm front intake, 1x 200mm side intake, 1x 200mm roof exhaust, 1x 140mm rear exhaust. The fans are operating at full speed. We allow the system to idle for 15 minutes and record the stable temperatures. We allow the system to operate under extreme stress for 15 minutes and record the stable temperatures. Room temperature was maintained at 24°C. With four fans included in a balanced configuration, the NZXT Phantom 630 offers solid cooling performance for air systems. With most cases, we recommend users purchase an additional fan to improve cooling performance, but that recommendation isn't relevant for the Phantom 630. Acoustic Performance Test Procedures: We placed our Digital Sound Level Meter one metre away from the case. The case fans are set to maximum speed. The CPU cooler's fans are deactivated. The NZXT Phantom 630's default fan configuration is: 1x 200mm front intake, 1x 200mm side intake, 1x 200mm roof exhaust, 1x 140mm rear exhaust. Please refer to our KitGuru noise guide for a comparison between the noise levels of this case and everyday scenarios. KitGuru noise guide 10dBA - Normal Breathing/Rustling Leaves 20-25dBA – Whisper 30dBA – High Quality Computer fan 40dBA – A Bubbling Brook, or a Refrigerator 50dBA - Normal Conversation 60dBA - Laughter 70dBA - Vacuum Cleaner or Hairdryer 80dBA - City Traffic or a Garbage Disposal 90dBA - Motorcycle or Lawnmower 100dBA - MP3 player at maximum output 110dBA - Orchestra 120dBA - Front row rock concert/Jet Engine 130dBA - Threshold of Pain 140dBA - Military Jet take-off/Gunshot (close range) 160dBA - Instant Perforation of eardrum A positive in terms of cooling performance, the Phantom 630's four fans don't do it many favours in regards to acoustic output. At 100% fan speed, the case's noise output was measured as 42.5 dBa. While this isn't an irritating level, it is most certainly noticeable and would have us reducing the fan speed when maximum cooling performance isn't necessary. The NZXT Phantom 630 is a very good chassis that offers the cooling performance, layout and flexibility that multi-VGA and watercooling users demand. Fitting large hardware such as XL-ATX and E-ATX motherboards with multiple graphics cards into the Phantom 630 is not a problem. The spacious interior and well-thought design give users plenty of flexibility when opting for their high-end hardware. Cable management is one of the Phantom 630's biggest strengths. NZXT has excelled yet again to create a cable management system that makes a neat and attractive build very easy to achieve. With plenty of space behind the motherboard tray, one isn't required to spend excessive amounts of time organising the routed cables just so the side panel will fit in place. By getting rid of the front-mounted pedestal found on the Phantom 820, NZXT has managed to enhance the aesthetic appeal of the 630. While some will be displeased by the widespread use of plastic, others will like the angular design that the material helps to create. Our sample's gunmetal colour scheme certainly won't appeal to all, but the matte black and white options are also available. Cooling performance of the Phantom 630 is good. We are glad to see a company including an appropriate number of fans with its chassis, rather than force users to purchase improved cooling performance. At 100% speed, the quartet of NZXT fans doesn't make for the quietest case on the market, but the 30W fan controller does allow noise output to be varied with required cooling performance. NZXT's continued support for special additions to its Phantom series of cases is pleasing. A simple SD card reader costs very little to implement, but can be very useful for many users, especially regular photographers. The rear IO LED light is also a thoughtful feature that we continue to find very helpful. The Phantom 630 does have some disappointing aspects. NZXT's continued use of flimsy drive trays has a negative effect on the security of storage drives mounted in the 3.5" bays. The omission of a tool-less installation method for PCI cards, such as a cheap set of thumbscrews, is inexcusable and unsatisfactory. A few slight negatives come from the side panel window. While I like the window and its unique shape, increased visibility around the VGA card area would have been welcomed. I also feel that the window is, to a certain extent, wasted. Without internal lighting, it is difficult to see the components housed inside, especially in a dark environment. Priced at £142.36 from Scan for all colours, the NZXT Phantom 630 is a good choice for upper mid-range users wanting good build quality, plenty of expansion options, and an excellent cable management system. If you can live without the Phantom 820's multi-channel fan controller, integrated lighting system, and larger size, the NZXT Phantom 630 is an excellent choice at less than £150. Pros: Very good cable management system. Plenty of clearance for large hardware. Good cooling performance. Lots of watercooling options. Integrated fan controller. Excellent build quality. Cons: Flimsy hard drive trays. PCI slots aren't tool-less. Routing the 8-pin cable should use a 'standard' dedicated grommet. KitGuru says: With strong cooling performance, excellent cable management, and a very flexible internal layout, NZXT's Phantom 630 is a worthy addition to the well-respected Phantom series.

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NZXT Phantom 630 Case Review

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