A customisable case with superb build quality, but only suitable for the most ambitious PC builds
Written By
Published on 31 March 2013
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best buy
1 / 4
Our rating
Reviewed price £160 inc VAT
The Phantom 630 has an angular design that isn’t particularly offensive, but it’s more likely to appeal to gamers than graphic designers. Under the surface is a well-made case with a highly-customisable interior.
The Phantom 630’s four 5.25in drive bays are hidden behind a hinged panel, and we had no trouble installing our optical drive. The case’s drive bay covers are easy to remove and replace when you want to change the configuration of your 5.25in drives, and hinged tool-less drive clips snap firmly into place to clamp your drives securely. There’s even an SD card slot tucked in above the 5.25in drive bays, which complements the case’s top-mounted panel with two USB3 and two USB2 ports, a fan controller and headphone and microphone jacks.
The case’s interior is highly modular. There’s one drive cage for three 3.5in disks, a further two-drive model and a cage for a single disk, but you can remove and move these around as you wish, or even position the 3.5in drive cages as two columns rather than one, to let you fit a larger radiator for watercooling or a longer graphics card. We found our Radeon HD 7950 fitted perfectly with all the cages stacked up on the right of the case. There are also two 2.5in SSD mounts behind the motherboard tray, so you can mount SSDs flat beneath your motherboard.
The case comes with four pre-installed fans, three of which are huge 220mm models. This should provide plenty of cooling even for powerful systems, but there are also three more 140mm fan mounts if you need them. Nearly all the fans are shielded by a narrow mesh filter to help keep out dust, and the filters at the bottom of the case slide out for easy cleaning.
The Phantom 630 is an excellent case. It’s expensive, but it’s well made and easy to build with lots of cooling options. However, if you’re not planning to fit water-cooling kit or run several graphics cards, it’s over-engineered. The Corsair Obsidian 550D is a better-looking and quieter case.
Written by
Katharine Byrne
When Katharine's not glued to her Wii U and 3DS, she's usually found darting between tiny smartphones and huge pieces of home cinema equipment.She’s tested everything from laptops and monitors to motherboards and projectors, but she currently specialises in smartphones, games and AV.
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