NZXT Phantom 820 CA-PH820-M1 Matte Black Steel / Plastic ATX Full Tower Computer Case

Pros: Great looking, high quality craftsmanship, integrated lighting solution with hue changer on board, up to 9 mountable fans NOT counting heatsink, integrated fan control on case, tons of USB ports, tons of grommets for wire routing, tons of room to get your hands in and work inside, ample clearance for bulky heatsinks, two removable dust filters, raised rubberized feet for airflow, LED lighting for I/O shield, removable auxiliary 3.5 in drive bay, one button removable 5.25" drive bay covers.

Cons: Price point is very high. Other NZXT cases will go on sale. Don't expect this one to. Fully loaded this case is relatively heavy, I think somewhere near 40 pounds. Handles might have been nice, but then it wouldn't look as pretty.

Other Thoughts: Any of the cons to this case are superficial at best. If you are on the market for a case of this caliber, you are not worried about the price point. You know it's going to be heavy--it's one of the biggest full towers on the market. As mentioned above, grips would take away from the streamlined symmetric design of the case. The good infinitely outweighs the bad with this case. Don't worry about video card clearance for the optional directional internal fan. I have an EVGA 670 FTW installed, and I have at least 2 in of space between it and the 140 mm fan I chose to add. This case is sleek and loaded to the gills with features. The Phantom 820 is obviously an enthusiast's case, but it's design is simplistic enough to remain mature. It's not blocky looking like 90% of cases, The acrylic window and mesh grills are symmetrical--they look like they're supposed to be there instead of a big square window that looks like it was simply cut out, or worse some random L shape. I don't want a case that looks like a dysfunctional Transformer with some awful manufacturer's logo/name printed all over it(Is it just me, or do 99% of PC component manufacturers' logos look awful?). If you're thinking about this case but just don't have the extra $70.00, be patient, save your money. Get this case.

Pros: Easy to access top-panel fan and power controls as well as associating LEDs. The hue control is also a very nice addition. I've been changing the color every day since I bought this just because I can. The USB panel cover is also a nice touch, helps keep the connectors clean.

I was afraid the magnetic front door panel wouldn't be very secure and easily fly open at the slightest touch, but it's the exact opposite. The magnet is more than strong enough to hold the door in place (gives a very satisfying "thunk" when you close the door), but still readily releases the door when you want to access your drive bays or LED controls.

Construction is very solid (all 40 lbs of it). The body is steel material, while the top, front and base panels are made from sturdy plastic components. The internal construction is also very intelligent, fully focused on getting cables out of the main compartment via rubber grommets and opening pathways to increase airflow and cooling performance. The additional 8-pin CPU cable was a godsend since my PSU cable was literally 1 inch too short to reach the Mobo connection without wiring it through the main compartment. The extra-long top-panel cables are also a welcome sight, giving me more than enough room to reach all the associated MoBo connectors. Stock fan placement is also spot on. Front- and side-panel intake are perfectly placed to keep my HDDs and GPU nice and cool, while the rear- and top-panel exhaust are placed exactly where they need to be to pull the most hot air right back out.

Have I mentioned this thing is silent? I'm running it on med-high fan speed and I can barely hear it. Seriously my CM Hyper 212 makes more noise than this thing does. And yet it still keeps everthing ice cold through 10+ hours of stress and stability testing.

Cons: Really had to look hard to find a couple of these, and even then they're little more than nit-picks and hardly enough to consider dropping an egg over

1) USB cover on the top panel. This is a great feature for keeping the ports clean of dust and hair, but it's a removable cover that doesn't have any way to secure it to the chassis, relying instead on it's own weight and the material to keep it in place. While this seems to work more than sufficiently while it's in place over the ports, I would still like to see a small tab on the side to secure it to the chassis so I don't have to worry about losing it when I want to access my USB ports.

2) Texture of the top and front panel just seems to reach out and grab dirt and dust. Only had it a couple days and I can already tell this is gonna be an ongoing issue.

3) The 5.25" drive bays are constructed in two sections. The upper-most bay has a metal panel right below it that extends well beyond the back of the drive, preventing use of any elbow connectors (like SATA cables with right-angle connectors). If you use standard cables this isn't an issue, but if you're like me and you want to use an elbow connector then you're forced to use the second slot from the top instead. That said I plan to add a temp display to my system so I can watch my temps while OCing, so having that slot already open saves me having to move things around.

Other Thoughts: Definitely not the cheapest model on the market, but this thing's more than worth the extra cost.

MoBo: Asus Sabertooth Z77
CPU: Intel i7-3770k 3.5GHz
RAM: G.Skill Trident 32gb (4 x 8gb) DDR3-1866
GPU: EVGA GTX 580 "Classified"

Pros: The first thing you will notice is how freakishly huge this case actually is. Images here on Newegg will not do it any justice. My jaw literally hit the floor upon un-boxing this beast, both from its size a beauty. Most of the internal cables are already labeled and sorted through. Built in LEDs and controller work as listed, and are a fancy little feature that will complement any other lighting effects you might put inside your case. Plenty of cable management options, and the included pivot point for an additional fan is a great place to put a 5500-6000RPM emergency fan!

Cons: As of right now, I do not have any cons that warrant any eggs taken off. But there are a few annoying things that one might find with this case. First, it seems that the door will close itself, or at least mine does. I don't know if there is a spring in it, or the magnetic doors are that powerful, but the door will not stay open without the assistance of something else. So if you enjoy looking at your 5.25 bays, you might have issues with this case. Second, the HDD/SDD racks are rather flimsy, and I found all of them at the bottom of the case when un-boxing. But, after putting them back where they belong, they feel pretty snug, but it is something to look out for if you do a lot of LAN hopping.

Other Thoughts: Please read all reviews and notice that SOME PEOPLE take off eggs not for the case, but from shoddy courier services. So please ignore those reviews when making a decision on what case to buy!

Manufacturer Response:

Hello Ty,

Thank you for the comments and the feedback regarding the case. The problem with the door staying open is not characteristic of the door itself, so this is a defect. Please head on over to nzxt.com/support and create a service ticket so that we can help remedy the problem.

Thank you,
Jason Worner
NZXT Community Support

Pros: Case has lots of room , love the hue system , nice placements for wire routing

Cons: I ordered this along with all my components Saturday 2-9-13. It is Tuesday 2-12-13. All of my components will be here tomorrow the 13th via ups . However this case witch I got tracking number for has not even left neweggs building. It is shipping Fed Ex . This is not 3 day delivery of completed order. The other thing I'm upset with is why would you ship one order with 2 different couriers? It should have all shipped ups or fed ex . Now I have to wait for my case wile I will have all my core components tomorrow. So disappointed.

Manufacturer Response:

Hello,

Thank you for your comments. Newegg actually ships product from various locations around the United States. They don't house all products in the same facilities, so that's typically why items are shipped out in different shipments.

Once you receive your case, please take the time to review the case itself and let us know if there's anything you need.

Thank you,
Jason Worner
NZXT Community Support

Pros: Looks amazing, plenty of space, removable drive bays, optional fan placement, Acrylic window, lots of mesh for airflow, tons of V card clearance between internal positional fan mount and PCI E slot(I have a 140 mm mounted in there, and it still has about 2.5 in of clearance from my EVGA GTX 670 FTW). LED lighting solution provided, removable drive bay covers. Very sturdily built, does not feel cheap.

Cons: Price point is on the high side, and for $250.00 NZXT does not give me a single sticker, badge, anything. I like to tag my stuff. I sent them an e-mail, and they didn't even reply to it. Has nothing to do with the case though, so no eggs subtracted.

Pros: what i wanted. big, sturdy and solid. heavy loaded up, but i knew that and other parts solid sturdy as well. loaded up all drives, push pull rad at top. 2 gpus, 2 bluray, 8 fans (4 on push/pull and others 4 leds), 4 led strips( unplugged panel led strip and left front bezel/door and i/o panel then set control area to white), on a pedistal pull air from bottom really well exhaust out rear and top rear very well, front fan creates fluent positive airflow, great fan controller, magnetic door and easy panel removal. heard 630 was great too... next build hmm

Cons: none

Pros: Huge case with plenty of room for Water cooling. I have 4 radiators in the case an XSPC rx360 at the top. 2 XSPC ex140's and a black ice gtx extreme 240mm rad at the bottom. The case can still accomidate long videocards and power supplies.

The Hugh lighting system is a wonderul touch. Its just enough lighting for people to take notice without going overboard. No need for led fans or lights whith this built in system.

the removable filters in the bottom and filters on the front panel and the front intake fan help to ensure a dust free computer.

Plenty of space to hide wires behind the motherboard and plenty of gromits to reroute wires makes this case a pleasure to build in.

Cons: The front panel door does not open all the way and I am afraid that it will break. I went through two front panel doors on the original Phantom

I had a hard time placing the XSPC rx 360 into my build. The radiator mounted with no problems, but I could not get the compression fittings onto the rad because the io shield cutout was in the way. When I turned the radiator to the other side there was a metal panel blocking me from installing the fittings. I wound up cutting the panel out since I could see not use for it. I would not have had an issue if my radiator were not so thick or if the inlet nozzles were spaced further away from the edge of the radiator.

Difficult to take off the front panel. as apposed to the original which would come off to easily.

One of the lights failed on my case. I will not take off an egg for this because I am not sure if it was my fault.

Window for the side panel is too small because of the useless side panel.

Other Thoughts: I absolutely love this case. It looks good and It is good for Water cooling. I am a little disappointed that you can not put 3x140mm rads on the top like you can with the NZXT switch, but I love this case and I love the look. I was told that we can put the Switch side panel on this case. I would love the opportunity to buy it, but I have yet to see it for sale.

Pros: - Room for everything
- Excelleng cooling capability (when it all works, see cons)
- Quiet
- Overall build quality seems good though I can understand why some wouldn't want any plastic in a case of this price range. However, everything feels sturdy.
- Nice lighting featuers and options, though I'll likely be leaving mine off most of the time
- Rear I/O panel LEDs
- Built-in SD Card Reader (connects with internal USB 2.0 header)

Cons: - It's huge, of course if you have space for it this isn't really a con and I knew this when I got it so no egg was taken off.
- It's heavy. At 32 lbs empty, this isn't your lanparty case. (no eggs taken for this)
- The matte black is nice and I like it, but it does seem to pick up smudges and fingerprints pretty easily which I found surprising. (no eggs taken for this)
- The internal headers for USB 2.0 are not labeled so you know which is for the card reader, but it's pretty easy to figure out from looking at the cables for them.
- This is where I started deducing eggs, there seem to be some quality control issues with this case:

The provided 8 pin power extender was installed upside down and the fans that were preinstalled to the fan controller were wired incorrectly. The front fan was on the top fan cotroller channel, top fan on side fan channel etc. These are minor issues and easy to fix, but in a case of thise price it's not unreasonable to expect these things to work and be correct out of the box. I even read on a couple of review sites where their cases came with fans installed as intake when it should have been the opposite. -1 egg

I have been building computers for myself, others, and professionally, for almost 2 decades now. I give that background so that you know I'm fairly familiar with putting computers together. I had an extra 200mm fan laying around and decided to put it in the top of the case since it will hold 2 in the top. After locating the correct screws in the provided case I put in 3 of them and then while putting in the 4 it broke off in the screw hole. This is the first time I've had any screw break on me while putting together a system. Not even when I was younger, inexperienced, and constantly overtightened everything has this happened. -1/2 egg

This is the one that really got me. After I plugged everything up and powered on I was testing out the fans and I noticed that the rear 140mm fan was not moving. I checked and it was connected, so I unplugged it and tried another rear channel fan connector same thing, tried the 3rd R channel connector. Nothing. I went to plug it into an IS (Internal and Side) channel header but it would go into the connector. The pins were out of alignment so it wouldn't accept the fan connector. Went to try another IS channel header and looked at it first, the middle pin was pushed back through the connector so when plugging in the fan it didn't actually make the connection. For those keeping score that's 2 "broken/damaged" fan headers on the IS channel and one whole rear (R) channel with 3 headers that does not work. I connected the rear fan to a front channel header and it started right up. I tested all the othe connections I could to make sure they worked and they did. 1 whole fan channel that doesn't work (3 headers) and 2 other unusable out of the box headers (5 total that don't work or unusable) -1.5 eggs

Other Thoughts: The price of this case alone puts it in what should be the upper echelon of computer cases. Yes, there are more expensive cases but at $250 you're getting pretty far up there. As such, one would expect things to be done right (wiring, etc) and work (fan controller) right out of the box. Even on a $50 case you expect the advertised features to work and the all the case to come intact.

I did not get this from Newegg, it was given to me as a gift, but I usually do my computer component shopping here and so thought I'd share my experiences with The Egg community. If I am able to resolve this through NZXT or wherever they purchased the case I will update this review

Manufacturer Response:

Dear Valued Customer,

I apologize for the issues you are experiencing with your Phantom 820. I can assure you that customer service is of the upmost importance to us and we value your feedback more than anything. I will make sure our product team gets your feedback and takes it under consideration. If you are still having issues with your case, please feel free to contact us at service@nzxt.com and we will be more than happy to assist you in resolving any problems you are facing. For quicker service, you can call our customer service line, 626-228-1150 during operating hours from 9:30am – 5:30pm.

Best Regards,
NZXT Support Staff

Pros: All the space and room for all your stuff! fan controller works great! currently have 6 fans running and they are all wired into zones!

Cons: Not really a con but this thing is heavy

Pros: The case looks Beautiful
Led with Hue adjustment is a nice touch.
Plenty of space.
Great cable management.
2 bottom easy pop filters for fans.
Great airflow set up.

Cons: The craddles for the SSD/HDD drives are not stable, they have a nature inward bend to them. When Hdd is them it conforms to the case slots great, But if your using SSD drives like my self their horrible. I have 3 SSD drives and not one when mounted on the brackets stay put in the case due to the inward bend on them. I had to rig a plastic bar to keep the SSD craddlesin place so they lock into slots.

Filters. First of all this case has 5 filters. ONLY 2 Are Easily removable and thats the bottom ones. The front one you have to completely remove front panel to get to.

The top filters you need to remove the top completly and the lock clips are very hard to get to to do so.

This is unacceptable for a 270 dollar case.

When I got my case in the box was all beat the hell, the accessories where just trown inside and loose. My bottom Fan filter , has 2 slide in place hooks to keep the front from dropping down, Well they were broken..

Other Thoughts: This is not New eggs Fault they are Just a Storage house.

I DO EXPECT THE COMPANY OF NZXT TO READ THIS AND SEND ME A NEW BOTTOM FILTER AND SOME BETTER SSD/HDD BRACKETS OR i WILL NEVER BUY FROM THEM AGAIN AND WILL DO A VIDEO REVIEW ON YOUTUBE. !!!

Manufacturer Response:

First of all, We want to thank you for being a customer of NZXT.

We want to apologize your experience with the phantom 820, Please contact us directly at 626.228.1150 to better assist you. And please do contact us as soon as possible so we can take care of you. We appreciate your feedback and will continue to strive to make our products better.

Once again, thank you for taking the time to let us know how you feel. We appreciate your business and truly want to make your experience as enjoyable as possible.