Introduction & Closer Look
You’ve planned the aesthetics of your rig to within an inch of its life. All your components complement each other perfectly, and you’ve selected your case of choice, which has a huge side window to show off your internals to the world. You’ve spent hours on the cable management, all excess wires are hidden, and nothing is visible from the outside. However, there’s nothing you can do about the PSU connectors, plugged into the motherboard. At worst, you have “ketchup & mustard” coloured cables visible… at best you have bulky all black cables, that still aren’t that flexible… and they refuse to stay in the position you really want them!
Sound familiar??? You are not alone!
The answer to this problem is sleeved cables. Purpose built kits that are compatible with your modular PSU can be extremely expensive, but there is another option… cable extensions. Not only do these start at a much more reasonable price, but it also means that people without a modular power supply can still achieve the look.
Having recently added a few upgrades to my personal rig, I was keen to enhance the look with sleeved cables, and decided to go with the Phanteks Extension Cable Kit from Overclockers UK.
Priced at just £20.99, this value kit from Phanteks represents a significantly cheaper alternative to achieve a similar look. The kit comes in no frills packaging, and consists of 4 extension cables;
- 1 x 20+4 Pin ATX
- 1 x 8 Pin (4+4) CPU
- 2 x 8 Pin PCI-E (6+2)
The cables are all 500mm in length, and come included with a pack of cable combs to help keep the individual wires in uniform when fitted.
Each cable is individually tube sleeved with polypropylene, and in this case with alternating colours of black & red. The material is pretty flexible, but still holds a fair amount of rigidity straight out of the bag. As the cables had all been coiled in the packaging, I straightened them all out, laying them on a flat surface, and fitted the cable combs in order to train them all back straight prior to fitting.
Fitting is really straight forward… fit your existing power cables from your PSU into the female connectors on the extensions, then plug the other end into your motherboard as you normally would.
The end result is immediately appealing, and gives a nice lift to the build in an area that would have been just plain, chunky cables. The obvious downside is that the extensions add an extra 50cm of cable length to find a home for! In my instance this wasn’t an issue, as I currently use the Cooler Master MasterCase Pro 6… which has a huge amount of space in the basement and behind the motherboard tray to house the cables.
Final Thoughts
I’ve personally never used sleeved cables in my own rig, but I’ve always liked the look of systems that utilise them. It’s always been one of those things that I always meant to get around to fitting, but never did.
Cost can also be a factor too with some kits being quite expensive, especially if you want custom colours or sizes made to order. Therein lies the beauty of these kits from Phanteks. At just a shade under £20, you get a great aesthetic addition to your build, without the large cash outlay.
The obvious downside is the additional cable length you are adding, so if you are building in a small form factor case, that could cause a headache with regards cable management.
For me however, these fitted the bill perfectly, and I’m really impressed with the finished product and make a nice addition to my refurbished build.
The kits come in a range of different colours, and are available now at Overclockers UK.
Purchase Extension Cable Combo Kit – Black/Red from Overclockers UK: £20.99
Huge thanks to OcUK for sending the Phanteks PSU Extension Kit in for review.
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Performance
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Design
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Value
Summary
Pros:
– Compatible with all power supplies on the market
– Low price offers excellent value for money
– Available in a range of colours
Cons:
– Adds a further 50cm of cable length for you to house inside your case
Are these extensions also compatible with the Seasonic Platinum 1000 SS-1000XP? I ask because it is a rather old source.
I don’t see why they wouldn’t be compatible, as these just connect to the end of the existing PSU power cables. For peace of mind though, I’d suggest checking with Phanteks first.
Yeah, you really need to check how much space you have for cable routing in your case before buying these, or any other extension kit.
I have a Corsair 450D with 25mm of clearance, which is perfectly adequate with a regular cable arrangement, but with my Bit-Fenix colour coded cables, it got incredibly tight and is a real struggle to stash the extra cable mass in just the right way and still be able to put the case side panel back on.
Agreed. I had no such issues with the MasterCase 6 Pro, but I would also recommend that people check their case prior to purchasing.
What do you think about the colour of the red of these cables?
I am about to buy them for my first windowed case (Phanteks P300).
Really hope the look more red than off red/pink.
Thanks for the review and the detailed photos tho!
Hi Jan. The colour of the red is definitely not pink…they are quite a deep red actually.