[section_title title=The Build & Test Setup]

The Build & Test Setup

Installation

Building inside of the Phanteks Evolv ITX case was a fairly easy and enjoyable task, everything inside the case is well laid out and the space has been used pretty well; not quite small form factor standards, but for what it is, it certainly gives a lot for its money.  It should be duly noted that the power supply can only be inserted from the rear; the same goes for 3.5” hard drives, but SSDs can be mounted in various locations, inside the main chamber and behind the motherboard tray.

The Final Build

The general layout of the interior is very well designed and follows the same principle’s as the other models in the evolve range; clean, subtle and well thought out.  Inside we have a PNY GTX 980 OC2 graphics card which isn’t short by any means of the imagination, this fits in snugly and you can do this without removing the SSD mount.  I simply undid the 2 x thumbscrews, lifted the flap up and installed the card; easy as 1 2 3!

In terms of space behind the motherboard tray, as you can see the BitFenix Fury power supply takes up quite a lot of cable space, but the Phanteks Evolv ITX handles this brilliantly; there is a nice little chamber to hide unwanted cables in if no HDDs are installed.  My cable management skills might not be “world class”, but I’m an overclocker, we don’t care about mess!

Test Setup

CPU – Intel Pentium G3258
Cooler – Noctua L9i 
Motherboard – MSI Z97I Gaming ACK ITX
Power Supply – BitFenix Fury 650w
Graphics Card – PNY GTX 980 OC2
Storage – Patriot 60GB Blaze