The Phanteks Evolv X2 has a unique aesthetic with a see-through design that creates the illusion of a floating graphics card, making it great for end-users who'd like to showcase their top-tier graphics cards and motherboards in their PC builds.

If you're in the market for a premium PC case to showcase your RGB bling and top-tier PC hardware components, the folks over at Phanteks might have just the case for you; enter the Evolv X2.

Sporting three sides worth of tempered glass panels and a see-through chassis design that allow you to exhibit your gaming motherboard and graphics card in their full glory, the Phanteks Evolv X2 is available in black or white colourways, and features a chimney stack airflow design that makes it well-suited for AIO CPU coolers. For this article, I'll be taking a look at the black variant of the Evolv X2 to see what's the hype all about, and I'll also be bucking the trend and installing an air cooler for the processor in a demo build with this case just to see how the thermal performance will be like!

Summary of Specifications (PH-ES524XTG_DBK01)

• Colour: Black (also available in white)
• Materials: Steel chassis, ABS plastic, tempered glass, aluminium panels
• Dimensions: 454mm x 228mm x 588mm
• Motherboard Support: EATX, ATX, Micro ATX, Mini ITX (EATX boards of up to 280mm width supported)
• Expansion Slots: 8
  
• Drive Support: up to 5x 2.5" SSDs with 1x 3.5" hard drive, or up to 2x 3.5" hard drives with 3x 2.5" SSDs
• Front I/O: 1x USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 Type-C, 2x USB 3.0 Type-A. 1x 3.5mm microphone/headphone combo jack
• Included Fans: None
• Top Panel Cooling Support: up to 3x 120mm fans or up to 1x 360mm radiator (radiator max dimensions 415mm x 130mm x 32mm)
• Front Panel Cooling Support: N/A
• Bottom Panel Cooling Support: up to 3x 120mm fans
• Rear Panel Cooling Support; up to 1x 120mm fan
• Official Product Page: https://phanteks.com/product/evolv-x2-black/

Packaging & Accessories

The Evolv X2 comes in a brown cardboard box with your typical product illustrations and descriptions on all sides.

Given the fact that the Evolv X2 has three sides worth of tempered glass panels and is pretty heavy as a result, it's unsurprising to see that the case comes well protected within the box. We get a good amount of cardboard corner protectors, foam inserts and strategically-placed silicone protectors for the edges of the tempered glass panels. As can be seen, the accessories that come with the case are housed in a brown cardboard box that is taped to the back of the case.

The following accessories are included with the Evolv X2:

• Quick start guide
• RMA information leaflet
• Microfibre cleaning cloth
• 6x cable ties
• 1x motherboard standoff installation/remover tool
• 30x motherboard/SSD screws
• 4x power supply screws
• 8x hard disk screws
• 1x spare motherboard standoff
• 4x vertical GPU bracket screws
• 1x D-RGB motherboard connection cable

Do note that the motherboard standoffs come preinstalled on the motherboard tray of the case.

Exterior Walkthrough

The key feature that sets the Evolv X2 apart from the rest of its competition is its see-through glass design, which is further accentuated by a brushed aluminium interior. The see-through effect is created via the removal of the front panel frame and having a tempered glass panel in its place instead - this results in a see-through chassis frame in the shape of the letter "C".

The power and reset buttons of the case are located on the top panel, while your usual assortment of front panel ports can be found on the side of the case, closer to where one of the feet of the case is. In this regard, we get a single 3.5mm headphone and microphone combo jack, two USB 3.0 Type-A ports and a USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 Type-C port. Do note that the case does not come with a hard disk activity indicator light.

The top panel of the Evolv X2 has L-shaped ventilation slats for a top mounted radiator or fans, where these slats have been designed in such a way so as to direct any hot exhaust air away from the end-user. Phanteks has also included an illuminated RGB strip that runs along the long edge of the top panel and terminates where the reset and power buttons are.

Over on the bottom of the case, you’ll notice that the Evolv X2 looks like its standing on stilts – we get plastic feet on all four corners of the case that terminate in a rectangular slab of plastic, which creates space between the said plastic panel and the bottom steel panel on which you’d mount your case intake fans.

While still on the topic of bottom intake fans, we get a removable dust filter that is easily accessible from the front of the case.

The rear of the case is a pretty standard affair with an industrial appearance, and we get some pre-installed Velcro cable ties that are visible from the rear – these cable ties are used to cable manage the cables running along the vertical edge of the chassis frame behind the motherboard tray. 

The expansion slot openings have metal covers that are reusable. To get access to them, you’ll have to slide out the cover as pictured above that is accessible once the tempered glass side panel is removed. Once this is done, you’ll then gain access to the screws of the expansion slot covers.

Removing the panels of the Evolv X2 is pretty straightforward, where first, you’ve got to remove the top panel that pops off easily.

This then reveals the single screws that each hold the side tempered glass panels in place - with the screws removed, the said panels (which are held in place by friction posts) can be pried off easily.

Removing the front panel involves the removal of two screws, with one at the top and the other near the bottom of the case. To get access to the bottom screw, you’ll first have to remove the plastic shroud that covers the Evolv X2's drive mounting bracket.

With the screws undone, the front glass panel then slides out of place.

Cooling Hardware Support

The Phanteks Evolv X2 doesn't come shipped with any fans, and you get a total of seven openings for 120mm case fans. Of these seven, we get three on a mounting bracket found beneath the top panel of the case - the said mounting bracket is removable for ease of installation, and is held in place by a single thumb screw. The mounting bracket also supports AIO CPU cooler radiators of sizes up to 415mm x 130mm x 32mm.

With the bracket removed, we see that there's some space where excess AIO radiator tubing can be hidden away for a cleaner-looking build.

Moving to the bottom panel, we get openings for up to three 120mm fans as well; similar to the top panel, we get a removable bracket that facilitates the installation of fans on the bottom panel – the said bracket is held in place by a single thumbscrew that can be found on the rear of the case.

Finally, over on the rear, Phanteks has included a ventilation opening that supports a single 120mm fan.

Physical Dimensions & Clearances

In terms of physical dimensions, the Evolv X2 is a pretty tall case, with the measurements as shown above.

For end-users intending to use an air cooler for your processor, do note that the Evolv X2 supports CPU coolers of heights no more than 170mm according to Phantek’s specs sheet. Most, if not all tower air coolers with 120mm or even 140mm fans should fit into this case with no issues.

On that note, it’s worth mentioning that the Evolv X2 was designed with AIO CPU cooler usage in mind, due to its airflow design that is sort of like a chimney stack. In any case, for the sake of variety seeing as there are plenty of reviews out there of this PC case with AIO CPU coolers, I’ll be testing the Evolv X2 with a CPU air cooler instead to see how the thermals are going to be like, more on this in the later part of this article.

For your GPU, the Evolv X2 comes with support for graphics cards with lengths of up to 380mm and widths of up to 170mm. We also get a built-in adjustable graphics card support bracket as pictured above, which is nice to have.

Fans of back-connect hardware will be pleased to note that this case comes with support for motherboards with rear connectors, so ATX back-connect motherboards from say, ASUS’s BTF line-up, Gigabyte’s Stealth series or MSI’s Project Zero line-up will be compatible with this case.

Finally, in terms of power supply dimensions, Phanteks indicates that the Evolv X2 has 250mm of length clearance for a power supply, which is plenty of space for modern high wattage PSUs.

Storage Drive Support

For end-users intending to install 2.5” and 3.5” drives for your PC build, the Evolv X2 comes with plenty of space for such drives – on the back of the motherboard tray, we get a removable bracket held in place by a thumbscrew that can accommodate up to three 2.5” SSDs.

Over in the bottom chamber of the case that houses the power supply, we get a removable drive cage held in place by a thumbscrew – we get a number of permutations of drives that can be supported by this cage, as shown by the illustration above from the Evolv X2’s manual.

Building a PC with the Phanteks Evolv X2

The front panel connectors of the case are a pretty straightforward affair, where we get a front panel USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 Type-C connector, a front panel audio connector, a front panel USB 3.0 Type-A connector, a nine-pin front panel connector for the power switch and power LEDs, as well as a three-pin D-RGB connector for the case’s RGB LED accents - the D-RGB connector can either be used in conjunction with the included D-RGB motherboard connection cable to connect the case's RGB LEDs to your motherboard, or it can be connected to compatible RGB hardware (such as Phantek's M25-120 G2 case fans) for daisy-chaining purposes.

For the front panel connector, I appreciate the fact that Phanteks has gone with a nine-pin connector rather than dual two-pin standalone connectors, which can be more fiddly to hook up to the motherboard.

As mentioned earlier, seeing as there’s already a whole bunch of reviews out there with this case and AIO CPU coolers, I've decided to go with a CPU air cooler instead for the demo build with the Evolv X2, just to see how the thermal performance is going to be like. Getting the motherboard into the case was a pretty straightforward process, where the motherboard standoffs are already pre-installed on the motherboard tray. If need be, you can use the included motherboard standoff mounting tool to reposition the standoff(s).

For the demo build, I managed to install one of the largest graphics cards around, the Gigabyte AORUS GeForce RTX 4090 MASTER 24G, into the Evolv X2. The said card measures in at a whopping 358.5mm x 162.8mm x 75.1mm, and is probably one of the tallest flagship graphics cards that can be found on the market.

Given how tall the card is, I've had to run the PSU's 12VHPWR cable above the graphics card's backplate, rather than having it connect to the card from the bottom, as the said cable would otherwise get in the way of the Evolv X2's tempered glass side panel.

For this demo build, I’ve got six of Phantek’s M25-120 G2 case fans installed. As I didn't have the reverse blade variant of these fans on hand, I made do with the standard blade variant for the bottom intake fans.

With the demo build pretty much in place, it's a good time to discuss all things cable management. As can be seen, the case comes with numerous channels on the back of the motherboard tray with which you can run the cables from your various components to the motherboard, where Phanteks has also included a good amount of Velcro cable ties to keep things as neat as possible.

It's great to see that Phanteks has also included rubber grommets along the side of the cable tray, which go a ways in making the cables running to the motherboard look a little neater.

Worried that your cable management efforts aren't going to be enough? Fret not, for the Evolv X2 comes with a large detachable metal cover on hinges that pretty much covers up the entirety of the back of the motherboard tray, thereby paving the way for a really clean appearance all around.

Completed Demo Build Aesthetics

Thermal Performance

To benchmark the thermal performance of the Phanteks Evolv X2 PC case, I put together a demo build with the following specifications:

• CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D (stock settings, PBO & Curve Optimiser disabled)
• CPU Cooler: Thermalright Phantom Spirit 120 SE ARGB
• CPU Thermal Paste: Thermalright TF7
• Motherboard: Gigabyte X670E AORUS MASTER
• Memory: 32GB (2x16GB) KingBank DDR5 Dark Heatsink UDIMM 6000MHz (DDR5 6000 CL28-35-35-76 1.45V)
• Storage: Lexar NM790 1TB NVMe SSD
• Graphics Card: Gigabyte AORUS GeForce RTX 4090 MASTER 24G
• PSU: Cooler Master MWE Gold 1050 V2 ATX 3.0
• Case: Phanteks Evolv X2
• Case Fans: 6x Phanteks M25-120 G2 120mm (Black, D-RGB)
• OS: Microsoft Windows 11 Pro
• Fan Curve: Stock standard profiles

With F1 23’s in-game benchmark, where I ran a five-lap test for around 9 minutes in total, the Ryzen 7 7800X3D processor in the demo build achieved an average CPU temperature of around 66.6°C, while the GeForce RTX 4090 MASTER 24G achieved an average GPU temperature of 67.1°C and an average GPU hotspot temperature of 77.3°C. These results were achieved in a non-airconditioned room with a temperature of 30°C, where the case fans all ran at an average speed of 1414RPM for the entirety of the benchmark.

For the sake of comparison, I did the same benchmark run with the same hardware setup, this time with an open-air test bench instead. With the open-air test bench, the test system achieved an average CPU temperature of 65.1°C, while the RTX 4090 achieved an average GPU temperature of 66.7°C and an average GPU hotspot temperature of 76.8°C.

Conclusion & Pricing

To sum up, I think the Phanteks Evolv X2 is a breath of fresh air given its unique appearance, all thanks to its monolithic three-sided tempered glass aesthetic, and the fact that the graphics card has sort of like a floating appearance in the finished build. Fit and finish of the Evolv X2 is good too, and the PC building experience with this case was pretty smooth and I don’t have any complaints in that regard.

Thermal performance wise, I was kind of surprised that an air cooler still works decently well with the hardware setup that I had for the demo build, where the CPU and GPU temperatures were not too far off to that of having all the test components on an open air test bench. Do bear in mind that your mileage may vary, especially if you’re intending to use different hardware such as a processor that draws a lot more power under load, perhaps something from the Ryzen 9 line-up or Intel’s Core i9 series. I guess if you’re intending to use a good air cooler with a processor that is easy to cool (such as the Ryzen 7 7800X3D that I used for the test build), going down the air cooler with the Evolv X2 might not be such a bad idea after all.

As of the time of writing this article, the Evolv X2 is available to purchase in Singapore for a price of around $225 Singapore dollars - international readers can purchase this case from e-commerce sites such as Newegg for around $169 US dollars.

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The PC case featured in this article was a review unit sponsored by Corbell Technologies, the official distributor for Phanteks in Singapore.