NZXT Phantom 410 Mid Tower Chassis Review

The NZXT Phantom 410’s roomy interior engulfs our fairly high end system and large hardware. The excellently positioned cable management grommets do their job in hiding multiple cables. One problem with the grommets is that they are very flimsy and are easily removed from their groove when a large cable such as the 24-pin cable is pushed through them.

The intrusively large Phanteks PH-TC14PE CPU cooler does its best to cause interference problems, but the smartly designed Phantom 410 ensures it won’t interfere with the roof fans, rear fan or 8-pin CPU connector cut-out. One area for concern is the rather slim 1cm gap between the pinnacle of the motherboard and the fans installed in the roof.

Installing a power supply into the Phantom 410 is very easy. The cable management grommet nearest the PSU area is slightly limited in terms of dimensions meaning that routing a large quantity of cables through it is going to be very awkward. Another slightly disappointing cable management aspect is the fact that there isn’t a conveniently accessible hole near the bottom left corner of the motherboard for routing a USB cable or HD audio cable.

The rear cable management features and room in NZXT’s Phantom 410 are absolutely excellent. There is a whopping 25mm of clearance for cables and even more in the form of a recessed groove for the 24-pin cable and spacious area near the hard drive cage. 7 individual fan cables running from the 7 channel fan controller do hinder cable tidiness slightly, but as far as I’m concerned, the rear doesn’t have to look tidy if the front does.

The tool-less HDD and simple SSD mount is effective yet, on the HDD’s behalf, slightly awkward. It is fairly easy to install the HDD, just bend the tray and push in the metal pins. Removing the HDD is more awkward as you need something sharp such as a screwdriver to disconnect the small metal pins.

Installing a 240mm radiator such as the Corsair H100 in the roof of the Phantom 410 is designed to be simple and is. It looks as if NZXT purposely cut extra room on either side of the radiator’s edge which is perfect for routing tubing. The radiator itself sits in the roof of the case, underneath the plastic cover. The 120/140mm fans are installed on the case’s interior meaning that clearance above the motherboard isn’t an issue.

An optical drive with a black bezel fits the front appearance perfectly. If your optical drive uses a bezel with a different colour, the door can come to your rescue and hide the unwanted mis-match. Each 5.25″ drive bay cover is very easy to remove by pushing the ‘eject’ button located on the right side which means that a 5.25″ can be installed without removing the front panel.