A Closer Look – Exterior
The Phanteks EVOLV SHIFT XT PC Case is certainly interesting, it’s a rather unique design overall and while you can tell it’s a PC case, its almost square front and long body isn’t a common shape for PC cases. Even most long mini-ITX cases generally sit a bit taller. Of course, we all know this case can be made taller, this is just what it looks like in its most compact configuration.
down the left side, there’s plenty of ventilation cut into the thick steel and aluminium side panel. There’s also a mesh filter that runs down the middle. Now, a little spoiler for later, but in the box, you’ll find some wider mesh dust filters for this middle section, as extending the case changes the size of this gap.
On the front, there’s a really awesome looking front panel design. the front metal panel looks like it’s floating between the exterior panels, thanks to some ventilation and black sections that run all the way around it.
It’s also split in two, with a small slither of a window right across it, but also a curved mirror-like material behind it that I suspect will be for some trick RGB effects when the system is powered on.
If you look even closer, you’ll see there are a few USB ports are hidden under the bottom panel, which slides up and down to reveal/hide the included Type-C, and some power controls.
Down the right side, the case looks pretty much the same as the let, with a matching mesh and ventilation design. I love the way the case is made though, with the top half of each side panel, and the full top panel all made from the same piece of thick metal.
The same is true of the bottom panel. The case is made from fewer overall panels than you think, and this increases its overall rigidity, and weight too, there’s a lot of steel here for such a small case, and it feels pretty hefty to handle.
Around the back, there’s a rear I/O cut-out for your motherboard, pretty standard mini-ITX stuff really. However, as you can see, there’s a triple slot setup here, meaning this case can handle a 324mm long GPU with a triple slot cooler design; that means some pretty powerful cards will fit in here easily enough, but there will be a few truly gigantic models, such as some of the 9650XTs or 3090’s that may be tight or not fit.
