Phanteks EVOLV SHIFT XT PC Case Review

How Much Does it Cost?

The Phanteks EVOLV SHIFT XT PC Case is obviously a premium solution, and it comes with a premium price to match. It’s currently available from Overclockers UK for around £160. That is a lot of money, but at the end of the day, it’s not bad value for money. There’s rather a lot of aluminium here, and steel too actually, you can tell that just from the weight of the unit. Plus, there’s built-in RGB, and a pretty decent ARGB controller too, and you get a robust PCIe Gen 4 riser cable included too, which can be expensive on its own.

Overview

There aren’t many cases like this one, that’s for sure. I mean, you could just buy a case that’s the size you need right out of the box. However, I love that this is one model, rather than Phanteks making a compact, then making a Evolv Shift Air and an Evolv Shift Liquid, it’s one size fits all. Plus, even if you do go for one configuration, if you come to upgrade or change the system in the future, it can change to match your requirements, which is pretty cool.

What is surprising is just how capable it is, overall. Being limited to a 72mm tall CPU cooler isn’t so bad, as there’s a broad range of very capable air coolers on the market that can get the job done, taking just Noctua for example, they have plenty to pick from. If you did want to put a beast of a CPU in here though, then being able to put a 240mm AIO in here means you can get away with some pretty high TDP hardware.

The GPU capabilities are impressive too, and while Mini-ITX only has a single PCI-E slot, the case will handle a triple-slot card, meaning many high-end cards from the likes of MSI, ASUS, AORUS, and a few others will actually fit in this case; even in the compact configuration. Just remember you’re limited to 324mm, that’s plenty of room for most of the top-end cards with but a few exceptions. Plus, being PCI-E 4.0 ready out of the box means newer motherboard chipsets are support for the latest generation of cards, but older PCI-E 3 cards will still work too.