NZXT designed its Phantom 410 with a removable hard drive cage, expanding the case’s normal 11.8” card space to 16.8” in the top five slots. Builders lose four internal bays as a compromise.

With both USB 2.0 and USB 3.0 headers in the mix, NZXT cleans up visible cable clutter by paring back the front-panel audio connector to HD Audio-only. A second bunch of cables connect four of the front-panel fan controller’s six leads to optional fans, while the other two leads are factory-connected to included fans.
NZXT was kind enough to separate all of the Phantom 410’s installation hardware into separate bags.

Hard drives are removed from the reverse (right) side of the Phantom 410.
The Phantom 410 offsets 2.5” drives to one side of the tray. That'd be a necessary concession if the case had backplanes. It doesn't, though. Nevertheless, you still have to take a few seconds to remove the corresponding 3.5” mounting pins from their keyholes prior to screwing the smaller drive in place.

A sliding latch unlocks the 5.25” bays; pulling the latch releases its pins. The Phantom 410 secures external drives on only one side.

An internal fan bracket reduces top-slot card clearance to 10.8”, blocking access to the SATA connectors of our slightly-oversized motherboard. The bracket can be pivoted or removed.

Although removing the fan bracket may have helped our SATA cables fit, the extra width of our motherboard blocked access to needed cable entry holes. We removed the center drive cage to make room for cables to pass through, and didn’t bother to replace the lower cable hole’s grommet when we found that merely bumping it caused it to fall out again.
All cables holes have rolled edges, making the grommets superfluous anyway.

While this editor prefers cases without drive doors, it’s difficult to argue against the look NZXT achieved with the front of its Phantom 410. The upper part of the finished system looks brighter than normal for a different reason…

A multi-colored LED fan adds a little visual excitement, brightens up the look of our installed components, and is lit softly enough to prevent annoying distraction. The lighting can’t be disabled, but turning down the fan speed makes it appear dimmer.
- Cases For Cost-Conscious Builders
- Building With The Corsair 300R
- Building With The In Win Mana 136
- Building With The MSI Stealth
- Building With The NZXT Phantom 410
- Building With The Xigmatek Midgard II
- Test Settings And Benchmarks
- Temperature, Noise, And Acoustic Efficiency
- Which Chassis Delivers On Value? How About Quality?




BTW,i recently saw Antec 1100 and it's a very good case.for 100 bucks,it's best in it's class-
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811129178&Tpk=antec%201100
CHeck out the Raidmax Blackstorm....you may find it a very pleasant choice, with good reviews and easy on the price.....and there is plenty of space lol
Better cases:
NZXT Tempest 410
Antec 300
CM 690 II advanced
Cooler Master Storm Enforcer
Can't wait to see what other cases Tom's has in store.
Since this is just the first 5 of 15, could the last article do a recap of all 15? That would make for an awesome article, and allow us to easily compare all the cases.
What??? It's overpriced at $70? Really? Did you read the article or do you just hate Corsair?
case B fits two 120mm fans up front & up top and one 120mm rear
case A comes with three fans yet case B comes with two so lets rate case A as good for internal temps and case B as poor.
rating temps for a case is pointless. focus more on build quality and the cases ability to prevent dust-balls. a case with two fans has poor internal temps...oh wait i have two fans lying around the house...now the case has four fans and temps are so much better...
2. Noise is compared to heat
3. The noise-to-heat comparison is given more consideration than either the noise or the heat
4. Adding your own fans alters the price, so this is the only fair way to do a value analysis.
5. It appears you don't care about performance-to-price. That's fine, the last two paragraphs are specifically what you asked for.
So, what's the complaint?
1. i can stick 10 fans at 10db (scythe 800rpm) in a case or 1 one fan at 35db (scythe 3000 rpm), which makes more noise?
2. noise is not compared to heat, see above example. one fan even at high speeds will not show better airflow then ten at slower speed.
3. your test, your considerations.
4. adding air filters to a case to stop dust bunnies also adds to the price.
5. performance to price in a case is more theory then fact. some people prefer a case with sturdy sides, fewer fan ports for noise to escape, and filters. some want to stick a fan in every whole imaginable so they can attempt to create an internal tornado. some despise a metallic interior, LED fans, molex fan connectors, etc.,.
My complaint is, each case has it's pros and cons. what am I giving up going from once case to another?