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Phanteks debuts striking PC case with multi-chamber design — unique chassis currently exclusive to prebuilt CyberPower PC build
PC components manufacturer Phanteks showcased one of the most striking PC cases at CES this year. At first glance, the new Exo 626s looks like an open-frame case; however, it comes with dedicated chambers for the PSU, motherboard, graphics card, and a 360mm AIO liquid cooler for the CPU.
The idea behind this case is that with each component having a separate chamber, airflow is easier to manage, and heat from one part doesn’t affect the others. From what we gathered on our visit in Vegas, the GPU chamber can fit large-sized graphics cards going as big as 4-slots. It comes with an RGB LED strip and a mesh finish at the top and the bottom, allowing the card to breathe easily. The PSU chamber at the bottom features a similar RGB strip along with some I/O ports at the front, including two USB Type-A ports, a USB Type-C, and a 3.5mm audio jack.
The AIO chamber also features a mesh finish at the front and is positioned next to the motherboard with a provision to route the water cooling tubes directly into the motherboard chamber. Lastly, the motherboard chamber comes with a glass panel at the front, while the back panel gives access to the AIO radiator and the rear side of the motherboard with a provision to mount a 120mm fan for additional cooling.
Unfortunately, the case is available as part of a pre-built only, as it is made in partnership with CyberPowerPC, with no confirmation on a standalone retail version at the moment. The pre-built will be offered with an Intel Core Ultra 285K CPU, an RTX 5080 GPU, an Asus TUF Z890 motherboard, 32GB of DDR5 dual-channel memory clocked at 6400 MHz, a 2TB WD Black SN8100 PCIe Gen 5 SSD, a Bitspower 360mm AIO liquid cooler with ARGB lighting, and a Corsair RM1000X 1000W 80+ Gold power supply unit. As for the pricing, it will be retailing at $3,500.
While the Exo 626s looks impressive, locking such an innovative case behind an expensive pre-built feels like a missed opportunity. This is exactly the kind of uncanny airflow-focused design PC enthusiasts would love to experiment with in their own custom builds. Hopefully, Phanteks takes note of the interest and considers releasing the Exo 626s as a standalone case for consumers and not just system integrators.
Kunal Khullar is a contributing writer at Tom’s Hardware. He is a long time technology journalist and reviewer specializing in PC components and peripherals, and welcomes any and every question around building a PC.
IMO, Phanteks over did the whole "compartment" thing.
It kind of looks like a brutalist building...
except the CPU/RAM display compartment, and exposed tubing don't share the aesthetics of the GPU, PSU, and mobo box, so it just clashes with itself.
IMO, the aesthetic fix should be pretty simple. Just add another GPU/PSU box at the top so it hides the tubing and sharp corners. A 3rd box at the top would also fix the unbalanced, big footprint, bottom heavy look.
I love designs that break the mold, but it sure looks like it's basically hot boxing the VRM, SSD and DRAM. The only airflow seems to be the fan behind the motherboard and the video card backplate area seems to have mesh in under the edge of the CPU chamber.
