 NCXT has come so far. The original Phantom was an okay plastic case. Its successor, the Phantom 530, is still made of plastic and still has that kind of retro Alienware-esque look, but it is so much more than okay. ["Fantasy Theme Song"] With its factory tuning and data center DNA, an Intel 730 series SSD is an amazing choice for gamers and performance enthusiasts. Which doesn't make it immune to criticism. I'm aware of the cost benefits of using hard packing foam, but this is how my case arrived. Hard foam is good for one solid impact, then will be destroyed by a subsequent one. Fortunately, this one only got hit once, so the case arrived in perfect condition. At least that hard foam is nice and thick. The manual is pretty good and has an extremely detailed list of all the parts included with the case and their purposes. This is something a lot of manufacturers miss and it helps out novice builders a lot. And I also noticed when going through the included items that it comes with a ton of zip ties. With most manufacturers, it feels like they include them just to make sure they can tick off the marketing bullet point. NCXT seems to actually intend for you to cable manage your system with them. Kudos there. External features of this case are pretty straightforward. Aesthetically, they've updated the lines and curves in a way that I find more pleasing. And they've added a shaped side panel window that I appreciate as well. Functionality wise, they've added an eighth PCI slot and implemented their signature rear LED illumination. To make plugging things into the back much easier. On the top, we find a 30 watt fan controller, front audio and front USB 3 ports. Then tucked away behind the solid feeling front door, we've got three 5.25 inch bays that use a pretty clever release lever system. And a reset switch that's both easy to get to and impossible to hit by accident. Moving inside, sorta, let's talk liquid cooling options. The Phantom 530 has strong water cooling support. Triple 120 or dual 140 in the top, dual 120 in the front, dual 120 in the bottom. So of course, I used an AIO liquid cooler for my test build. First impressions of the rad mounting in the top were strong. The very open mesh up here is great for airflow and an opportunity for accent lighting with LED fans. Or you can just put black in there to not draw attention to them. Then things got a little bit rougher. The fans or the radiator need to go in the hump up here at the top of the case to avoid clearance issues with the motherboard. But the top bezel to access the top fans is very difficult to remove. After some persistence and force, I got my first look at the extremely flexible fan mounting points on the top though. And it kinda made it worthwhile. I actually don't remember who started this trend. But using slits instead of holes is a great inclusion for water cooling efficiant-ados. And this system saved my bacon here because I hate moving optical drives below the top mounting position. So I needed my rad in the very, very back position at the back of the case. Managing the radiator fan connectors down to the integrated fan controller is a treat. NZXT strategically avoids openings in the top of the motherboard tray where they're not needed. So it's very clean looking in theory. Unfortunately, the built-in fan controller which supports 10 fans or 30 watts max, whichever comes first, is DC only. And not DC only like 4-pin PWM fans will be DC controlled. Like, the plugs are too close together to use 4-pin fans and they physically won't fit unless you get adapters. Also, the included extension cables would need to be chopped up to work with a 4-pin fan. But don't interpret that as me hating the integrated fan controller. I wish it was a little bit more flexible, but its weaknesses affected my build very little. And when it is usable, it is a fantastic value add that comes with the case. And it gets better. I love how it and all the other front panel stuff are pre-wired into the case and pre-cable managed. But there's even an extra bonus. I've been saying for a long time that we should be using twist ties instead of zip ties for cable management. It's just a little bit less plastic to throw away every time because they're reusable. And that's exactly what NZXT is using, which is great because unlike a zip tie method where I'd have to cut them all and then throw them all away and completely re-cable manage it anyway when I build my system, this way I can open them up, add a few more cables as needed, close them back up, re-route things, and all of that without having to even break into the zip ties that come with the case. Awesome. Speaking of cable management, it's the strongest point of this case in my opinion. The rubber grommets internally are improved over older designs. They're harder to accidentally knock out when running cables through them due to the... due to the deeper channels around the edges. I'm just gonna keep going. There's ample cable management for the 24-pin and more behind the MOBO tray, which is quite strong actually in spite of its oversized CPU cutout for easy cooler installation. And then also back here, we find a ton of cable loops for pinning everything down nice and flat. And we also find what is still my favorite system for a tray-mounted SSD. Corsair spring loaders are a lot faster to use, but they just don't feel as robust, especially with slimmer drives. Not that it really matters. SSDs aren't fragile, just a personal preference thing. Onto the rest of the inside. The tall case feet combined with the little support pillars that keep your power supply raised up a little bit are, in my opinion, a great feature. It means that the PSU isn't necessarily drawing in all fresh cool air through the filtered bottom intake, but it also can't suffocate from being installed on a thick carpet. And as someone who accidentally killed a power supply that way once, it's a trade-off that I'll take. Drive mounting is great. The 5.25 inch bays use a totally overbuilt steel design, and I love the 3-2-1 hard drive cage configuration. You can stack up from the bottom, stack down from the top, or fill the whole thing to put in up to six drives wherever you want. Or you can remove the bottom mounting entirely and put rads in the front of the bottom. Very nice. Now, I don't understand, though, why the 3.5 inch, 2.5 inch cages slide in from the right side. That means I have to take off both side panels whenever I'm upgrading a drive. Now, arguably most people will take off both anyway, since it makes cable management a lot easier, but if I'm in a hurry, I can just run it through and not bother, and if I'm a good builder, when I build my system in the first place, I could leave those cables in the right place for myself, so if I could slide the cage in from this side, I would only have to take off one panel. Honestly, though, that's one of the only ease-of-use complaints I have about the case. The pre-installed motherboard standoffs, thumbscrew heavy design, and safe, rounded internal corners make the case a really, really easy one to build in. And it looks great, too. The finish and color matching between the plastic and painted steel has improved a lot since the first Phantom I looked at, and if I had to complain about the looks, I guess the fan mount on the side panel hurts the overall aesthetic a little bit for me, and I don't really feel like it's gonna cool these drives much better anyway. Likely, it's only useful if you've installed that weird hinged fan thing that's kind of like a spot cool to point at your graphics card. Another thing I don't really feel like ruining the looks of my system over, but that's about all I can find to gripe about. So I guess all that's left is to give this case a hearty recommendation. The Phantom 530 is a great case. It's a bit older now, so I'm probably not the first reviewer to come to this conclusion, but... better late than never, I hope. Right, guys? Uh, thanks for watching. Don't forget to like this video if you liked it, dislike it if you disliked it, leave a comment letting us know if you have any feedback on the video, or if you just did the- your hatred for me, or the Phantom 530, or the sound of my voice, or the way that I have two arms that come out like this, or whatever. You can leave a comment and let us know. We do actually read most of the comments on our videos. If you want to support us, we always appreciate that, too. 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