Inside
Inside the Phantom there are a few key features that help it stand out from your typical case. At first glance it does look like the average mid to high end gaming case on the market with its black interior, PSU on bottom, configuration. Surprisingly NZXT managed to pack a lot of drive bays into the Phantom. There are two hard drive cages, one with 5 trays and another with two more. This configuration is nice because you can remove the larger of the two to fit a longer video card while still having room for two hard drives. There are also a total of five 5 ¼ drive bays. One thing I found interesting here was the inclusion of a tool less clip in the design but the clip itself is nowhere to be found on any of those drive bays.
Looking at the interior of the Phantom as a whole you can see all of the wire management included in the case. There are even multiple rows for when you are running E-ATX cases and there additional width. The CPU backplate access hole is nice, but a little small compared to others we are seeing on the market now. There is a chance depending on the motherboard you end up using that you may still have to remove your motherboard if installing a different heatsink in the future.
One feature that stood out to me as an example of NZXT thinking about how hard it will be to work in the case are the holes in the rear support beam to give access with a screwdriver to the PCI slot thumbscrews. Even though they are thumbscrews it is nice that they gave access to them with a screwdriver.
For cooling the Phantom has multiple locations where you could mount fans but comes with four total, one 200mm orange LED fan up top and one fan on the rear. There are also two 120mm fans attached to the right side panel vent. The lack of a front fan is disappointing, and it’s even more disappointing in this situation because getting a matching orange LED fan from NZXT isn’t possible, they have been discontinued. As a whole having four fans is more than what other cases in this price range would have, but maybe losing one side panel fan to add the front fan would be better.
Behind the motherboard tray you have an even better view of all of the Phantom’s wire management. You can also see multiple tabs used for zip ties to clean up your wiring from the back. As far as room behind the motherboard tray goes you have a typical amount, without good wire management you could still run into problems putting the side panel back on.