Overall and Final Verdict

So before going over what is good and bad with the Primochill Praxis Wetbench, I figured I should run through the people who it even would apply to. Unlike a standard case, this is more of a specialty case, if you even want to call it a case, it's really more of a testbench. The most obvious would be reviewers and people who swap out hardware often. That could be someone at one of the many OEMs who has to test and verify hardware, benchmarkers, overclockers, and people are different manufacturers who test and validate software and firmware. Beyond that, it is great for companies and people looking to show off hardware in their office, at tradeshows, and at other events. Then you have the home consumer who just loves being able to see all of their hardware or they maybe swap things out more than the average person. Given the popularity of the Thermaltake Core cases that are basically this with a glass panel over it, I think there are more people than most people think who just love a mostly open setup with water cooling capabilities.

So with that in mind, we can safely say that none of those people are new users or even average users so having to put together the Wetbench isn’t a concern. So the inclusion of multiple mounting locations for pumps, reservoirs, and even the 360mm radiator panel all make this a great platform to play around with water cooling. It's in the name of the product even, but I just want to stress it even more. There aren’t normally good ways to watercool an open PC. The construction of the Wetbench was also surprisingly good with the powder coated steel framing, it is up in the same class as Caselabs cases and I think a lot of you know that my last two personal PCs have been in those.  But the Wetbenches biggest feature is just how good it looks. I posted up pictures multiple times on social media while testing with lots of love for the case, especially when you go as far to match the motherboard, put in a matching video card, and hopefully in the future add a little orange in the water cooling.

Now orange isn’t for everyone and you might not even like the white. Well, you can get the steel panels in black or white and accent panels in the following colors.

UV Blue

White

Black

Solid Blue

Solid Grey

Solid Light Blue

Solid Light Pink

Solid Orange

Solid Purple

Solid Red

Solid Yellow

UV Green

UV Red/Pink

That’s a long list of options and frankly, I had enough trouble just picking between white or black. If you decide later you want to change up the color you can even order new accent panels so the black or white option is really the only decision you are locked into.

The Wetbench isn’t without fault though, I did run into a few issues in my time with it. The overall size of it was a downside for me, our other test benches are smaller in every dimension so I did have to make additional room for the Wetbench. I thought the angled design would mean it would be taller but a bit smaller on the depth and width. It wasn’t a huge deal but I just want to bring it up. Beyond that, when moving it around the handles were a little sharp and dig into your hands. I’m really happy it has the handles but maybe not having the accent up on that top edge would help. Then I also had the issue with getting the power switches in as well. Frankly, none of these issues would dissuade me from using or getting a Wetbench, but there is still room for improvement.

At basically $185 the Wetbench also isn’t all that cheap. Like I said before, construction wise I put it up with case manufacturers like CaseLabs and you pay more for that type of construction. It is also a lower volume production and done in house in the US so costs are going to be a little higher. There really isn’t anything you can compare it with as well. There aren’t much for options in the open air water cooling bench market and the same goes for cases or displays to use to show off amazing hardware. It isn’t for everyone, but for anyone who is down for the open air design I can imagine some really crazy builds in the Wetbench. In our situation, I’m planning on upgrading to a nice orange water cooling loop and keeping this as our video card testbench. Who wouldn’t want to see pictures of their cards on this sexy thing!

fv5tophonors

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Author Bio
garfi3ld
Author: garfi3ldWebsite: http://lanoc.org
Editor-in-chief
You might call him obsessed or just a hardcore geek. Wes's obsession with gaming hardware and gadgets isn't anything new, he could be found taking things apart even as a child. When not poking around in PC's he can be found playing League of Legends, Awesomenauts, or Civilization 5 or watching a wide variety of TV shows and Movies. A car guy at heart, the same things that draw him into tweaking cars apply when building good looking fast computers. If you are interested in writing for Wes here at LanOC you can reach out to him directly using our contact form.

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garfi3ld replied the topic: #38327 16 May 2017 04:30
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