Phanteks P360A Budget High-Airflow Case Review: Thermals, Noise, Cable Management

we're back to reviews of cheaper cases today we're looking at the fantax p360a enclosure this is a budget-ish case it's about 70 right now it follows up the p300a those two are different cases so if you've seen the p300a review and you think you're watching the same thing you're not the p360a is in fact different it comes with two 120 ml front intake fans and that makes it potentially a very good deal in the 60 to 70 dollar range which is where it falls in so we're gonna be benchmarking this today for thermals and noise of course we'll also be looking at the build quality and overall assembly of the case and we'll be comparing the differences between the p300a which we reviewed previously and this p360a along with some of the competing options like the lancole 215. before that this video is brought to you by evga's new keyboard evj's new z20 and z15 rgb optical mechanical gaming keyboards have abundant rgb leds and programmable macro keys on the left side of the keyboard they also have a sensor to detect and turn on the leds when you're in front of the keyboard and turn them off when distant offering a unique feature for keywords the keyboard claims a 0.5 millisecond response time and 100 million keystroke lifespan learn more at the link in the description below fantastic terminology has really one key word other than the numbering on the letter at the front and that's digital when fantax uses the word digital in its product name that means that it has a rgb fans and it typically means that it has extra fans as well this is in fantasy's digital line of cases previously we've reviewed the p400a actually extremely positively i think it won two awards one year after the other from us for airflow and for best overall and the p500a did pretty well also the p300a was okay but it wasn't good out of box really it was on the warm side for sure it was one of the warmer cases we had tested and it wasn't until you added extra fans to the p300a that it became actually pretty good similar to the fractal mesh of ic sure out of box it looks like it has a lot of airflow but there aren't a lot of fans so it really needed those extra fans to become what it was capable of now there's also a p360x for those who haven't seen our previous fantastic coverage our testing has shown that the eclipse non-airflow cases have horrendous cooling some of the worst in fact the x-skew for the p 300 series appears to be an improvement with more ventilation than the p300 or the p400 non-a for example but it still has less ventilation and fewer stock fans than this p360a while simultaneously costing 10 more the p360x doesn't look bad but at these prices the p360a looks much more compelling the fantax eclipse airflow cases are shaped the same as their non-airflow equivalents so the preceding p400 non-a for example which we uh notoriously really didn't like when we first reviewed it but the p400 with the a was really good and all it did was take the existing case and punch a bunch of holes in the panel this is the same type of thing where the bottom actually doesn't there are no there's no intake here there's a big plastic piece back behind the bottom of the case in front of the power supply shroud we'll talk about that later to do with air circulation recirculation and the top up here is also blocked off but this is part of the eclipse series styling and it has to do with reusing tooling so whenever a company can release another case with the same tooling the tooling is we'll show some factory footage of it it's large pieces of metal and they use them primarily on stamp machines there's a couple other machines involved as well but when using tooling to stamp if you can take the existing tooling and then just make a new mold so that'd be for the plastic part like the front panel where you've got some metal for the mesh and then in some cases you'll have plastic bits and pieces that are different that's a lot cheaper than doing whole new tooling which costs hundreds of thousands of dollars so this is a result of reusing tooling in a way that keeps the cost down for the case and therefore msrp while also still doing something different there's no second layer of filtration on this one there are no discrete filters installed behind the front panel the front panel is the filter here this is something we've seen with the cooler master td-500 as well we believe that this approach is an ideal compromise between price protectiveness and breathability you still get your dust filtration not quite as much but it'll breathe a lot better long-term and the dust is on the outside which people are more likely to actually take a second to wipe down as we get into the review the other prices to keep in mind are the landfill 215 is about 80 the p400a is about 90 and then the p500a is at the top of fantech's range and that's about 140 so let's get into the build notes and then we'll go through the thermals and the noise comparison as we mentioned in our best cases of 2021 piece so far the niche for the p360a between existing fantax cases is pretty narrow differentiating it from the fantax p400a is easy it's smaller and it's less expensive so smaller and less expensive are easy selling points but those are existing selling points of the phanteks p300a that we already reviewed so separating the p300a and the p360 is more difficult let's cover some of the key differences first the p360a comes with two fans instead of the p300as one fan a pair of fans in such a small case is enough that budget system builders can get away with using the stock fans exclusively and basically permanently depending on the components used whereas we'd recommend getting at least one extra fan for the p300a in order to make it good the p300a like the original fractal mesh of ic can be a good case thermally for obviously the smaller systems that fit in it but it does need that extra fan the p360a fans are also a rgb and matched to an argb strip on the psu shroud whereas the p300a contains a smaller strip of static white leds accompanying these leds is an argb controller built into the case which can either be controlled via a 3 pin 5 volt argb header or use its own baked in lighting patterns it's become less vital to have built-in lighting patterns as rgb headers on motherboards have become increasingly prevalent but it's still an appropriate feature for a budget case that'll be paired with budget motherboards separate mode and color buttons are built into the front i o we still have a soft spot for these physical hardware switches too because they're simpler and they don't require additional configuration or software to use the tempered glass side panel only extends from the upper edge of the power supply shroud to the top of the case we praised this feature in the ndxe h500 and in the fantax p300a for reducing cost reducing weight and adding a little bit of room inside of the power supply shroud both panels are attached with captive thumb screws at the rear edge the front panel is attached with the same snaps that we've seen for generations on fantech's cases but the metal posts on the p300a have been replaced here with plastic ones thus far they seem durable enough the p300a and p360a are identical in width and so close in height that there's functionally no difference but the p360a is approximately four and a half centimeters deeper the main effect of this is that the hard drive cage doesn't conflict with the power supply mounting location nearly as much in the p360a as in the p300a using anything other than a small form factor power supply and the p300a practically requires removing the hard drive cages entirely in order to fit cable clutter space is still tight under the p360a shroud but it can certainly fit two drives in the front ejecting three and a half inch sleds maximum gpu length is also increased it's up to a maximum of 400 millimeters now if no fans are installed inside the case unfortunately because of the glass side panel the p368 doesn't make for a good option for smuggling gpus despite the excessive gpu length supported one flaw that we missed in the p300a and that hasn't been fixed relates to how the drive sleds are built in general the drives can only be installed with their cable connections at the front presumably to make accessing the cables easier this means that installing a three and a half inch hard drive requires routing sata cables around the hard drive cage and into the front panel we'd like to at least have the option of mounting drives in the opposing direction we mentioned that the heights of these two cases are close but not identical which is due entirely to an increase in height of the legs from approximately 1.7 centimeters on the p300a to about two and a half centimeters on the p360a this increases clearance for power supply fans but doesn't affect the front intake in any way the front remains limited as well to 315 millimeter maximum size for radiators and reusing tooling is what creates that situation it allows fantax to keep the cost of the case low but it does mean that these things are similar or the same as the p300a radiator support could be partially solved by the p360a's top radiator mount though the p300a contained only a single 120 or 140 ml mount at the top of the case but the p360a has two potentially allowing 280 ml radiators to be installed in this location instead however the top mount supports only one 20 ml or 240 ml radiators according to the manual and we're inclined to agree the top edge of the motherboard is just 3.2 centimeters below the top of the case and the 140ml mounting holes are spaced out 2.8 centimeters from the surface of the motherboard so clearance will be a problem with some boards phanteks lists max motherboard component height as 38 millimeters when installing 120 or 240 ml radiators the top of the case is removable in many other eclipse cases as well it makes cable routing a lot easier but in the p360a it can also help with installing a radiator in fact the removable top of the case is one of the top features that we've liked in fantax cases lately just because of how much easier it is to work with the system and things like eps 12 volt cables the top fan mounts are evenly ventilated across their full 140 ml width but the front fan mounts were built with 120 millimeter stock fans in mind the mounts still function perfectly well but 140 millimeter rgb fans will look weird when installed inside this case the p360a contains the same plastic shield inside the front panel to prevent air from recirculating through the power supply shroud or the bottom of the case but there are additional small vents cut into the sides to keep heat from building up as much in the hard drive cage the bottom of the front panel has also been redesigned in the p360a to cosmetically look more like the p400a and the p500a now using a silver fantex logo instead and a plastic frame that merges into the case legs several small quality of life changes have been made as well like an additional small cutout added to the top of the power supply shroud for easier routing of pcie power cables fantax also added a third ssd mounting location behind the motherboard tray and the cutout for the cpu power cable is larger than in the p300a but the cutouts at the front edge of the motherboard for the 24 pin power connector and other cables are not there's still a tight fit otherwise kill management is excellent for the size cables for i o fall directly down a vertical cable management bar with two built-in velcro straps and this combined with the extra space underneath the power supply shroud means that there's a lot of space for cable routing for such a small case smaller tie points are located around the edges of the motherboard tray as well to make it easier to clamp things down as for motherboard support maximum motherboard clearance is listed by fan tech says quote eatx motherboard 280 millimeters whereas the p300a claimed 275. anything wider than a normal atx board though will reduce the clearance around the cable cutouts at the front edge of the board and it would be easier to just invest in a larger case instead than to try and make the p360a work fantax has at least been more conservative with their motherboard compatibility claims this time though the distance from the rear of the case to the edge of the raised cable bar is 300 millimeters so it'll fit within that range the fantax vertical gpu kit with product code phvgpukto2 is compatible with the p360a this kit replaces all horizontal expansion slots with two vertical expansion slots which should be spaced far enough away from the side panel to avoid major thermal problems but isn't something that we tested here we'll start our thermal testing with cpu torture thermals for just the p300 series then we'll look at comparative data for the other cases running our combined cpu and gpu torture test raise the average cpu temperature to 51 degrees celsius above ambient in the p360a stock configuration removing the front panel lowered this to 44 degrees and as a reminder we're mostly doing that to demonstrate how much or how little the panel is obstructing the performance not because you're actually going to do that the delta is larger than the one we saw when removing the p400a digital's front panel but it's still not that bad the panel obstructs airflow to a degree but the resulting temperatures are a lot better than they would be with an extra filter layer so overall it's a good balance the p360a vastly outperformed the stock p300 ace average performance of 65 degrees here thanks to the additional fan on the p360a but the p400a remained ahead at 48 degrees comparatively the p360a is closer in performance to cooler masters td 500 mesh and fractals meshfy 2 both of which are currently more expensive than the p360a the strength of this case is in its low price for this level of performance even in comparison to fantech's own 90 p 408 digital the strongest competitor from that perspective is liam lee's lancole 215 which is currently 80 and averaged 45 degrees in this test average gpu temperature in the same combined torture test was 53 degrees celsius above ambience for the p360a removing the front panel had no effect on this average it remained at about 53 and was within error and variance the top of the power supply shroud is sealed and there's no bottom intake vent other than the one meant for the power supply so airflow in the lower half of the case is a closed system that's not strongly affected by removing the front panel the p360a again far outperformed the p 300 days average which was 58 degrees in this instance the p300a really deserves some additional fans and that's why we included test results with additional aftermarket fans in our review of the p300a with the additional fans the original p300a was planted at about the same performance as the p360a's stock result the p400a is at a higher tier of performance at 49 degrees average comparatively several other airflow cases we've reviewed recently are at roughly the same level as the p400a and p360a like corsair's 4000d airflow and the fractal meshfight 2 both at 52 degrees the closely competing landcool 215 also ran an average of 52 degrees here the p360a is in good company for gpu thermal performance when rendering our custom monkey head render benchmark scene on the cpu with blender average cpu temperature climbs to 37 degrees compared to other cases on the chart that's a more favorable result than the one from the combined torture workload with the td 500 mesh and the 4000d airflow tied at the same level of performance removing the gpu as a heat source which is what we're doing here benefits the cpu temperatures in the p360a implying that some hot gpu exhaust is getting pulled into the cpu cooler or the internal case ambient temperature is climbing and it has a little bit more trouble bringing it back down then in other cases using the gpu to render the same scene resulted in an average gpu temperature of 25 degrees over ambience more in line with the torture test results the mesh by 2 and the 4000 d averaged 24 degrees while the landfill 215 performs better than in the torture test and pulled the head with a 23 degree average overall these don't really change too much when it's a gpu only workload the fire strike extreme stress test we use is basically a gaming stand-in this is kind of what you could expect if you were playing a game rather than doing a torture test it gives us an idea of gpu temperatures with something closer to the gaming workloads and average gpu temperature in this test was 52 degrees close to the torture test average the td 500 mesh was ahead here at 49 degrees but the landfill 215 and 4000 d airflow tied at 51 fairly close to the p360a because the p360a is so small there's barely any wiggle room when installing two 140mm intake fans and a 120mm rear exhaust fan that made deciding on the placement for our set of standardized fans unusually easy cpu temperature with these fans installed lowered from 51 degrees down to 46 degrees celsius our standardized configuration has an exhaust fan while the stock p360a does not in comparison to other cases on the chart 46 degrees ties the p360a with the extremely similar p300a while the p400a averaged 44 degrees and the lancole 215 remains at the top of the charge with a 43 degree average in this test tv temperature actually climbed a few degrees with the altered airflow pattern up to 57 degrees average that makes it one of the warmest results on this chart tied with the sakira 500x and the non-mesh lancole 2 from leanne lee we're already aware that this case is capable of good thermal performance thanks to other cases we've just discussed this just isn't the ideal fan arrangement for this system in this case it's all going to depend on the configuration though for air cooled systems we'd recommend testing out the temperatures using the stock positive pressure only intake only layout as it may provide a better balance than other configurations with aftermarket fans one reason that this has happened in the past like in the nzx 500 cases is that the exhaust and intake patterns change surrounding the pcie slots especially where they're often perforated holes and other small slits in the case which can impact where air is drawn from for the gpu it might actually be coming from somewhere closer until you add an extra fan and change the pressure pattern finally for noise at 100 speed or approximately 1500 rpm with the stock fans the two 120 ml fans and the p360a resulted in a combined noise level of the system of 40 dba lowering that to 73 or 1200 to 1250 rpm achieved our target threshold for noise normalized testing of 36 dba at this fan speed average tv temperature wasn't significantly changed 51 degrees is tied with fraxel's mesh by 2 and the p400a while the lane called 215 retains a significant advantage at 47 degrees thanks to its big 200 ml intake fans despite the stifled actual intake area gpu temperature was slightly worsened up to 54 degrees average running the stock fans at 100 speed is past the point of diminishing returns and an equivalent level of performance is possible even with the fans reduced to an acceptable noise level the lane cool 215 and the p400a still outperformed it at 53 degrees and 52 degrees respectively but the p368 does well for a case with only two 120ml fans so our main criticisms of the p300a not the 60 were that it really just didn't have good enough airflow it didn't have enough fans that was the key takeaway from our review of that one but that was something that the user could resolve by adding a fan the p360a fixes that out of the box so this does in fact solve our main issue with the original there are a couple changes internally that we've gone over but nothing major and in contrast between the p300a and the p360a choosing between them we would at this point recommend the p360a it's a better deal than the p300a there's enough fans to actually make it perform reasonably well especially for a budget case where you have lower power components and the fans that are included are really not bad and the price isn't that much different either it was about ten dollars between the p300a and the p360 at the time of filming and if you're buying the p300a and then you're buying a fad you're basically at this price anyway so we do think that the p360a makes more sense than the p300a plus a fan purchase at this point if you have a fan lying around guess you could save 10 bucks somewhere but that'd be about the main difference as for the p400a digital if you're looking at basically only fantax products p4800a digital is more expensive it's also bigger so if the size of the 300 series is too small for your build then that forces you into the 400 series anyway it doesn't sound like a huge price jump but at 90 for the one that includes all the fans on that we've given awards in the past that's starting to be a large percentage increase versus the 70 or so of this one so if you are trying to stay closer to budget territory typically we like to see cases in what we call budget class around 50 maybe 60. so this is a step above that but if you're closer to that range and you can stretch a bit p360a makes sense while the p400a may be out of reach uh or just not make a lot of sense when you spend the 20 bucks on something that's maybe more important for your build like a core component so that's the the fan tech lineup p500a is sort of out of discussion it's too expensive comparatively it's fine for what it is but you're not buying that most likely if you're thinking about buying this because that's just doubling the budget at that point as for cases from other manufacturers the closest and strongest competitor in the sort of budget-ish mid-range space is the landcarl 215 it's 80 it's another step ten dollars above this one but it does perform well the magific is also frequently on sale now that's because it has been supplanted at this point by the meshfy two compact which we reviewed recently we have reviews for all these cases on the channel if you'd like to see them and we consider the mesh52 compact to be a better case overall we haven't mentioned it much here because it's a significantly higher price bracket it's a hundred and ten dollars but the reason to bring it up now is if you're looking at this and you like the small size of the case you're trying to think well i'd like to know what my options are if i had more money so that i know what the quality range looks like the meshify 2 compact would be the one to look at just to get an idea of what a more expensive case offers you in a similar size to this one and otherwise it's expensive enough to be out of the running comparatively so the p360a is the choice over the p300a the lane called 215 is a an extremely strong competitor has some advantages to it it's unique from a mechanical standpoint in some ways and then the measure by two compact would be the high end but that should pretty much wrap it up so p360a is looking pretty good it's solved the problems we had with the p300a without adding an absurd amount of cost now if fantax wanted to they could do an option with non-argb fans and probably bring the price down closer to 60 which would be awesome but that's not what this is so that's it for this one thanks for watching subscribe for more you go to store.gamersnexus.net if you'd like to grab one of our toolkits mouse pads mouse mats or modmats and you can also go to patreon.com gamersnexus for behind the scenes videos and q a videos thank you for watching subscribe for more we'll see you all next time

Channel: Gamers Nexus

Views: 200,724

Keywords: gamersnexus, gamers nexus, computer hardware, case reviews, cases, phanteks p360a, phanteks p360a review, phanteks p360a case review, budget gaming cases, cheap gaming cases, budget airflow cases, high airflow case, pc airflow case, best airflow cases, phanteks p300a vs p360a, phanteks p360a vs lian li lancool 215, phanteks p400a

Id: jkJxoATZyds

Length: 23min 2sec (1382 seconds)

Published: Mon May 03 2021