Phanteks P500A Airflow Case Review: Thermals, Build Quality vs. TD500, O11 Dynamic, P400A

the fantex p400 a digital was our winner for best case overall for 2019 and our winner for best airflow for 2019 so it won in two categories and we've recommended it all the way up until now today we're reviewing the fan tax P 500 a which is a dual system capable case that still goes for high airflow in the front so they've got one layer of ultra fine mesh they have three fans in the front and it's very clearly airflow driven for this case but it also has the extra features and a heavy focus on build quality and ease of installation so the case should come out priced to around $130 which makes it potentially very compelling and we're here to review it before that this video is brought to you by us and our brand new gamers Nexus wireframe mouse mat aside from being the best way to directly support our long-form investigative reporting you can also get a custom made high quality mouse mat made with a high detail 3d design that we created to show off heat sinks coolers of video cards and more the mouse mat uses a stitch to blue border for added longevity a blue rubber underside for unique Flair and a microfiber cloth first smooth tracking the mat is 36 inches by 12 inches and fits a keyboard and mouse easily we sold out of the first run in 48 hours but have more getting made right now to backorder your mouse mat and ensure you get one in the next run Nakota store gamers nexus net and backorder yours while reducing our reliance on advertisers or click the link in the description below the P 400 a did really well in testing the P 300 a when we visited that one that's the 60-ish dollar case sometimes it drops to 50 but our biggest gripe with that one was it didn't include enough stock fans and our belief is that at especially the lower end the case manufacturer should take it upon themselves to include the fans because despite how many people in the comments like to say that they by fans with their system the fact of the matter is that at a budget like that the manufacturer is going to beat the price and you can get and it's extremely likely that the fans they include will be adequate for most of the audience so not talk about enthusiasts core audience here so we thought they didn't include enough fans it did find that once you added the extra say 10 to $15 to add one to two cheaper 120ml fans but at that point so under $60 it's 70 75 maybe $80 and that was with a lot of other stuff so that was the p300 day now we're back to see if fan tax has gotten back on track with its p 508 digital there's two versions of this case one of them has the three fans RGB II all of that stuff if you care about it and then the other one is a stripped down version of the case fewer fans and a bit cheaper so that would be the option to buy if you want to supply your own fans we've got some numbers for you for that as well so that base model comes with two 140 Mill fans that are non RGB fan tax calls its fans D RGB meaning just addressable RGB this has three of them that's really the core difference the lighting is compatible with three pin 5 volt headers used by Asus MSI asrock and while whoever else uses 3 pin 5 volt headers but other than the fans the only other really lighting to speak of is a strip at the top of the front panel and then a strip along the edge of the power supply shroud both lit up and they have a built-in controller with baked and lighting profiles and then a D RGB version the reset button becomes a lighting change button so that's really the differences between the two cases we need to go through a lot of build notes on the build quality of this thing pricing agains a $130 MSRP we're filming this about a month before launch they gave it to us way in advance so we'll see how that shakes out on review date but let's get into it an unusual amount of effort has gone into the cable management system behind the motherboard tray towards the front of the case the wide cable management channel is covered with extremely long velcro straps that are screwed into the chassis this channel has three centimeters of clearance for cables while the other areas behind the motherboard tray have just over 2 centimeters the screws divide each strap into two halves each of which loops around a hook that's built into the chassis critically these hooks are open so the straps can be slipped on and off without having to thread them through tiny holes painstakingly this solves one of the most frustrating aspects of the normal cable tie points the straps are placed both at the front of the case and at the top edge of the power supply chamber which covers almost every location that power supply cables must be routed credit is due for an exceptional job here the power supply shroud is also extremely roomy since the hard drive cages aren't installed out of the box but even when they are installed they can be positioned forward to leave a old management room or at least cable hiding room a recurring theme with fan tax cases especially the more expensive ones is that their feature-rich to fault the point that it starts costing more money to the consumer even if it doesn't really seem like it would much like the evolve X the P 500 a has a slot in the rear for an ITX bracket purchased separately to be fair but that allows dual system support when combined with a compatible power supply purchased also separately reinforcing this feature is a vertical GPU mount with a riser cable purchased separately that can be used to hold a discrete GPU for the secondary system if desired while the primary system is the normal horizontal brackets we can't be too harsh here because these are optional add-ons they didn't come with the one we're reviewing but hardly anyone will actually install a secondary system in this case so we'd caution against one important thing which is reading too far into a bullet list that sounds like it's adding more and more features that make it competitive against other cases when you're not actually going to use said features so there are some legitimate users of such configurations but they're rare and if you're one of them cool just don't account for all these features if it's not a dual system you're building a lot of people also like the idea of dual system builds but we generally advise against it in these more cramped enclosures it can work but you can read our evolve X review for more thoughts on dual system testing thermals and just assembly in general where we said we can't be too harsh about some of the previous notes we can be a little more harsh about a returning feature from the evolve X the sliding cable covers at the front of the case and on top of the power supply shroud we brushed them off with the line quote these aren't especially useful in our evolve extra view and they still are they're over complicated they're probably expensive and as covers their function is literally to get in the way that's the definition of its job and it does that to a fault as well in addition the way the stock fan and LED cables are routed means that they can be potentially guillotined by the cable covers if they're slightly out of place if fan tax is ever looking for a way to cut costs this is the place to start the hard drive brackets that fan tie includes what the case are a better investment the brackets latch on to each other without screws and it can be stacked too high at three different locations under the power slice route as many as four could be installed simultaneously although only two are included with the case there are also mounting locations for six more brackets behind the cable covers moving to the outside of the case for a moment the glass panel uses one of the best attachment mechanisms it's a hinge with magnets to hold it closed the door lifts right off of the hinges the hinge points are of unequal length so that the panel is easier to line up and reinstall and there are rubber strips around the edge of the glass for cushioning and sealing the panel fan tax has done almost everything right here with minor exceptions first there's not really any handle to pull on although there is a thin cutout on the front of the panel that allows some grip for this second the panel isn't supported at the bottom edge and can droop slightly leaving some gaps and finally we'd like to see a screw for the glass panel somewhere to secure it just while moving the case rather than relying purely on the magnets if you're going to move the case around or pick it up and relocate it we definitely advise taking the panel off just one for safety and two to avoid any swinging door mistakes that could end up with the case damaged the other side is a great example of how to make a panel out of a sheet of steel without having it be a complete pain in the ass the sheet metal is thick the tabs that hook into the case are short and therefore sturdier the holes they insert into are large and harder to miss and there are only tabs on two sides of the panel three at the front and two on the top this may not sound exciting but it's innovation in an area which matters this is a real improvement over the p400 a and it's an improvement over a lot of cases that rely on the older design where you end up bending or torquing the tabs that hold things in place or needing for hands and a chin to install the panel the front panel has a u-shaped design stamped into it which we were told that CES was potentially as reinforcement to prevent the front extra-wide mesh panel from flexing the panel attaches to the chassis with a ball and cup snap like other cases in the series but uses plastic posts molded into the frame of the panel instead previously these were metal posts tacked onto the edge of the metal mesh the new method is probably cheaper but seems just as sturdy in our short term testing as with the p400 a and the P 300 a fan taxi is the ultrafine metal mesh but with no additional filter behind it which allows for better airflow and is what we want to see as the companies done in the past with other premium cases fantex shifts the screws from the P 500 a sorted into an organizing tray it's just a plastic box but without being hyperbolic this is one of our all-time favorite case accessories we have drawers and drawers full of extra screws probably enough that we could bag them up and ship them out with our store items if we wanted to but most users buy cases infrequently and will need to keep track of the original hardware for potential years NZXT executed this idea way back in the day with the fans I'm 820 in similar cases but in what's probably a painful note for NZXT phantom seems to have clued in to the idea the plastic screw case is great for this and it can be kept and reused even after the P 500 a is long gone the rear ejecting power supply frame is good as well but the rear ejecting Barriss y filter not so much because the filter is relatively short it's not a big deal but having filters that are easily accessible encourages more regular cleaning as for the form factor the usual statement about so-called ei TX cases applies here this case will support motherboards that line up with the CEB form factor but not s si EE B so it's not really appropriate to say that it supports EI TX since that's a made up form factor that doesn't mean anything s si si EB is the actual motherboard support one strange aspect of the P 500 a in contrast to other cases with triple RGB fans that we've reviewed including the fan Tech's own P 400 a digital is that the stock fans are installed inside the chassis behind the fan mounts typically manufacturers choose to put their fans in front of the fan mounts to avoid obstructing the lighting effects we knew there must have been a reason to choose the layout that they did maybe thermals or noise problems with certain airflow patterns moving the fans to the outside of the chassis though revealed the actual issue they just don't fit the panel is just deep enough to fit standard 25 mil thick case fans at the top and widens toward the bottom so there are no issues there but the usable area for the fans inside of the panel is only about thirty seven and a half centimeters tall this is about three and a half centimeters shy of the height of all three fans stacked on top of each other we suspect there may have been an oversight or a change in plans late in development many of the images fantex sent in the reviewer guide actually depict the case with three fans installed on the front of the chassis but this is not an accurate representation of what the case looks like the real case still looks fine but keep this in mind when looking at the product listing for water cooling fan tax advertises for 20ml radiator support in the front of the case but users should be aware that both the fans and the radiator must be mounted inside the chassis as usual we wouldn't recommend mountain 420 or 360 mil CLC's in the front of the case anyway since they'll only easily fit tubes up the sliding cable covers may also conflict with radiator clearance but those can be removed the top radiator and fan mounts are offset away from the front mounts by about six and a half centimeters so there should be enough room to use the front and top mounts simultaneously without conflict depending on your radiator solutions usually top mounts are offset to one side to help clear the motherboard and ramp but fan tax hasn't bothered here since there's more than seven centimeters of clearance between the top edge of the motherboard and the top of the case the entire top panel is removable which isn't really necessary given how much room there is to work in it but it may make it easier to install liquid cooling a secondary system or critically to not cut your hands up when you're trying to get the EPS 12 volt cable plugged in removable fan and radiator mounts are always a good thing we just wish that the power supply shroud were removable as well finally it's time to get into the thermal and noise testing we stuck mostly to usual test suites for this case we had plans to do an additional test with the stock fans mount to the to the chassis to find out why fantex didn't use this configuration but as we said earlier we answered our own question when the fans didn't fit instead we did a tasked with an extra 120mm exhaust fan tossed in and a test with just two of the 140 ml stock fans arranged in an attempt to emulate the stock P 500 a non-digital to do this we left the center intake fan alone move the one fan to the rear exhaust slot and then removed the last one entirely just to give us one more representation on the charts we'll start with just the P 500 a and P 400 a on the charts then add the rest baseline CPU temperature was 50 degrees Celsius over ambient under a torture workload which was lowered to 47 degrees over ambient by removing the front panel this is a mesh fronted case so it's expected to be that the front panel isn't obstructive but a difference of three degrees between a front panel on and open air is an achievement for fan text adding an exhaust fan behind the CPU cooler had a similar effect to removing the front panel with an average of 47 degrees Celsius over ambient meanwhile emulating the P 500 a non digital span configuration resulted in an average torture CPU temperature of 51 degrees the single intake fan used for this configuration was positioned directly in front of the GPU so it would hopefully push cool air both above and below to split the air between the CPU and GPU somewhat equally normally this is an unpleasant compromise and cases like the mesh of icy suffer from mediocre stock thermals with too few case fans trying to do too many things here the result we measured with two fans was almost as good as the stock result with one the P 400 a stock case is within two degrees of the P 500 a digital stock results while the test without a front panel comes down a few more degrees this is benefited in part by a shorter distance in front to back airflow for the cases comparatively 50 degrees Celsius over ambient for the CPU is good as compared to the rest of the cases we are currently displaying on this truncated chart but it's not the equal of the stock P 400 a which averaged 48 degrees Celsius over ambience the coolermaster TD 500 was one degree warmer and so is almost every other stock configured case for that matter being beaten by the p400 a is a regular occurrence and if this were any other case we wouldn't really sweat it but the P 580 needs to compete with its sibling fortunately they're basically with invariance or error of each other or very close to it the differences can largely be attributed to some changes of distance and slight changes in the front panel the GPU temperature was 48 degrees Celsius over ambient baseline down to 46 degrees with the front panel removed which is another sign that the fantex a single layer front panel design is working adding the exhaust fan behind the CPU got temperature down to 47 degrees rounded but the temperature reduction was less than 1 degree well with an error the average for the non digital layout was still just 49 degrees although GPU frequency does fluctuate a bit more it's proven to be difficult at this point to make the thermals bad in this case at all even with one of the fans removed compared to the other cases 48 degrees Celsius is excellent beating the P 400 a slightly and landing them on the best GPU thermals we've measured yet in this test it's tied with the likes of the silverstone our v02 competition is tight here with the TD 500 only a couple degrees warmer at 50 degrees but the P 500 a maintains a lead against most of the cases on even the truncated chart we measured the noise level to be 40 4.8 DBA at our standardized 220 inch distance measured at 26 DB for the noise floor with all three case fans at max speed that's loud overall fan tax stock 140 ml fans are a reason for that they're listed at 1500 rpm plus or minus the usual 10% and even though we only saw them hitting about 1300 rpm in our testing or 1320 when measured with a physical tachometer that's still a full set of large fans we've been very fast right against the front of a case with nothing to block them but a rectangle of mesh this is comparable to the noise generated by a Silverstone rv0 - at full speed as well in order to bring them down to the 36 DBA threshold that we used for noise normalization we had to set their speed to about 50% or about 870 rpm as reported by software these aren't PWM fans so 50% doesn't mean a literal 50% decrease in rotations per minute while we're on the subject of fans the P 500 A's fan motors seems to get warm under load even without the LEDs activated this is however anecdotal since we don't ever measure fan temperature as part of our testing but it's something to keep an eye on if the case fans are expected to run at full speed 24/7 for the life of the case next up is noise normalized testing where we equate the combined case fan and fixed cooler fan noise levels to the same 36 DBA total at 20 inches of distance this number allows us to look at case efficiency with fewer variables the only speed were changing here versus the baseline tests is in the case fans so we've removed that one aspect where some cases will brute-force the speeds and others won't we move this section forward in the testing from its usual place because of how impressive the p500 a spur formance was here we don't want to bury the lead by leaving this for later and it's an important result C via temperature at the lower noise level was 50 degrees over ambient not significantly higher than the baseline torture result we can assume a 1 degree ish margin of error or test variance but no matter what it's still a huge achievement the p 500 a was already competitive at 50 degrees on the normal CV of torture chart against other cases with their fans at full speed and on the noise normalized chart it's at the absolute top the previous champion was the fans XP 408 RGB rounded to 51 degrees CPU DT but within one degree of the P 500 A's average on the same chart but highlighting GPU temperatures instead the GPU Delta was also 50 degrees it's a couple degrees warmer than the torture test base line but still impressively close again this is one of the best GPU temperature results we've gotten on this chart and out of the case is configured with only stock fans it is the best it's tied with the $35 on de up which as a fan pointed straight at the GPU despite otherwise being sort of a comical case to be at the top of a chart someday manufacturers will remember that they can put fans on the sides of cases but for now that victory belongs to Zonda but not that Zonda the P 500 a beat both the P 400 a and the TD 500 mash by two degrees and some change in this test this amount of cooling at this noise level is incredible and nearly all the cases that do well in this test are high airflow cases and that's because often times it's better for noise if you can get an open case and bring down the fan rpm it's rather than running higher rpms to try and overcome the thicker case panels with all the phone open cases can afford to run their fans at lower speeds and they therefore often end up quieter than the sealed off cases CBO temperature for the blender CPU exclusive render was 36 degrees over ambient tied with the high performance be quiet 500 DX case and the cooler master aged 500 blanc mesh the TD 500 case and the P 400 a were slightly warmer even though the P 400 a was ahead in the original torture test this may indicate that the CPUs temperature is being more affected by GPU heat and the P 500 A's torture testing which isn't an issue as much in this at lighter workload using the GPU to render raised at GPU temperature to 21 degrees Celsius over ambient the lowest result on this chart so far and that puts it ahead of even cases with direct GPU cooling like the SL 600 app the B 400 a was 2 degrees warmer in this test the CPU temperature here was also cooler than the P 400 days although the TD 500 mesh has them both beaten in this category the 3dmark firestrike extreme task resulted in an average GPO temperature with an error of the baseline result of 47 degrees that result is just as impressive in this test again nearly equalling the performance of the SL 600 app which has to 200ml fans at the bottom pointed straight into the GPU cooler the TD 500 mash and P 408 I'd here at 49 degrees Celsius the P 500 a is great at both CPU and GPU cooling so far but GPU cooling is where it really pulls ahead of fantex own older cases our next testing is with standardized fans in all cases which has a number of important caveats and shortcomings methodologically that we've pointed out in the past this was highly viewer requested so we added it but please educate yourself on the limitations of this test by clicking the link to our research piece below these standardized fan results are more useful if they're treated as results for the P 518 on digital no one should be buying the digital variant with the intention of swapping out the digital part of it the argb fans when they could just instead buy the P 518 on D for $30 less CPU temperature with the standardized fans was 44 degrees over ambient even better than baseline this hasn't always been true in our tests of similar cases but the p500 a is large enough that an exhaust fan can be beneficial by focusing cooling where it's needed 44 degrees ties it with the p4 today for the best results on the chart so far which makes sense identical fans similar front panel design it's where it should be G via temperature averaged 47 degrees in this test rounding to one degree lower than baseline but in reality it's almost exactly the same that ties it with the Coolermaster TD 500 mesh and is beaten only by the cases with direct GPU coin we place two the two 140 mm intake fans as low as possible without going below the level of the power splash shroud to effectively balance CPU and GPU coin and the result is overall slightly better than baseline it's not enough to really matter overall the results show that the cooling potential the P 508 matches so the best that we've tested and then on top of that the stock fans are good enough to take advantage of the potential Patrick and I both think that this case is really good build quality the thermals are highly competitive Patrick wrote most of the review almost the entire review of this build section the thermal section so we are in agreement that this case for the price is a good thermal performer it's the chart topper and a few of the charts it's exceptional and noteworthy primarily for its noise normalized performance meaning you said all the cases to the same noise level with their included fans and this one comes out on top that's a big victory and that's why we pulled that chart forward and then review this time so versus the P 400 a it's a bit bigger it has dual system support that's not something we think a lot of people will use and you can watch our evolve x review you probably should for our thoughts on dual systems in a case of similar size our testing revealed that even with the two 140 mm fans we used for the buyer self approach performance remains good and competitive so you go either way we'd recommend the d RGB version over the base model but if you really want to supply your own fans it's a decent starting point so then at 100 dollars the non-digital it's fine but the one we find the most interesting is $130 d RGB version it's direct competitors would be things like the coolermaster h5 series specifically the mesh variants so you'd be looking at the H 500p mesh which is the white case you'd be looking at the H 500 Blanc no letter at the end mesh comes with acrylic and mash put the mesh one in there and then I guess that's that's mostly it from coolermaster side so those are similarly priced within the ballpark anyway for other cases the P 400 a digital obviously is a direct competitor to this from fan tax looks about the same bit smaller a bit cheaper the LeAnn leo 11 dynamic makes a lot of sense as well similarly priced that's a supplier own fans case but has superb build quality and is one of the highest build quality cases we've worked with in recent years other competitors would include the recently reviewed cooler master TD 500 mesh it's a bit cheaper than this one actually it's about $30 cheaper same price as the the base model P 500 a so these are all good thermal performers they're close enough that really you're choosing on looks and other small features at that point and we've gone through all those in the reviews so that's it for this one overall the P 500 a we would say is a good case it is in terms of throwing walls one of the best cases in terms of build quality it has advanced versus fan tax previous cases especially the very old tooling from the P 400 so it's it's good if you want to buy it then cool we don't really have any problems with that there's also a lot of competition though for some reason you don't like how it looks or it's missing something so we've listed those for you that's it for this one though thank you for watching subscribe for more go to store documents axis net to helps out directly or patreon.com slash gamers in excess and we'll see you all next time [Music]

Channel: Gamers Nexus

Views: 524,120

Keywords: gamersnexus, gamers nexus, computer hardware, cases, case reviews, best cases, best airflow cases, pc case benchmarks, phanteks p500a benchmarks, phanteks p500a review, phanteks p500a vs lian li o11 dynamic, phanteks p500a vs p400a, phanteks p500a vs cooler master td500, phanteks p500a vs cooler master h500

Id: G835LGHpeoI

Length: 26min 21sec (1581 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 10 2020