Page 3 - Physical Look - Inside
The front panel of the Phanteks Eclipse P400S Tempered Glass Edition is made out of one piece of metal. It not only provides nice and clean look, but also it is very functional. There are two major design highlights. First, as you can see from the above picture, the flip side of the front panel has a layer of acoustic material attached. Second, two dust filters are provided at the bottom and top of the front panel to make sure that the air pumped in the case is clean. The two dust filters are removable to allow easy cleaning. The full metal front panel of the Phanteks Eclipse P400S Tempered Glass Edition can be attached to the case frame firmly by using six ball joint clips. It allows the front panel to be easily removed. However, the clips cannot withstand higher forces compared to screws. If you want to move the fully loaded computer case by pulling the front panel, it may be detached from the case. Of course, this is intentional for quick removal. I may be an exception, but I am the kind of person who would like to use bolts, screws, or even rivets to make sure everything is firmly fixed. However, if the installation convenience is your concern, the six ball joint clips are great, since they do provide reasonable amount of strength to hold the front panel to its position.
After removing the tempered glass side panel, you can see the internal design of the Phanteks Eclipse P400S. To be consistent with the exterior, the interior of the case is also painted matte black and white. The paint is sprayed evenly inside the chassis. At bottom of the case, there is a PSU chamber with ventilation holes on top. The other side of the PSU chamber is actually the side panel. Not only is it designed to accommodate the power supply, the chamber is also the place for you to put up to two 3.5" HDDs. The white power supply chamber and four of the white plastic covers for the extra HDDs wiring reinforce the color contrast of the "special edition black/white" design. The cool air for the power supply can be blown into the case through the dust filter protected ventilation holes at the bottom of the case directly. If your Phanteks Eclipse P400S Tempered Glass Edition is fully loaded with fans, graphics cards, and long radiators, cool air can be pumped by the fans of up to 360mm radiators into the chassis through the air filter at the front panel, hit the graphics card, and be expelled out through the exhaust grille at the top panel. If the user only plans to use a small radiator or just a CPU heatsink with the top ventilation grille covered, the hot air can be expelled out through the rear exhaust grille on the back panel. 5.25" drive bays are not present in the Phanteks Eclipse P400S Tempered Glass Edition, and this is to reduce airflow obstructions. It will be inconvenient for those people who want to use a CD/DVD drive. The only solution is to buy an external one and connect it by USB, but let us be honest here, it is 2017 already.
As a mid-tower that pushes the size envelope, the Phanteks Eclipse P400S Tempered Glass Edition can support ATX sized motherboards, and of course, smaller boards such as micro ATX and mini ITX. All six motherboard risers are screwed on to the tray already from the factory. Users do not need to apply any other risers according to the size of motherboard that will be used. After bolting the motherboard into position, the heatsink or water cooler block can then be easily installed and removed, thanks to the big rectangular opening on the tray. From the above photo, you can see there is a fan from the factory on the Phanteks Eclipse P400S Tempered Glass Edition’s rear exhaust opening. If the user wants to use a closed loop water cooler system, it requires an extra step to install the radiator directly onto the chassis, which is to remove the preinstalled fan. The expansion slot covers of this chassis feature slotted holes to allow better ventilation, but I would prefer it to be a solid piece for better dust prevention, since I really doubt it makes a significant difference to just have several small holes here.
This photo clearly shows the details of the PSU chamber. The PSU is mounted horizontally, therefore the center of gravity of the computer could be low. Power cables can get through the back of the PSU chamber and be rerouted into the motherboard area through the two slots with rubber grommets. In the above picture, you can see one of the two slots with rubber grommets. The ventilation holes on top of the PSU chamber further enhance the airflow for the power supply. Under the part of PSU chamber that has no ventilation holes, there is the rack for two 3.5" HDDs. I will talk about this later when the picture of the flip side of the computer case is presented.
5.25" drive bays have been on personal computers since early 1980s. Now it is the time to get rid of them, since we have the internet, and for everything else we cannot, there are USB flash drives, which can be used for installing the operating system. As such, the Phanteks Eclipse P400S Tempered Glass Edition has no 5.25" drive bays. I like this design a lot, since it means better airflow and a generally cleaner appearance. From the above photo, it can be seen the place has enough room for up to four removable 2.5" SSD/HDD trays attached to the case. However, they are not provided by the Phanteks. The case can fit graphics cards up to 355 mm long. For those long and heavy graphics cards, no accessory GPU holder for additional support is available in the Phanteks Eclipse P400S Tempered Glass Edition.
Upon removing the right side panel, you will see the other side of the PSU chamber and the motherboard tray. You do not need to worry about the cooling of the power supply, since on the top and bottom sides of the PSU chamber are holes and grilles to guarantee ventilation. Two 3.5" HDD trays are located to the left side of the PSU chamber for easy installing and removing of the hard drives. For the 2.5" drives, you just need to screw it on to the tray and use the clips to attach it to the back of the motherboard tray. Regarding cable management, Phanteks did a fairly good job here as there are tons of room for cables. Between the motherboard tray and the right side panel, the room for cable routing is about 2.5 cm, which is more than enough even for thick cables. According to the above picture, three pieces of Velcro straps with the Phanteks logo are included for better cable management. By the way, there are two openings with rubber grommets right below the bunch of cables. Your PSU power cable for motherboard can be safely routed to the other side of the motherboard tray.
Generally speaking, the interior design of the Phanteks Eclipse P400S Tempered Glass Edition is pretty good. All of the components you need for building a computer can be nicely accommodated and kept cool. The paint job quality of the interior is also great. More importantly, you do not to be an expert to route cables to do a good job, since there are three Velcro straps to keep you cable routing neat.
Page Index
1. Introduction, Packaging, Specifications
2. Physical Look - Outside
3. Physical Look - Inside
4. Installation and Conclusion
