BitFenix Phenom Mini-ITX Review

Performance Analysis

Having built a PC into the Phenom, it became even more obvious how little by way of ventilation there is here. There's a small hole at the base and also the roof vent, but the front intake fan is clearly going to struggle to draw air in through the tiny vents in the side. There's also no side vents, meaning our graphics card isn't going to be too comfortable.

Looking at the numbers, it's not a terrible result but the Phenom was 11°C warmer on the CPU delta T and 9°C warmer on the GPU delta T than the mesh-fronted Prodigy. This is actually better than we were expecting given the poor ventilation and was enough to pitch the Phenom at mid to low table results in our graphs. However, given a typical ambient room temperature on top of these delta T numbers, things were clearly getting quite toasty in terms of absolute temperature with both the CPU and GPU topping 80°C.

However, the plus side is that not all the mediocre cooling is down to the lack of ventilation. The Phenom's fans were particularly quiet, and coupled with the closed-in design, there's little sound escaping from the case making it quieter than the Prodigy.


Conclusion

The Phenom is an intriguing take on the original Prodigy design that is clearly designed to do several things; do away with the Prodigy's features that many found irritating, and create a more refined and style-conscious case. Throw in a bit of noise reduction and you have a fairly attractive case for housing a mid-range PC.

However, that style does come at the expense of cooling, which is where the Phenom loses most of its points and why it loses out on an award. As such, we'd certainly advise caution if you plan on installing anything other than a mildly overclocked CPU and mid-range graphics card. Unless you plan to use an all-in-one liquid cooler or full-on water cooling, of course, although as our test cooler is fairly lowly too, even a decent tower cooler should be able to reign in most overclocks on an Intel K-series CPU.


The mini-ITX version of the Phenom is certainly well-featured and customisable too, but the poor front ventilation means that mounting radiators here is probably a no-no, or at least you'd see significantly better results mounting it in the roof, or indeed if you opted for a Prodigy instead. Looks-wise, though, the Phenom wins hands down and the white sample we received is particularly unique-looking.

However, we'd be more than a little interested to hear what BitFenix has in store by way of add-ons given that the front panel still clips on - perhaps a vented version in different colours with a 5.25in cut-out? In any event, if you're torn between the Phenom and Prodigy then BitFenix has yet another case in store, again available in mini-ITX and micro-ATX versions and using a similar layout. The Colossus M appears to have both the airflow and water-cooling prowess of the Prodigy and the more refined looks of the Phenom. We'll be taking a look at it very soon.