Phanteks Eclipse P300 Review

Manufacturer: Phanteks

UK price (as reviewed): £54.95 (inc. VAT)

US price (as reviewed): Currently unavailable

The P300 is the second case from Phanteks to join its budget-friendly Eclipse family. It comes in at £55, but you still get the tempered glass and RGB lighting that everyone seems so keen on right now. These typically aren’t cheap to include (although they do seem to be coming down in price), so hopefully we won’t see too many sacrifices elsewhere as a result of them being present.

The P300 is a bog standard albeit fairly compact mid-tower with support for ATX hardware. Flat, clean panels and sharp lines are the name of the game as far as aesthetics go, and you can see through the tempered glass side panel that Phanteks has again gone for the modern design of having a full-length PSU cover, the outer section of which makes up the bottom part of the left side panel, reducing the amount of tempered glass needed. The actual glass panel has a small black border but otherwise affords a great view of the case’s main cavity.

Front panel connectors are the standard selection, and it’s good to see that dual USB 3.0 ports have been retained. Phanteks does away with the reset button and HDD activity indicator, though, and instead has an RGB LED control button. The controller, like those on other Phanteks cases, can flick the onboard lights – the ring around the power button and a small strip at the front of the left side panel wedged between the glass and steel sections – through 10 colours (and off). You can connect further Phanteks RGB products to the internal wires, while an optional £4 wire lets you control the lighting with Asus, MSI, or Gigabyte RGB motherboard headers instead of the onboard controller.

The plastic front panel has a steel exterior and is solid for a clean look, but it does have grilles at the top and down below so that air can enter if you choose to occupy one or both of the 140mm/120mm front fan mounts. These are both backed by dust filters as well. Elsewhere, the case is hewn from steel; it may not be as thick as on high-end cases, but it's easily good enough for the price.

An additional fan mount is found in the roof, and again it can occupy either 140mm or 120mm fans. Sensibly, an external magnetic fan mount is fitted here as well. The fourth and final fan mount is the standard rear exhaust position, this time limited to 120mm but occupied out of the box. You can adjust the height of this fan using the mounting struts to better align with your CPU cooler. The Eclipse P300 is not a high-airflow chassis, then, but modern hardware is unlikely to suffer too much.

A quick look at the bottom reveals that the P300 stands on foam feet rather than the preferred rubber, but this isn't a big deal considering the price. This is also where you'll find the final dust filter, a slide-out one that protects the PSU and completes the package as far as dust protection goes.

Specifications

• Dimensions (mm) 200 x 400  x 450 (W x D x H)
  
• Material Steel, plastic, tempered glass
  
• Available colours Black
  
• Weight ~6kg
  
• Front panel Power, 2 x USB 3.0, headphone, microphone, LED control
  
• Drive bays 2 x 3.5"/2.5", 1 x 2.5"
  
• Form factor(s) ATX, micro-ATX, mini-ITX
  
• Cooling 1 x 120mm rear fan mount (1 x 120mm fan included), 2 x 140mm/120mm front fan mounts, 1 x 140mm/120mm roof fan mount (fans not included)
  
• CPU cooler clearance 160mm
  
• Maximum graphics card length 330mm
  
• Extras Removable dust filters, RGB LED expansion cable