TR Forums

I guess I'm falling into the marketing and hype train on tempered and hell, even RGB right now.

I'm going to be doing a build that includes the 2700x, 16GB of RAM, 1TB M.2 among other things. I'm trying to find the right case for the system and really think I love the Phanteks Enthoo Evolv. Something about the subtle but not square front of the case really keeps me coming back to look at it. I'm not sure how I feel about the backside being tempered glass, where you will see wires and all run. I suppose I could go even more all out and go old school sleeves over the bundles of cables.

This is going to be for a customer who will use the box for audio and some video editing for a radio station (video for their website). She is retiring an older i7 system that started to give her trouble and it seemed like a great opportunity to give her something nice to look at as it will be sitting on a very large and wide desk. I even think perhaps taking the side panel to another customer of mine who does glass engraving and having the radio stations logo or something put on it would be fairly cool for when potential investors come in for meetings with them. It would light up fairly nice in something maybe like the Corsair Crystal 460x/570x on the front.

Anyhow, open to some ideas if anyone has experience with these. I was trying to keep the budget around $150ish. I'd even probably go upwards of $200 and eat some cost in my build fee just to see it look that much better.

I've built into all three sizes of the Evolv before, but before tempered glass was a thing.

The mITX one is cheap and nasty, but the mATX and ATX ones are top quality - all alloy chassis, great cable management and nice drive trays with vibration-damped mounts.

You will see the cabling on the backside, and I don't understand the double-sided tempered glass approach for this reason. I guess if you're getting one side etched you could get the other side dark-tinted, mirrored (on the inside) or something else to hide the spaghetti? The fan controller means that even if you make a minimum-drives build you're going to have several (probably unshrouded) fan cables snaking around behind the motherboard tray.

You could have them lightly sandblast the back panel so it gives the frosted look?

Spray paint the inside face of the back panel...I'd try it out on a practice piece of glass first (we've got a whole box of picture frames my wife doesn't use anymore), but I feel like any unsightly things, such as drips, would only be visible from inside (which is behind the mobo tray, so you wont see it unless you take the back panel off)

I love the looks of the Enthoo Evolv also.

Good feedback, I love the idea of either mirror tinting or fronting the panel. Painting glass takes way to much effort and requires a specific paint. I'm sure the right person could make it look really good.

I'm glad that I'm not the only one who finds the Evolv lines/case attractive.

On second look at the Corsair Crystal 570x, it's got way to many flaws for my taste. The 460x would be acceptable but I don't like the lack of a removable top bay like the 570x has.

Welch wrote:

mirror tinting or fronting the panel. Painting glass takes way to much effort

Here I thought my painting suggestion required the least effort and cost....oh well.

This Phanteks case is mATX and has very dark glass. You won't see wires in the back, and just in case you were looking, the SSD holders are front and center (on the back side), so you can be distracted by Crucial blue or Mushkin green. The case is surprisingly sturdy. The metal is a lot thicker than I thought 3mm would be. You can also position the case so that the back cannot be seen.

DPete27 wrote:

Welch wrote:

mirror tinting or fronting the panel. Painting glass takes way to much effort

Here I thought my painting suggestion required the least effort and cost....oh well.

Cost, maybe. Effort though would require you to use a really good paint or somehow make the surface a bit roughed up to accept the paint. You also mentioned the uniformity needing to be done right or you'd see the drips. Heat, dust and everything else would effect it long term. All around it has to be done right and it's much more work than applying a tint. Frosting would probably cost a bit as it requires you to take it somewhere to have it done.

Welch wrote:

Frosting would probably cost a bit as it requires you to take it somewhere to have it done.

Depends, how do you feel about a DIY experiment using glass etching cream?

ludi wrote:

Welch wrote:

Frosting would probably cost a bit as it requires you to take it somewhere to have it done.

Depends, how do you feel about a DIY experiment using glass etching cream?

Interesting idea... How consistent could that look? I know you can do something like a soda blaster too. I'm curious how tough those look and if you'd run the risk of shattering then more than I'm giving them credit.

If you're going to go to the trouble of etching the glass yourself, you should tape off a pattern before you start so that you can truly customize it.