Xigmatek Pantheon Review

👤by David Mitchelson Comments 📅29-01-11
Conclusion

With the Pantheon being the first Xigmatek product review at Vortez I was intrigued to see how it would fare. It's reasonable to say that the Xigmatek is a good case but it does have some things that let it down slightly.

Firstly, its a nice looking case. It may not have the "wow" factor, but it does come with a nice feature-set. We are able to full equip the Pantheon with a water-cooling setup thanks to the top section of the case accommodating 240/280mm radiators. If water isn't your thing you can install 120/140mm fans instead. The Pantheon has tool-less design features throughout and the build quality of all items including the case is pleasing. We can also manage fan speed on up to 6 fans inside the Pantheon thanks to the front panel fan controller.

Where the Pantheon falls short is by its cable management. Fan cables are quite short and with the fan controller wiring also attached to each fan, tidying these cables away neatly is nigh on impossible. You cannot thread them behind the motherboard tray. These cables have to be routed across the motherboard as do the front USB 3.0 cable and E-ATX PSU cable because there is no spacing available to feed these cables away and out of sight. So if you are keen on cable management then this case will probably annoy you because there aren't enough options there to satisfy your needs.



Xigmatek have broken away from traditional airflow standards within the chassis and removed the front intake fan that you would typically find and attached 2 x 120mm fans to the sides of the HDD cage instead which effectively means there is no airflow being directed across the motherboard and out through the rear exhaust fan. In the results on the previous page we can clearly see that this has had a negative impact on CPU and motherboard temperatures.

Priced at around £80 Inc. VAT, I feel there are better options available if you look around. There are many cases that I could list that offer better cooling options and present us with improved cable management such as the CM HAF 912 Plus and CM 690-II Advanced. For a little extra we could even invest in a full tower case for this price.

The bottom line is the Pantheon is a good case but it could have better cable management options for the E-ATX (P4) and USB3.0 cables. The price-tag steers me away as there are better alternatives.

Pros
+ Good build quality
+ Nice features - tool-less throughout
+ Light (weight)
+ Great lighting
+ Fan control for up to 6 fans
+ Can water-cool

Cons
- Limited CPU cooler clearance
- Poor cable management
- Strange default cooling system
- Cables for fans not braided




10 pages « < 7 8 9 10

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