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The major negative consequence of rotating the PSU is that vertical space is bizarrely limited given the size of the case. The O11 Dynamic cases deal with this problem by moving the PSU behind the motherboard, but the Enthoo Pro II must fit the full height of an ATX motherboard and the full width of an ATX PSU and shroud into a body approximately 55cm tall (minus legs), leaving whatever’s left over for fans, radiators, and cables. There’s only 3cm between the top edge of the motherboard and the roof of the case, and about 1.5cm from the bottom edge of the motherboard to the PSU shroud. Fan mounts at the top of the case are offset away from the motherboard to mitigate the problem, but it’s a jarring limitation to hit in one of the largest cases we’ve ever reviewed. Routing CPU power cables and fan connections to the top edge of the board isn’t any harder than it would be in a mid tower, but it’s a far cry from the huge wide-open space above the motherboard in the O11 Dynamic cases and even the Anidees AI Crystal. Conversely, space at the front of the case is wide open from top to bottom. For once, the full advertised length of the front radiator mount can be used easily, up to 480mm. This means that the Enthoo Pro II could be ideal for various scenarios, such as integrating two systems into one chassis for streaming, a dual system for busy professionals with the top system perfect for installing high-end desktop components maybe for video editing while utilising the bottom of the case for a mini-ITX gaming build.
For standardized fan testing, we used the same kit of Noctua fans we always do in the same configuration: two 140mm front intake and one 120mm rear exhaust. We chose the upper two slots for the intake fans. The average CPU temperature with this arrangement was 49 degrees Celsius over ambient, the first instance we’ve seen where the Pro 2’s thermal performance falters slightly. Taking one look at this fan arrangement makes the problem obvious: even though these 140mm fans would take up most of the front panel of a mid tower, they only cover a fraction of the cavernous interior of the Pro 2, and they’re far away from the CPU cooler. That said, performance isn’t that far behind the 46 degree baseline result, and it’s good-to-average relative to the rest of the standardized fan chart. The glass-fronted Corsair 465X RGB is tied at 49 Celsius, and the O11 XL is actually several degrees warmer at 54 Celsius thanks to the bottom-intake layout we had to use in that case. If going with an air cooler in this case, you’ll either want top intake or fans that can push a tunnel of air. While on the subject of cable cut-outs, another feature that Phanteks has implemented well in the Enthoo Pro II, there are additional cut-outs with grommets along the side of the top motherboard tray, towards the front of the case for managing fan/SSD cables, as well as above and below the top motherboard tray. At least in my experience, most clients buy "small" servers with 4-8 HDD/SSD, so it should be more than enough. More often, servers use 1-2 M.2/PCIe SSD, so even fewer SATA/SAS drives are in use.
How so?Mainly due to the side fans, the typical designed video cooler breaths from were the 3 fans will be pushing air against. You have the fans of your GPU blowing air or trying to blow air at your card and you have these 3 fans blowing at the output of the card. The Enthoo Pro 2 Server Edition offers extensive expansion capabilities with up to 11 PCI slots available allowing for the installation of multiple expansion cards, providing users with the freedom to customize their server setup to their liking. Phanteks Enthoo Pro 2 Server Edition You can get enough grip on the front panel to pull it off without having to lift the case, and this grants access to the magnetic front dust filter as well as the full-length bottom one, which slides out to the front and has a slot to make reinsertion as easy as possible. On the inside of the steel side panel, there are also magnetic filters covering the PSU intake area and the optional side fan-mount, and the external magnetic roof filter completes the picture – no area is left unguarded. Phanteks is using what it calls ‘high airflow dust filters’ for all locations except the roof, where a ‘regular’ (denser) filter is used to help combat dust falling in.
Other than the standard test suite, we did two more tests with the three 140mm intake fans: one without the filter, and one without the front panel or the filter. We tried doing these tests with the fans at full speed initially, but Phanteks’ 1500RPM SK fans pushed so much air that they erased any scaling, so that results with no front panel or filter were only one degree from baseline. That’s a promising result in itself, but we need to see some scaling, so we reran these tests with the fans set to the speed we used for noise normalized testing (45%). CPU Torture With so many options available, I expected there would be some limitations with the Enthoo Pro II. There are, but they are very minor and certainly wouldn’t stop me from parting with my own money to buy this case. The main area where the case could be improved is the width of the chassis. Adding maybe 20-30mm to the width would allow a little more breathing room for the vertically mounted GPU at the bottom, as well as a little more space for cable management behind the motherboard tray. That said, we didn’t have a problem with the cable management features of the case with the configuration of the system we installed. There are a generous amount of cable cut-outs, pre-installed Velcro straps and additional cable tie-down points to use with zip ties. Adding more hardware to the system would mean more cables, which could get a little tight with the space provided. The integrated power supply shroud is also very spacious which means slotting the PSU into position is a stress-free task. The addition of a flap to cover all the excess cables is a great idea and does its job very well, even with the additional cables of this dual system setup.The Phanteks Enthoo Pro II doesn’t come with any fans included, which isn’t too surprising given that you’re getting this much chassis at this price point. Every system built in this case will undoubtedly be totally different from another, and the enthusiast who dares take on this case will probably have their own ideas for how to cool their system. Dutch manufacturer Phanteks adds a new model to its high-end Enthoo range of PC cases. Now there is an Enthoo case to suit multiple requirements and price points. Another feature of the Enthoo Pro two is the option of running two power supplies inside the chassis. Using one of Phanteks own Revolt Pro power supplies, users can install a second unit into the case connected to the Revolt Pro to offer additional power for a single system or to be used for redundancy purposes in case of power failure To fully stress test the system, we will run AIDA64 for 15 minutes stressing CPU, FPU, Cache and GPU with the case in various configurations. With this data, we can compare how each scenario affects thermal performance. To the left of the front panel are four removable SSD covers that allow 2.5-inch drives to be mounted on either side. With all the SSD covers removed it opens up another mounting point for radiators and fans at the front of the case, with support here for up to 480mm radiators or four 120mm fans.
In the motherboard area, ATX mounts come pre-installed and include a lengthened central one to aid the initial positioning. In addition, there’s space enough for wider motherboards, including full and proper support for the SSI-EEB standard as well as any boards described as E-ATX (those between 244mm and 330mm (9.6” and 13”) wide. Meanwhile, CPU coolers fitted to motherboards are “limited” to being 195mm tall. The GPU temperature with 100% case fan speed averaged 44 degrees Celsius over ambient, and lowering fan speed to 45% only raised that delta to 47 degrees. Removing just the filter lowered it to 46 degrees, and removing both the filter and the front panel lowered it further to 45 degrees. We rarely have numbers that line up so neatly. A difference of only two degrees between having the front panel and filter on versus taking them off completely is an achievement, and it appears that the front panel really might be as breathable as advertised. Keep in mind that this is dependent on static pressure performance, and so we tested with the lower speeds to create a bigger challenge for the fans. If anything, this indicates that Phanteks doesn’t need to include the line about taking the filter out, since its impact on thermals is minimal. Radiator Mounting- 1x 120/140 mm, 1x Dual (280mm), 2x Triple (360mm),1x Triple (420mm), 2x Quad (480mm) Load testing is conducted using Prime95 LFFTs and Kombustor “FurMark” stress testing simultaneously. Testing is completely automated using in-house scripting, and executes with perfect accuracy on every run.
Specifications
The Phanteks Enthoo Pro 2 Closed will have room for all the components you need to make an extremely powerful PC build. It is compatible with motherboards up to SSI-EEB form factor. As well as that there are significant options for cooling from space for up to a maximum of 15 x 120 mm / 8 x 140 mm fans to room. If you want to fit water cooling elements, there is space for radiators as follows: Since the Phanteks Enthoo Pro II is designed to house two systems inside a single chassis, the best way to find any limitations with the case is to build a dual system inside. That is exactly what we will do, with a high-end desktop AMD Ryzen Threadripper build as the primary system in the top half of the case, accompanied by a mid-high end Intel Core i7-10700K mini-ITX gaming system in the compartment below.
Aesthetically, the Phanteks Enthoo Pro 2 Closed has an impressive almost industrial design. New for this model is a mesh front panel that is made from an innovative High-Performance fabric. This fabric-based mesh front panel offers improved filtering and airflow characteristics over traditional plastic or metal. It also features an angular pattern, which complements the clean lines of the case itself. Extensive internal capacity for components I like the idea that you can easily install multiple long PCIe cards and still have enough space for at least 8x HDD/SSD. 2x 3.5" spots on the bottom may interfere with long PSUs or their cables. In most cases that I have, drive bays near PSU are removed as they cause problems with installation. On pictures, almost all manufacturers show installation without cables and try to install there 1000W+ PSU with all the cables, so they won't have anything on the way. All temperature measurements are presented as Deltas – the ambient temperature has been deducted from the CPU/GPU temperature giving us a Delta. For bottom-mounted intake fans, there’s just under 3.5cm distance from the surface the case stands on to the floor of the case, with a few extra millimeters of clearance added by the removable fan/radiator tray. It’s a good tray, held in by a single captive thumbscrew which was torqued down so hard it warped the bottom of the case. The O11 XL has a similar amount of clearance, although the plastic trim along the bottom of the Enthoo Pro 2 makes it appear to be much less. Interference from the PSU shroud means that the tray can only fit a single 140mm fan, and there’s no room to spare on either side of 120mm fans. The section of the tray adjacent to the PSU shroud will not fit anything wider than 125mm at the very most. GN Case Testing Bench
Expansion space for more than a decade of hardware
Inside the PSU shroud is enough space to fit up to a 280mm long power supply, there are also anti-vibration pads along the bottom of the chassis and on the side of the PSU shroud for the power supply to rest up against, as well as a cable cut-out with a rubber grommet to route cables through into the bottom section of the case. Radiators and fans can also be installed in the roof of the case. Up to 360mm radiators or up to three 120mm/140mm fans can be fitted here too. However, unlike the Enthoo 719, there is no coolant fill port integrated into the top panel. Thermals are up next, but since our thermal test bench uses air cooling and the Enthoo Pro 2 is clearly competing with the O11 XL for the large liquid-focused case market, let’s take a moment and compare them on those terms. Lian Li O11 XL vs. Enthoo Pro 2 Radiator Show-Down The phankteks Enthoo Elite is their best Case ever, I built My PC with that case, and I can tell you: It worths every dollar.
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