Phanteks NV5, 7 & 9 (+D30 fans)

Soldato
Joined
29 May 2005
Posts
4,899
Got 9 fans - no issues here all working fine.

One corner piece was hard to clip in but managed it after a bit more “effort”

Generally speaking, impressed with the packaging and the quality of the fans.

The clip systems are really clever and seemed to be extremely robust.

The only gripes I have are the cover pieces to hide the bolt holes - they aren’t as secure…can come loose during installation of radiators.
 
Last edited:
Soldato
Joined
29 May 2005
Posts
4,899
I better check mine, I'm planning the build and measuring up for Rads, like a few builds on YouTube, I think top and bottom 360s would be optimal and have side (and) rear as intakes for good airflow over the vrms and motherboard.
Optimum air flow for cases like NV7 would be side and bottom intake with top and rear as exhaust.

I currently got side and bottom as intakes and top as exhaust. The case whole system is super quiet even under full synthetic cpu and GPU stress tests.

You shouldn’t be worrying about VRM on motherboard as capable VRM don’t get hot enough to throttle perf.
 
Soldato
Joined
22 Oct 2002
Posts
8,272
Location
Near Cheltenham
Optimum air flow for cases like NV7 would be side and bottom intake with top and rear as exhaust.

I currently got side and bottom as intakes and top as exhaust. The case whole system is super quiet even under full synthetic cpu and GPU stress tests.

You shouldn’t be worrying about VRM on motherboard as capable VRM don’t get hot enough to throttle perf.
Thanks, if it was just VRMs, I'd be fine, but it's the combination of 4 x NVME drives and the VRMs that leads to quite a lot of interior heat if I don't get the air flow right.

However, you are right, side/bottom intake and top/rear exhaust in most cases is traditionally a good starting point, however, if you have multiple radiators, then Phanteks and Corsair and several people who've tried will all say that all rads as exhaust is optimal for cooling (especially internals) allowing lower fan speeds, but it can be a pain for dust running a negative pressure setup. I've had this experience on bottom/top rads on O11D builds, but with the Nv7, the raised bottom sled will not allow efficient exhausting, so I am also dubious if that would work at all.

I have enough fans to quickly try the different combo's, I'm really just talking about the bottom rad as intake or exhaust, the side will always be intake, the top always exhaust, the rear I can switch around as well, ideally with 6 exhaust (through rads) and 5 intake (no rads) I can keep pressure either balanced or maybe slightly positive.

I've tried one set of D30's quickly and they worked, looking good and just comparing to the RGB EK Fans on this temporary CR360 Lux AIO, they are much better in terms of air flow/pressure and noise with the RGB being on a whole other level.

I can also see how there is plenty of scope to get things wrong, it is critical the 'input' cable goes to the corner labelled as 'input' and you daisy chain them the right way around, I found attaching the cable to the corner of one much harder and it didn't sit flush making it easy to come away, that was a bit intermittent, so just swapped the fans around and it was then fine, with the bridge pieces being much more forgiving!
 
Last edited:
Soldato
Joined
22 May 2010
Posts
11,884
Location
Minibotpc
Got 9 fans - no issues here all working fine.

One corner piece was hard to clip in but managed it after a bit more “effort”

Generally speaking, impressed with the packaging and the quality of the fans.

The clip systems are really clever and seemed to be extremely robust.

The only gripes I have are the cover pieces to hide the bolt holes - they aren’t as secure…can come loose during installation of radiators.

I found mine to be really snug, no issues with them feeling like its gonna fall off. Might be tolerances in manufacturing that needs adjusting.
 
Soldato
Joined
22 May 2010
Posts
11,884
Location
Minibotpc
got 2 hooked up to my XProto L and damnnn it shifts some air at 800-950rpm while being totally silent. It's shifting that much air that im getting cold on one side of my body LOL.

Lovely sturdy fans and weigh abit too! So far really impressed with them. Might need to redesign my fan bracket so i can show them off abit more.
 
Soldato
Joined
22 Oct 2002
Posts
8,272
Location
Near Cheltenham
got 2 hooked up to my XProto L and damnnn it shifts some air at 800-950rpm while being totally silent. It's shifting that much air that im getting cold on one side of my body LOL.

Lovely sturdy fans and weigh abit too! So far really impressed with them. Might need to redesign my fan bracket so i can show them off abit more.
I was going to put a reservoir on the rear 240mm space, but the fans just look so good, I'm going to leave that area for D30s and go for a more stealthy reservoir.
 
Soldato
Joined
22 May 2010
Posts
11,884
Location
Minibotpc
I was going to put a reservoir on the rear 240mm space, but the fans just look so good, I'm going to leave that area for D30s and go for a more stealthy reservoir.

I would too, they put so much effort into the aesthetics and giving it a clean look by hiding the screw holes, it would be a shame to hide the fans.
 
Soldato
Joined
22 Oct 2002
Posts
8,272
Location
Near Cheltenham
Quick update, initial build completed:
btMpjSf.jpg

Thats 2 x 360 rads (EK surface 44mm X-Flow) With GPU/CPU water blocks…

Some thoughts on the case:
+ Loads of room, makes working on things that much easier!
+ The glass seam is very neat and tidy
+ The angled bottom rad/fan bracket is a nice touch, either following the case bottom angle or flat (noting I chose angled, but that makes it more complex for tube bending, but do-able)
+ Cooling potential is crazy, I’ve initially gone with side/rear intake and both rads exhausting, the amount of air flow within the case is on another level and with 3 x m.2 drives, it’s pretty much room temp in the case all the time.. I’ve had issues with m.2 drives overheating in smaller cases with a front rad intaking and heating the case a bit, but will record temps and then try side/bottom intake, and top/rear exhaust.. it won’t take long as the D30 lead just in clips from the fan, so no re-routing the fan cable.
+ The rear hinged HDD trays are actually useful for hiding things like a Aquacomputer OCTO, there was loads of room to stick that to the case, have all cables plugged in and clearance to the hinged cover plate, one of the neatest solutions I've seen yet!

Usual Build Issues (there are always some)
- I forgot to put any inline water temp sensors.. so just relying on normal temp sensors in rad fins to gauge loop temp.
- I ran out of RGB headers so the reservoir is not lit currently, will get a splitter cable and tie it to the CPU blocks rgb.
- The Reservoir/Pump combo is noisy, mainly it’s the coupling to the fan side tray, all hard coupled.. however will have to drain the loop to put some isolation in, and I’ll 3D print a custom bracket anyway as the pump can sit lower due to the small gap between fan tray and side wall, so will not out so far into the case.
- Shame the side is not accessible after the fact, I could have tried some rubber isolation washers and not had to drain, but structurally it would be bad to remove that panel without something hing to support the top rail.
- Surprisingly, compared to the previous case (Evolv-X) the PSU cables are a pain to contain, they take up most of the cable routing space, making it very messy, however it all fit and the side cover went on easily.
- The bottom motherboard holes through the case are fiddly being angled, they work well for small cables such as USB/Audio/Power button stuff etc.

D30 Fans:
These are really good, extremely silent at 600RPM, and not bad even flat out (2000RPM), they are very good through the rads, plenty of static pressure ability.
All worked first time, no duds, although I note some issues that may catch people out
- The cable clip obviously has to be on the right end, so if you remove the stickers and forget, I can forsee someone clipping it on the wrong end.
- Getting the cable to clip in takes practice to do it properly, you need to put the tab end in first at 90 degrees to the fan, then rotate the clip over the corner, then press it home and clip it in.. this will end up with the clip flush with the corner molding. If you find it is slightly proud, then the tab is not fully seated and this may lead to connectivity issues, and crucially it may pop the cable off easily.

Improvements (NV7)
- Slightly more room to the left of the side fan tray to allow easier cabling, I ran in to issues with too many cables not going in easily and had to feed them in afterwards which was a pain, normally you'd feed the cables in and pull them as you rotate the tray in.
- I would have loved a recessed magnetic filter on the side panel such that when you removed it, you could access the back of the fan bracket (and therefore undo any fans from that side without removing the tray).
- A fan/GPU power cable hole closer to the front of the case would be great, something like the rear one, a rubber flap hiding it, but as it stands the only way through I could see was to squeeze the power cables and fan cables through the motherboard cable slot which was close to the IO pins

Improvements (D30)
- Provide an opposite handed cable clip so you can route the cables from either end as that can help when cable managing.
- A bit nitpicky, but include some M3 x 35mm bolts for those of us with metric rads (EK!), the included ones are imperial.
 
Last edited:
Associate
Joined
30 Apr 2023
Posts
1
Location
Newcastle-U-L
Just done my first ever water cooled pc build using the NV7 and D30 fans. I found the case to be great to build in but I did have a problem with the D30 fans, the screws that come with the fans don’t grip into Corsair rads so had to use the ones that come with the rads what mean the screw covers can not be used because of the bigger screw head.

IMG-2120.jpg

IMG-2118.jpg

IMG-2119.jpg
 
Soldato
Joined
22 Oct 2002
Posts
8,272
Location
Near Cheltenham
The NV9 with 140mm rad support would have saved me buying new rads! Although if the 140mm fans are more expensive, then that might have negated things..

Saying that, I'm absolutely very happy with the D120's and the NV7, it looks so clean, and the full loop/loads of fans is lovely, the internal case temps are super low, and I still have 2 rads, so loop cooling is also amazing.

I do like the GPU mount options in the NV9..

I might see how much their 'display' module is, assuming they have some fancy bracketry to attach it internally on the NV7.
 
Last edited:
Back
Top Bottom