Gadgetory

what's up guys I'm Dimitri and today I transition my system from a mid tower into a super tower as I want to get into the mindset of what it feels like owning something that has so much potential for custom builds this is the fantex elite the most expensive case we've ever worked with at eight hundred and ninety nine dollars now to be honest I'm actually quite surprised fantex decide to take this pricing route because it's a massive leap from their previous most premium case the an supremo at 299 so in this video let's talk about the elite it's priced and it's placed on the market its feature set and its ease of use right after this sponsor spot creativity is fueled by the best instruments it doesn't always come easy and in the process you often realize how important quality is the Rd 400 bio CC gives you quality and speed with MDOT to interface the Shiban and flash and a PCI bracket making it possible to focus on what matters unless we storage that makes a difference with a five-year advance warranty but first let's begin with the box as receiving it sure feels completely different it arrives in a slight case a protective box mainly used for music equipment and large fragile items this requires two people to carry because the whole thing weighs close to 50 kilograms and here's me next to it for scale now the good thing is the case is reusable scores and fantex choose this packaging material over traditional cardboard to avoid damage on arrival now interestingly these cases cost up to $500 but with fantex own manufacturing the price of the flight case has been reduced below 200 so it's not a significant portion of the total price you pay the way you remove the elite is to lay the flight case down using the soft foam piece as the base and lesbian closure if you have the strap highly recommend you do this with two people to avoid back injuries and then straighten the case so you can put away the flight case and still further use just be mindful just how large that box is so ample of storage space is required now I want to talk about the price a little bit more because it is so uniquely hi I mean you could build a full system for that much money and fantex has some strong competition already established with K Slav being more affordable for the high-end water-cooling market now sure there are a lot of difficult theses in here like the giant tempered glass side panel that swivels to open that mechanism is not easy to implement but it has that ventilation built in and for the bottom chamber and there's a lot of complex machines formulator aluminum on the exterior you know that complement that's high-end status of the elite including this giant rear side panel that is curved at the bottom creating this beautiful character for display that is also carpet friendly as the premium aluminum piece at the bottom spent the entire length of the case and the tall feeds help with air flow intake and so when you take in the elite it's like a long-term commitment and I love what fantex has done to balance functionality with luxury so if you use them in towers like I am be prepared to be blown away at the size of the super Tower it is incredibly tall it's thicker than my evolved ATX and if I was to substitute the space on my side it looks a little bit out of place and perhaps needs to be placed on a small pedestal instead for accessories we have two boxes one inside the bottom chamber and the other inside the flight case itself don't forget about that one includes two SSD caddies six normal Drive caddies the power splitter plate a five and a quarter inch drive gauge with two slots and the same color accents at the front as on the case and this is meant to be installed facing the glass window like so allowing users to install you know touch interfaces or obstacle drives then we have a vertical GPU bracket that's included that we'll cover later a handy tool boxes here for your screws organization and 1/8 inch cpu extension furthermore we'll get these extra panels including an ITX tray a side radiator bracket plus a top panel cover if you want to close the top of the case for a more silent system but be mindful the color of the panel will match the color of the exterior the front facade is pretty plain aside from what looks like a five and a quarter inch drive bay but it's a door with all the i/o behind this including four USB 3.0 HDMI pass-through a type-c ports dual audio jacks for dual systems plus a wheel to control the integrated case lighting that lets the cycle between a bunch of colors adjust the brightness select the breathing mode or a rainbow mode and I've always been a fan of fantasy approach to lighting with soft accent strips running along the side and the top that's beautiful and absolutely stunning to look at but you can add more and route them on the inside which is on the easiest RGB lighting solution you can find on the case now about that type T connector the first batch of the elite will ship with the USB 3.0 19 pin connector but a new USB 3.1 gen2 20 pin connector is coming later that will be a free upgrade for the elite owners and since there are two sets of the i/o the power button at the top has also dual press to start each system individually so let's get inside and talk about the interior layout and all those cooling options but first I love the swivel glass panel that's feel secure and strong on those hinges despite being quite heavy I would definitely recommend you remove it to make the case lighter during installation majority of the frame is held in with screws and aside from the chunky aluminum exterior panels the main frame is powder coated steel the case internals are divided into three main chambers at the bottom accommodating an extra power supply plus the six drive caddies at the front it is a modular system but the compromise here is that storage limitation for example this space could easily fit more drives but the elite is a water-cooling monster first before anything else it does so to spend at the bottom of the case it is magnetic and easily accessible but the bottom fan bracket on this chamber is also removable with support for up to a full 80-million radiator so this chamber is multi-purpose for either water cooling storage or an additional power supplies or a combination of all three as for the main chamber a lot is happening here a total of five or 140 member fans are included three in the front and two of the rear for exhaust one of the most interesting design choices for the interior was to include these aluminum covers on the side wall that match the exterior color and what they hide are all these extra mounting locations for the drive caddies five them can be installed here and you can also install the caddies instead of the aluminum plate but they cannot be installed at the same time as those large drive caddies so this entire wall is used to hide incoming cables to the main interior which is why it has that side side movement and adjusted with the some screws at the back but I do prefer standard rubber grommets as there are no particular ways to channel your cables with this open area there is a bit of a compromise on having this flexible storage / mounting location but with more difficult cable management this area can also be swapped for a side radiator bracket that supports a 360 ml rod it's a definitely unique way to experiment with air flow and your water going configuration and you can install long tube reservoirs on the side and going this route would require the removal of the size plate at the back so there is actual air flow coming out it tells them with one thumb screw and comes with a dust filter - more Drive caddies can be installed beneath the motherboard area this way you're blocking the ITX spot but they are listed high enough to fit a set of fans underneath so if you're using this middle portion for cooling by default the chambers are isolated with more aluminum plates that match the exterior color the front plate can be removed if you're passing a radiator into the bottom compartment with the rubber grommets available in the sub ones awkward middle position being too far from all the hardware the larger plate can also be removed and this space occupied either with a radiator or that second ITX system the top panel has a dust filter with these gorgeous ventilation openings on each side those are also filtered on both the top and the front panels that are easily removable and like I mentioned earlier you can mount a solid panel for that extra silence but here you have a fully flexible mounting configuration for up to a quad 120mm fans setup or triple 140 millimeters with their respective radiator sizes and this fan bracket is also removable it mounts conveniently from the top to make installation easier and this bracket is pretty much centered which for a case of this wide and this size should not be a concern it's just centered for the symmetrical appeal removing the front panel we find another giant area for fans where if you remove the middle plate you can fit a five 60 ml radiator at the front and the case is wide on purpose to support multiple large radiators inside at the same time and so here is a blown out view of all the supported radiator locations inside the elite so fantex is clearly targeting only the high end users that would take full advantage of all the available space taking off the back panel it is incredibly heavy and large be careful with it but with captive thumb screws so that's a positive we have a very spacious rear chamber here you install your main power supply which is out of sight and on its side with many velcro straps around the main channel cables but I'm a little surprised this area was not utilized for more storage capacity there are only two SSD caddies and clearly the focus has been on water cooling as two palm brackets are included so you could use soft tubing for rounding into the main chamber or relocate the palm brackets as they do install on any 120mm in a fan mount and finally two PWM fan hubs are included with support for six fans each something that will likely come in handy you know for all the water clearing stuff I just wish we have fan cable extensions that were included with the case and starting with the build I recommend removing all exterior panels that makes handling the case easier it makes the case much lighter so you can move it around a bit more and it's meant to be standing for assembly thanks to the extended motherboard standoff then hold the board before the screws are used which is awesome and I decide to take the dual system approach without a custom loop and as you can see the elite desperately needs at least a couple of 360 ml radiators to fill all that space and first I want to cover the vertical GPU bracket because it's not exactly what I thought it would be for one only the left side of the i/o on a GPU has clearance for your i/o as the right side is blocked by the mounting screws you do have that second internal PCI slot on the bracket but that would move the GPU very close to the motherboard second the bracket occupies seven PCI slots blocking any other PCI device on its path luckily my nvme SSD top of the motherboard slots without interfering with the GPU so while this vertical GPU showcase looks fantastic and has potential I feel the clearance compromised somehow needs to be reduced I also installed an ITX system right below that is an interesting experiment but cable management is challenging I was able to route all the cables through the drive cut out and otherwise there are no clean ways to route the cables off to the sides of the motherboard from that bottom chamber where the power supply sits and I wish more emphasis was put for cable routing from that bottom chamber into this ITX section for example if the aluminum middle plates somehow covered the open area that would be good or if you're installing fans or radiators in this section for the ITX system it would hide that bottom chamber what was really be nice though is to have a power supply shroud because otherwise it's quite exposed and might detract from using two power supplies so maybe using a power supply splitter that fantex also sells for that second system might be an excellent idea if you are using a second GPU for the ITX side it looks a little strange having different cards and also keep in mind the proximity of the bottom to be use to the side panel that might get chokes for air although in my test the GPU temperatures were not a concern cable management for the main system however is a lot more familiar with grommet underneath the board and that fully open side entrance you know it's fine just as long as you clean out that visible exit take a look at the back don't be alarmed by that huge cable mess I intentionally used red cables to show the dispersion but the side panel closed without any force I feel the dry storage at the front is a little bit too far maybe a more compact the drive gauge would have satisfied my SS the only system but I am generally surprised at the lack of appropriate channels for the cables from here into that main compartment I'm used to having grommets for my 24 pin and PCIe cables but here you need to work creatively to solve this cable mess also a few SSD mounts to the backside of this bracket would have been perfect to utilize this area for extra storage as otherwise these 4s as these occupy a more larger than expected area and the bottom chamber at the front and so the fantex elite is a unique case in many regards it achieves flexible water cooling options perfectly but only targeting the higher tier showcase builder while merging all Authentics excellent ideas on what defines a functional interior with this luxurious status having the option for a second system presents interesting opportunities on how and when that system will be utilized not forgetting a second set of peripherals is required for the whole thing to be operational my favorite part of the super tower concept is to maximize the potential or sign the full potential on what's possible inside the elite the executions here is almost perfect with primary emphasis on water cooling but I would like to see its expanded to cover more storage options with compact SSD cages perhaps the simpler of vertical GPU bracket and more options to cover up that midsection plus a power supply shroud for the bottom chamber but regardless of how many things the elite does right the astronomical price point will only be in the reach of the lucky few who have that large interior to fill this is a water cooling luxurious heaven with a very fitting title of the elite that deserves our dam innovative award so yes it's been a very long one but let us know what you think of this enclosure in its entirety let's have a conversation if fanfics is going crazy to release some eight $99 case and how do you think they delivered I'm Dimitri with harken our apologies for my voice I'm getting better promise you and we'll see you in the next video