Phanteks Evolv Shift i7-8700 Mini-itx Build

Over the last year I have jumped back and fourth between Intel and AMD based systems. With the release of the new Coffee Lake 6-core 12-thread high clock CPU’s, we may have finally hit the sweet spot between gaming and productivity.

I was able to snag an i7-8700 and Asus Rog Strix Z370-I motherboard on launch day. While the i7 coffee lake variants appear to be out of stock everywhere, keep checking daily, as stock is supposed to start shipping later in the month.

Case: Phanteks Evolv Shift

Choosing the case wasn’t hard. I have had my eye the Phanteks Evolv Shift mini-itx case since I saw it at Computex earlier this year. A vertical compact case with with support for dual 120mm radiators is a rarity. In fact it is the only case of it’s kind that I am aware of. The shift is beautiful, flexible and has plenty of room for additional upgrades in the future.

System Components

I tried to put together a balanced but powerful system that could handle gaming and video editing duties. The MSI GTX 1070 should have no problem playing modern games at 60fps, and speeding up video renders.

Full System Build

For the full system build and additional info, check out the video above. It does a better job explaining everything than my writing ever could.

System Benchmarks

System CPU Benchmarks

The i7-8700 trounced the performance of Intel’s last gen 65W i7-7700, putting up very nice single and multi-core scores. You can pull even more performance out of this CPU with an Asus motherboard, by enabling multi-core enhancement, which forces all cores to hit their max boost speed.

CPU Temperatures

Even with liquid cooling the CPU still hit 92C under load. This was really surprising. Coffee Lake chips definitely run hot.

Synthetic Gaming Benchmarks

When running gaming benchmarks I noticed that without a case fan blowing air over the GPU I was seeing some throttling. This may not be the case with a full sized card, but is definitely something to take note of.

In testing the scores were about what you would expect from a compact 1070 running at stock speeds. You will be able to play all the modern titles at up to 1440p with no issues.

Gaming Benchmarks

This system is handles games really well. All test were run at 1440p. The 8700 and 1070 had no problem hitting well over 60fps. Batman Arkham Knight dipped down to 59 frames momentarily but every game I tested averaged over 85 fps.

GPU Temperature

Shockingly, during gameplay I was running into thermal throttling with my MSI GTX 1070 Mini. There are a few reasons for this. Check out the benchmark video above to learn more.

System Power Draw

Power draw numbers were very nice. The system never hit 300W under full system load running Prime 95, Furmark, and Crystal Disk Mark simultaneously. There is plenty of headroom to run a more powerful GPU and CPU of of the SF 450.

Noise Levels

The system was much louder than I thought it would be. It peaked at over 54db at load. That is simply too loud for a system of this size. I have much smaller cases that are significantly more quiet at load. Selecting proper components is very important with this case.

Conclusion
Building in the Phanteks Evolv Shift was interesting. The case while gorgeous is not the most functional out there. If you are planning on doing a build in it I would definitely plan on using some form of liquid cooling for both the CPU and GPU, otherwise you may run into temperature and noise issues like me.