I am sure we all had experience in creating a budget. I know as a student, I have to budget carefully, as I only work during the summer months. Here in Alberta, when a new party was voted in last year, one of the first things people looked at was the budget. It determined if what the party promised the people will come to fruition, or if they are just spending money on themselves. This is especially important, since it is people's tax money -- and we all sure do love taxes. The same thing happens at a federal level, and the budget has to be approved before they can move on to everything else they can debate on. I have always been interested in computers, but I was only able to buy one and build it last summer. Again, it took some budgeting and some time to figure out the best price to performance choices, especially with the video card. With most builds that are not overkill builds, one could always save some money in areas that does not directly affect the performance of the machine. One area I saved some money on was the case, but I ended up returning it, and buying a better one on sale instead. I mean, what more do you really need in a case than to hold all your components? I quickly figured out that was not the only thing a case did. I have discovered the hard way your computer chassis is actually an important component. Today, we have the Phanteks Eclipse P400, which, with a price tag of $69.99 USD, is ranked as a relatively budget case. Will it sacrifice stuff like build quality or easy cable management to keep the price low? Read on to find out how Phanteks was able to achieve this price, and if there were any compromises along the way.

Our review unit arrived from California, USA via UPS Standard. From a sunny state to the cold north, everything arrived in good condition to the APH Networks offices here in Calgary, Alberta, Canada with no complaints from me. The shipping box just had the name of the computer chassis and a black print of it on the front. The corners were a bit beat up, but other than that, everything was in order. Opening the box was kind of a struggle from all the tape they used to ensure it does not fall apart or open up itself unintentionally. Fortunately, there are not many problems a good pair of scissors cannot fix, so I got straight to work.