BitFenix Portal Mini ITX Chassis Review - Introduction

Bitfenix Portal Mini ITX Chassis
Curved & Rounded - The Way We Like Her.

We review the BitFenix Portal Mini ITX chassis. A small form-factor compact chassis with curved looks, high stands and something that can house even the most lengthy graphics card inside the chassis. Yes, it'll house a mere 17 x 17 cm Mini ITX motherboard but can fit a full size double slot graphics card, but how unique of a PC case is this? Let's find out.

Bitfenix has been around for years, building an ongoing reputation with mostly their controversial chassis designs. These days the small form factor PC has become trendy and popular. This chassis is intended to be used for Mini ITX usage, yet it can still house many components including a fully fledged graphics card. 

Mini ITX has grown and become a very popular format, you can build a really tiny chassis yet include very high-end components creating a beast of a PC or gaming rig. We've been explaining for a long time now that there are plenty of Mini ITX motherboards out there supporting the latest Core i7 processors and exquisite memory configurations. All that combined with a proper dedicated graphics card of course. Some chassis can house a full sized graphics card, others require a compatible small form factor card. The Portal takes your biggest graphics card easily. Looks do matter and BitFenix utilizes a new fab process to create a curved feel that offer rounded elegance and strength for its design.

The case includes a fan mount with front intakes. On the retractable motherboard tray location you may house storage units which can hold two HDDs (3.5") or SSDs and then a dedicated SSDs (2.5") mount can be spotted. With new curved design the chassis is impressive to look at. The chassis is available in two color designs; white and black. An warning in advance though, the chassis takes an SFX PSU, and thus not a regular ATX one.

The BitFenix Portal is a mini-ITX tower chassis with ample room for at least decent components. These units are available in rather shiny, smooth contours that feel curved and rounded. They shipped out a white edition of the chassis, and that is absolutely gorgeous to see but VERY hard to photograph in our all white studio. Head on over to the next page where we'll start up the review. But please do have a look at it first.