Bitfenix Portal Mini-ITX Case Review

By Tom Jaskulka

Manufacturer: Bitfenix Co. Ltd.
Product Name: Portal Window White
Model Number: BFC-POT-150-WKWKK-RP
UPC: 886027015315
Price As Tested: $139.99 (Amazon | NewEgg)

Full Disclosure: The product sample used in this article has been provided by Bitfenix Co. Ltd.

It’s been a long time since Bitfenix iterated on their popular mini-ITX Prodigy, a case that helped jump-start the popularity of full-blown performance mini-ITX machines. Half a decade, believe it or not. After a line of micro-ATX and ATX releases, Bitfenix finally turned their attention back to the mini-ITX category. In March of 2017, Bitfenix released an aluminum-clad premium enclosure with some distinctive – yet familiar – curved lines. Has the Portal emerged from the depths of Bitfenix testing facilities to recapture the Prodigy’s former glory? As we’ll see, the Portal isn’t a replacement for the Prodigy, although it retains many of the features that made the latter popular.

Available in matte white or matte black (each with or without an acrylic window), the Bitfenix Portal utilizes a dual frame and rail system to house enough components to power most single-GPU gaming rigs. Benchmark Reviews has the opportunity to test the new Bitfenix Portal (model BFC-POT-150-WKWKK-RP) – let’s see what it can do.

We’ll take a look at building a typical gaming system inside the Bitfenix Portal. Hopefully our testing will reveal any rogue A.I.s potential pitfalls as we go. Let’s start with a closer look around the outside of the Portal.

Chassis Type	ITX Chassis
Color	Black│White
Materials	Aluminum │SECC Steel │ABS│Transparent acrylic
Motherboard	Mini-ITX
CPU Cooler	Up to 125mm Height
Graphic Card Length	Up to 300mm
Power Supply	SFX Form Factor
Storage Capacity (3.5″ HDD)	2
Storage Capacity (2.5″ HDD)	1+2
Cooling Capacity (Front)	120mm x 1 (Included)
Cooling Capacity (Rear)	80mm x 1 (Included)
Radiator Capacity (Front)	Up to 120mm x 1
Front I/O port	USB 3.0 x 2 │ HD Audio MIC & Headphone
Dimensions(WxHxD)	185 x 382 x 411mm (without stand) 247 x 395 x 411mm (with stand)
Weight	5.81kg (net)│6.98kg (gross)
Highlights	Elegant Aluminum design │ Ball Bearing Runner design Graphic Length up to 300mm │ Support 120mm radiator Graphic Card window

Name	Part Number	EAN	UPC
Portal Black	BFC-POT-150-KKXKK-RP	4712883216220	886027015285
Portal Window Black	BFC-POT-150-KKWKK-RP	4712883216237	886027015292
Portal White	BFC-POT-150-WKXKK-RP	4712883216244	886027015308
Portal Window White	BFC-POT-150-WKWKK-RP	4712883216251	886027015315

First up – the Portal exterior.

I’m a little surprised Bitfenix didn’t tack on a “Turret” to the Portal product name. It’s pretty clear (especially from the front) where this case draws its inspiration from. Thankfully this particular Portal case doesn’t suffer from the engineered instability of that game’s automated turrets – instead of a tripod arrangement, the Bitfenix Portal uses two metal rails that form a stable base. A longer, rounded-oval face also ensures room for internal components rather than the more egg-shaped profile of Portal’s sentry turrets.

The similarity ends here; more traditional square dimensions when viewed from the side allow room for mini-ITX motherboards, SFX power supplies and 300mm-long graphics cards. The left side contains the HDD activity indicator, 3.5mm microphone/headphone jacks and two USB 3.0 ports.

The right side of the Portal follows a similar theme, again with hidden mesh intake and exhaust ports in the black bands that span the length of the chassis. The white aluminum panels wrap seamlessly around three of the four faces (top, bottom and front) with only the back panel allowing access to the internals.

The rear of the Portal reveals an inverted motherboard layout. SFX power supplies are mandatory, and tall CPU coolers will be limited. That’s an 80mm fan mount on the back panel, so total clearance for tower coolers is about 125mm (for reference, a Cooler Master Hyper212 EVO is about 160mm in height).

A series of perforations along the bottom panel allow for some air exchange (mainly for the power supply, although positive-pressure setups – hard to do with only two external 80mm fan mounts – could benefit as well). Most of the cooling is managed by the black mesh strips along the front and rear corners of the case.

This is the acrylic window version of the Portal White – a solid, curved aluminum panel can be found on the windowless version. Strangely neither the solid panel nor the acrylic window contain any sort of venting for the graphics card that will be housed directly beneath this panel. Bitfenix must be pretty certain of those small mesh strips…Let’s take a closer look around the inside of the Portal on the next page.

With our tour of the outside complete, let’s take a look at the unique features of the Bitfenix Portal.

While not terribly unique in and of itself, the rear panel of the Bitfenix Portal nevertheless illustrates the overall layout of this curved chassis. The GPU sits up top in an inverted configuration, displaying the fans/cooling shroud through the acrylic window. An 80mm fan mount resides beside the I/O cutout for a mini-ITX motherboard, and the cutout for an SFX small form factor power supply finishes the arrangment below. If you look closely, two thumbscrews are visible – those aren’t for the power supply. They secure the interior frame to the exterior shell via a sliding rail.

This picture illustrates that a little better. The entire subframe of the Bitfenix Portal slides out on a single sliding rail, and can then be removed entirely.

The entire bottom of the subframe assembly is perforated with a series of holes. Working in concert with the holes in the exterior shell, this should allow for some circulation throughout the otherwise solid aluminum shell.

The subframe can be extracted completely. It isn’t secured to the sliding rail (the thumbscrews secure the subframe to the exterior, not to the rail itself), so it can simply lift cleanly away. Of course, the front panel connectors will need to be disconnected from their respective connections on the motherboard to completely separate the two. We’ll see how that works in the build section.

Thankfully those cables are long enough to allow someone to work on the components inside without completely disconnecting everything. Still, some quick disconnects would not have gone unappreciated.

For the initial stages of the build process, the subframe of the Bitfenix Portal that houses all of computer hardware is very easy to work in and around. Make note of the 3.5″ HDD trays in the front though – remember, the entire assembly slides in to the Portal’s shell, so these drives are only accessible when the entire subframe is extracted from the inside of the Portal. It isn’t much different than removing a panel on any other case (two thumbscrews total!), so it’s barely worth mentioning, but still something to keep in mind.

The Bitfenix Portal supports up to two 3.5″ hard drives, with a single 2.5″ mount on top of the drive cage. The rails for the 3.5″ drives have mounting locations for 2.5″ drives as well if you’re willing to forgo a desktop-class hard drive in that location.

Jumping ahead a little, the above photo depicts the custom GPU retention bracket used by the Portal. It’s a bit finicky to use and I found myself wishing for something different, but it’s a decent solution given the constraints of the curved exterior panels (there aren’t many ways to access this location since the exterior panels aren’t removable). It works, but I was tempted to not even bother.

Bundled with the Portal are the typical set of fasteners for hard drives and solid state drives (standoffs are already installed). Zip ties and a motherboard speaker accompany a hex wrench (used for removing the round bars that form the base of the Portal) to round out the included accessories. With everything inspected, lets take the next few pages and see what it’s like to build a system into this chassis.

 

The Portal is in a bit of a niche category. Sure, all mini-ITX builds are going to be limited to a single GPU, but most cases will accommodate a 240mm radiator, a tower cooler, full size power supplies or multiple 120mm fan mounts at the very least. The Portal is limited to three storage device mounts, SFX power supplies, a single 120mm fan/radiator and ~120mm total clearance for tower coolers. Now, this isn’t a bad thing necessarily – one of my favorite ITX cases (the Silverstone Fortress FT03-Mini) is even more limiting, but built properly it’s quite capable. Let’s see if the same can be said of the Bitfenix Portal.

The subframe – although reversed/inverted – contains a fairly typical layout otherwise. The SFX power supply location contains two sets of mounting holes which allows a PSU to be mounted in both fan up/down configurations, and the perforated floor ensures cool air can reach the components within.

I’m using a SilverStone ST45SF here; an SFX power supply with an 80mm fan that fits with room to spare. The longer SFX-L units that are gaining popularity would fit without an issue as well. It’s a good thing the window on this case is up top; it’s going to be difficult to keep things neat as there aren’t any cable routing paths to the rear of the motherboard tray unless you go through the hard drive trays. It won’t be much of an issue though – remember, this is just the subframe, there is more than enough room for cables between the shell and the interior frame of the Portal.

The motherboard is up next. While the Portal does have a generous cutout in the motherboard tray for any aftermarket CPU back plates, the stiffening bracket that runs just below the inverted PCI-E slot makes working around the CPU socket a little more difficult than it needs to be. At least complete disassembly won’t be required if a cooler ever needed to be swapped later.

Once the motherboard is installed you’ll need to start worrying about the USB/Audio/front panel connections from the main portion of the chassis. This particular motherboard (an EVGA Z170 Stinger) has a metal shroud that fastens over the rear I/O area with the front panel audio header stuck underneath. While it isn’t an problem unique to the Portal, it does mean that – once connected – the motherboard (and attached subframe) will then be forever tethered by at least one cable to the main chassis (which somewhat defeats the convenience of having a separate interior frame). Thankfully the audio header cable is long enough to not be much of a bother when installing the rest of the components.

This stiffening bracket can be a bit of a bother, unfortunately. It always seems directly in the way when trying to work in the Prodigy during the build process – which wouldn’t be as much of a problem if it was removable (it is riveted in place). At least it doubles as support for extra-wide graphics cards along with its main function of adding some rigidity to the subframe.

Moving along, the front 120mm fan mount is the perfect location for an AIO radiator. There should be more than enough room for even double-thick radiators and push/pull configurations if desired.

One 2.5″ drive mounting bracket is included with the Portal. It can be installed in two different orientations: in-line with the frame or perpendicular.

I chose to install an SSD with the in-line orientation to avoid having to drape a cable along the side of the chassis, although there would be more than enough room to do so.

The front fan mount supports most 120mm AIO radiators – make use of it, as it is the only radiator support available in this case. Since this location will do most of the heavy lifting when it comes to cooling, it might be a good idea to swap out the included 120mm Spectre fan (12V/0.10A) for something more powerful.

I had some Cooler Master JetFlo fans laying around. “Jet” is an apt description – these get pretty powerful (and Cooler Master has since swapped them out for the newer Silencio or MasterFan models on most of their coolers). With that powerful airflow comes a lot of noise…Remember, the Bitfenix Portal uses solid aluminum panels for the exterior, and there aren’t any sound-dampening materials to muffle any transmitted noise (although it’d be an easy modification). With the PWM fans set to a custom curve I figured I’d be in the clear…More on that later.

Everything but the graphics card is installed and connected. The various front-panel cables can be interesting to route as there aren’t any tie-down points or cable routing channels on the subframe.

With the addition of a GTX 970 (dressed up in an Nvidia Titan reference cooler) the subframe is ready to slide back into the Portal’s exterior shell. Most graphics cards under 300mm should fit easily in the Portal (the card pictured is about 270mm/10.6″ in length). Some triple-fan solutions might press the limits which might be all well and good; with only a single 80mm exhaust fan such a card might overwhelm the cooling capacity of the Portal anyway.

The entire assembly slots back onto a single sliding rail. A raised post works in concert with a thin rail stop at the end to secure the subframe in place while you slide it back inside (taking care to watch the front panel cables as you go). Loaded with components, the subframe has a tendency to rock off of the rail (and is a bit difficult to line up in the first place). I found myself thinking of ways to improve this particular – admittedly novel and useful – feature.

With everything plugged in and buttoned up, let’s take a step back and get an overall impression of the Portal.

The finished product is sleek and makes a distinct impression. Your graphics card of choice ends up centered underneath the curved acrylic window.

While it looks great through the window, it also serves as a brief reminder that graphics cards don’t get to show their “good” side too often – and without removable dust filters, keeping things clean inside the Portal could prove to be a bit of a chore. This is where the sliding assembly will come in handy.

It’s difficult to describe how such a unique enclosure feels so distinct and yet so familiar. There really isn’t anything like it on the market right now (the closest competitor might be NZXT’s Manta, although curved panels and mini-ITX form factors are about the only things they have in common).

This angle should be quite recognizable to fans of Valve’s Portal series – it’s probably a good thing that power button isn’t centered and surrounded by a red LED…

Instead, it glows a cool white and serves as a power indicator. It isn’t glaring or bright enough to be distracting for HTPC use. If you look close at the photo above, you can get a sense of the texture left by the matte white paint – it is excellent at preventing any fingerprints or smudges which is always appreciated on white cases.

I’m glad this case exists. It’s unique, it’s fun, it’s a conversation starter for sure. My favorite part about building PCs is the sheer amount of options that exist – I’m glad the Bitfenix Portal is now one of those options. It looks great sitting on a desk, on the floor, or by a television (or guarding a corner…).

While I ran into a few quirks during the build process, they really only apply to someone like me who constantly swaps hardware. It’s pretty clear the Portal is designed to be a visual centerpiece, not a utilitarian box: modularity and convenience take a backseat to aesthetics, and I’m perfectly content with that. The Portal accomplishes everything it sets out to do, in my opinion: accommodate a high-end gaming PC with style and a nod towards a particular gaming series. Of course that could be pure coincidence…I suppose we’ll see if any companion cases are released with a similar aesthetic. After all, cubes are already a popular option for computer hardware…

I’ll try and summarize my experience with the Bitfenix Portal in terms of Performance, Appearance, Construction, Functionality and Value categories, but as always I feel like I should add a disclaimer. You must understand that my own preferences and uses for cases differ from most; while I try to view each case as objectively as I can, I probably can’t avoid my own bias from affecting my conclusion in some manner. I implore you to think in depth of your OWN uses and preferences, and use my reviews as a guide or simply as another perspective.

I was initially a bit concerned with the performance of the Bitfenix Portal; built appropriately it turns out there was no reason to worry. I ended up needing to swap the CoolerMaster JetFlo fans for something quieter (Noctua NF-F12 to be exact) as the solid aluminum panels transmitted a bit too much noise at first. The extra airflow of the JetFlos turned out to be unnecessary, as temperatures on all components (motherboard, CPU, GPU) weren’t out of the ordinary. I’d still recommend blower-style graphics cards to avoid overwhelming the interior with heat, but as it turns out those small mesh panels do a surprisingly good job of exchanging heated air. I wish the rear 80mm fan mount had a bit more room to fit an additional fan (there is only 140mm x 80mm of space on that panel), but even that may not be necessary. As with all mini-ITX cases it’ll serve you well to build to suit the enclosure, but it means cases like the Fractal Define Nano, Phanteks Evolv ITX and NZXT Manta will be able to cool a much wider range of components than the Bitfenix Portal.

None of those cases will come even close to matching the aesthetic of the Bitfenix Portal though – and let’s face it, that’s the primary reason you’ll be picking up this particular enclosure. The matte white is very well done, and the wrap-around aluminum panels are perfectly sculpted. There’s just nothing else like it – at least, not anything that’s made it out of the testing phase… While it’s certainly in the eye of the beholder, I personally feel the Bitfenix Portal deserves to be set out in the open and displayed prominently. It’s a really fun case to look at – I tried, but the pictures still don’t do it justice.

Of course, with a nearly one (well, three) piece solid aluminum shell, it’s hard to have any complaints about the construction of the Portal. It is put together quite well, and feels durable throughout handling. The base is very stable – even in spite of the tall, thin profile. The sliding rail is surprisingly convenient but could stand to undergo a revision to prevent a fully-built system’s tendency to rock out of place when sliding the subframe back inside the shell (along with some cable management tie-downs to keep cables out of the way). While we’re at it, a tool-less (or at least revised) method of securing the graphics card in place wouldn’t hurt either. Frankly, those are pretty minor concerns – this isn’t a tinkerer’s case, and none of these points matter once you’re done assembling the system.

The Bitfenix Portal isn’t a terribly functional case. Let me explain. It’s a niche, mini-ITX, aesthetically-oriented premium gaming case. As such, you won’t find room for multiple large radiators, water cooling systems, extensive storage, 200mm fan mounts or ATX power supplies. No – this is a premium, aluminum-clad centerpiece, and the fact that it can comfortably house a gaming system while looking a bit like a turret from the game Portal is probably all the functionality it really needs.

For $139.99 (Amazon | NewEgg) online, the Bitfenix Portal is at the upper end for performance mini-ITX enclosures. Taking the aluminum construction, unique subframe/sliding rail assembly and overall aesthetic into account this seems to a be a fair price. For those who were sold the moment the Portal caught their eye, it’s money easily spent. For anyone else looking for a well made, unique and attractive enclosure to serve as a finishing touch for a typical mini-ITX gaming build, it’s certainly worth checking out. Yes, there are other options on the market that have greater watercooling compatibility, more extensive storage support, top-mounted radiator support…but it’s clear that the purpose of this particular case is to serve as a nod to fans of a certain franchise, and that it accomplishes better than any other chassis.

As for a recommendation – well, I couldn’t get enough of the sentry turrets from Portal, so perhaps I’m not the one to ask. I’ll say this – I’m absolutely tempted to pick up a black one to complete the set. (And then another white one to paint camouflage, then perhaps another one in leopard print…) Now excuse me while I track down a red LED and some Portal sound clips to swap out for the Windows start up/shut down sounds…

Here’s what I’ll say. I’m excited that Bitfenix took a chance on a potentially-niche product. While there are some incredible mini-ITX cases out there at lower price points, I’m downright ecstatic that Bitfenix built the Portal. I’d love to see some more popular-franchise-inspired cases. The thing is, I’d still recommend this case to anyone that likes the aesthetic – it has some unique qualities that make it an attractive option. For fans of Portal? Well, there’s enough here to easily justify a Benchmark Reviews Golden Tachometer Award.

+ Nothing else like it – well, one other thing like it. At least it’s not a mercury-lined shower curtain.
+ Solid construction, attractive, conversation starter
+ Unique subframe/sliding rail assembly mechanism
+ Excellent paint/panel quality
+ Captures the Portal aesthetic without being a direct copy
+ 120mm AIO + 300mm GPU support means a potent system is possible

– Not filled with ammunition, no tracking or sentry capabilities
– Only available in black and white (no leopard print or wood options)
– Subframe can be difficult to reattach to sliding rail when full
– Only two fan mounts (1x120mm, 1x80mm)
– SFX power supplies only

• Performance: 8.50
• Appearance: 10.00
• Construction: 9.25
• Functionality: 7.75
• Value: 10.00 (7.50 for non-Portal fans)

Excellence Achievement: Benchmark Reviews Golden Tachometer Award.

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