I'm esctatic to (finally) see a good, competitively priced and feature-rich sub-20L case from one of the major manufacturers. With the likes of the Ncase, Dan case, Louqe etc. always being so hard to find, the demand for this will be high and hopefully others follow suit.
i personally dislike our obsession with litres, the most efficient dimensions for high volume in a smaller size is the cube, so when they make a weird long or tall case, they can claim it is small because it has a small volume, which seems silly personally
Lian Li TU150's 312mm x 203mm x 375mm is just as small as this one's 187 mm × 387.7 mm × 187.6 mm in my opinion...
If you dont want to restrict the airflow you can always lay it on it's front where the glass panel is. You may risk scratching it depending on what type of surface you put it on but it would be functionally just fine.
Otherwise as long as you're willing that airflow may be worse I dont see any reason you cant place it in any orientation you'd want.
It's tiny for a mainstream itx case. Sure, there are much, much smaller niche alternatives, but unlike those this will be easy to buy for pretty much everyone.
Also, no. Not everyone wants a small case to lug it around. Handles can be useful, but saying all itx cases should have them is just silly. Besides, don't you want to put your case in a bag or something to protect it?
This case makes very little sense. The only reason for sandwich layout is for compactness, to get the volume of the case to below 10Liters(Dan a4 7L, Ghost s1 8L). You can have a traditional layout without a riser card at 12.6Litre like NCase m1. The traditional layout gives you all the cooling you need and all the flexibility and compatibility of components like Cooling/GPU/Storage. So why would anyone design a >13L case in the sandwich layout!!!.
Right now the Choices for cases with full length GPUs as 1. Dan Case 7L Smallest possible/Lightest but with limited CPU air cooling choices. 2. Ghost s1 8L Beautiful/Sturdy/Expandable(tophats) just like Dan but heavier but provides extra headroom for CPU cooling and clean cable management and storage Then for the standard layout, you have NCase m1.
Alistair, you have NOT thought this through. The best shape is the one that maximises Surface Area. Why? Cooling Obviously! Motherboards are square in shape, as is the PSU. The GPU are rectangle.
The best design, thermally, is to have it stand upwards like a building. In terms of Heat Generation, the GPU comes first, then CPU, and a distant third is the PSU. So ideally you want the "hottest" towards the bottom, so that's the GPU taking one side by itself. And the other side should have the CPU on the bottom, and the PSU on the top, stacked together to make a rectangle. The GPU should be an "Axial" Design with Two Fans. And the fans should be "inverted" which is a very simple mod. This mod allows the Graphics Card "sucks" air from the top (where the ports are), and it "blows" it out from the side, making it more efficient to get rid of the hot air and as far away from the PC as possible. In a Standard Axial Design, the twin GPU fans "suck" air from the face-side, and exhaust it out the port-side, which is thermally good for a large ATX case with multiple cooling points, but is only "okay" in a mini tower we've described in its default orientation. Yes, even slightly better than the Blower-Style graphic cards.
And when maximising for space and thermals, you would use Air-Cooling. So basically, that's what mITX owners should strive for. Water cooling uses more space and doesn't perform as well. Not to mention downsides to cost, leakage worry, more moving parts, and higher power draw. The main benefit of Water Cooling is the acoustic improvement thanks to a large radiator, and larger slow moving fans. Also, if you are in a "hot room" with low ventilation, a Water Cooled solution can keep the temperatures more consistent for a longer time.
> leakage worry, more moving parts, and higher power draw
"Leaks" are solved with a one time check pressuring with air. They don't develop over time.
You have one moving part--the pump--which is usually a D5 which is an industrial part that uses water/self lubricating ceramic.
Power draw is pretty negligible. With your one moving part (pump) uses 24W max at full power but will usually run around 50%.
> doesn't perform as well
In small form factors this would be heavily dependant on the case design.
Yes it takes up more room so air may be more effective, yes it has a high initial outlay cost, yes it has a learning curve, yes it's $60 every socket change and $120 every gpu change. Yes it's a bitch getting everything set up in a small area initially.
Yes it'll be a hell of a lot quieter than your double axial blower, even with limited rad area and faster fans.
But it really depends on the case. It's hard to tell on this one what's possible even with all the extra pics on the product page.
But to the topic at hand, if you could have it lay down and radiator a single exposed side you'd be fine.
Why not go all the way and just say they should make them spherical?
Because the internal components don't allow it, and as such there are other considerations besides Side A = Side B = Side C. I think sticking to a small footprint with a taller height is genius, because if fans are placed top and bottom that follows the natural air flow; ITX boards are 17cm x 17 cm and most higher end graphics cards are ~20-25 cm, so should every dimension of the case be sized to accommodate that?
That doesn't make sense because the hardware you put in the case is not cube-shaped. Video cards are much longer than they are wide or tall. ITX motherboards are pretty much square but not very tall.
It's not about maximizing volume in the case, which seems to be the only metric for "efficiency" to you; It's about the density of components per liter. The typical DAN Case A4 layout run laps around your cube SFF cases space efficiency-wise, same for designs like the S4 mini, because guess what? Cube cases are 70% empty space, great for a box you stuff things into, not so much for a PC case.
Just to add that I agree with the others here: a cube is very inefficient shape for a PC case that is made to fit a motherboard, PSU and GPU. The two first ones can stack neatly into a small cube, but the GPU breaks that symmetry entirely unless you limit yourself to short ITX cards (but then you'll still have to stack the PSU atop the motherboard, blocking CPU airflow). The M1 and A4 clearly demonstrated that the "shoebox" form factor is the most space efficient for standard components.
As for claiming a case 175% the volume of this is "just as small"... well, we're all entitled to our opinions, no matter how silly. That case will take up twice the amount of desk space for no actual benefit. And the difference when sitting close to it will be very, very obvious.
Seems like an interesting product, especially for the 2.5 slot thickness video card support. A lot of the ITX cases can only do 2 slot which really limits your video card choice to EVGA XC (which sucks btw) when you go with a high end card. I agree the price is high, but it does save you the trouble to find a good SFX PSU. I value the PSU at $80 and liquid cooling at $80, that puts the case alone at a $200 price tag, which is quite overpriced for what it does.
The metal parts of the NZXT H1 are not made of stainless steel like it says in the article. The metal used is SGCC steel, which is cold-rolled and zinc-galvanized.
This case would be a lot more interesting if it were made of stainless steel, but the metal bits probably wouldn't be painted. Manufacturers that use expensive, difficult-to-machine materials like stainless steel tend to show it off.
a cube like case for mini-itx? yes and no. if you have a video card the length of the board while having an external power supply, that will work. outside that, you'll be looking at mini-itx case designs that have existed
Pricing is actually quite good considering it comes with 650W SFX PSU(~120 USD), 140mm AIO cooler (~120 USD) and riser cable (~30USD), which adds up to cost like ~270USD. The case alone costs like 80USD then!
80 dollar psu, 50 dollar cooler and 30 dollar cable. You should add street price not msrp on release day price. so about 160 parts less 350 about 200 or so for the case itself which for a steel/plastic small enclosure is a ripoff. And im not surprised.
Also you are buying a “bundle “ and normally you would get an additional discount for buying multiple components at once . Nzxt obviously won’t pass those savings to you but those street prices I mentioned are valid if you were buying those items separately
I highly doubt you can get those parts that cheap, and I own multiple SFF systems including Ghost S1 and Dan A4 clone. And $349 is MSRP and not the street price either.
Shill detected. No one is paying $120 for a 650W PSU or $120 for 140mm AIO liquid cooler. And $30 for riser cable? LOL. You should also get a discount when you get them in a bundle, kinda like how Corsair RGB version case cost less than buying the case and RGB fans separately. You are a shill.
This is one reason why I prefer to steer away from ITX. While the board is small, most ITX case tend to be too big for the desk, and too small to place on the floor. This case is on the taller side, but I still feel it will be quite short on the floor. If it is that tall, then I would just go for a ATX case which is typically better in terms of cooling, and less space constraints to fit bigger components/ cooler.
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J3EBS - Wednesday, February 26, 2020 - link
I'm esctatic to (finally) see a good, competitively priced and feature-rich sub-20L case from one of the major manufacturers. With the likes of the Ncase, Dan case, Louqe etc. always being so hard to find, the demand for this will be high and hopefully others follow suit.Alistair - Wednesday, February 26, 2020 - link
i personally dislike our obsession with litres, the most efficient dimensions for high volume in a smaller size is the cube, so when they make a weird long or tall case, they can claim it is small because it has a small volume, which seems silly personallyLian Li TU150's 312mm x 203mm x 375mm is just as small as this one's 187 mm × 387.7 mm × 187.6 mm in my opinion...
Alistair - Wednesday, February 26, 2020 - link
i guess i'm wondering, can the NZXT work well on it's side so that it is 387mm long instead of tall? anyone know?Valantar - Wednesday, February 26, 2020 - link
As long as you put the TG side down it should probably be okay. Anything else and you'll hurt the already high thermals.inighthawki - Wednesday, February 26, 2020 - link
If you dont want to restrict the airflow you can always lay it on it's front where the glass panel is. You may risk scratching it depending on what type of surface you put it on but it would be functionally just fine.Otherwise as long as you're willing that airflow may be worse I dont see any reason you cant place it in any orientation you'd want.
007ELmO - Wednesday, February 26, 2020 - link
I don't consider a case this tall to be tiny. Also, please put a handle on any and all mini itx cases.Valantar - Thursday, February 27, 2020 - link
It's tiny for a mainstream itx case. Sure, there are much, much smaller niche alternatives, but unlike those this will be easy to buy for pretty much everyone.Also, no. Not everyone wants a small case to lug it around. Handles can be useful, but saying all itx cases should have them is just silly. Besides, don't you want to put your case in a bag or something to protect it?
sharath.naik - Friday, February 28, 2020 - link
This case makes very little sense. The only reason for sandwich layout is for compactness, to get the volume of the case to below 10Liters(Dan a4 7L, Ghost s1 8L). You can have a traditional layout without a riser card at 12.6Litre like NCase m1. The traditional layout gives you all the cooling you need and all the flexibility and compatibility of components like Cooling/GPU/Storage. So why would anyone design a >13L case in the sandwich layout!!!.Right now the Choices for cases with full length GPUs as
1. Dan Case 7L Smallest possible/Lightest but with limited CPU air cooling choices.
2. Ghost s1 8L Beautiful/Sturdy/Expandable(tophats) just like Dan but heavier but provides extra headroom for CPU cooling and clean cable management and storage
Then for the standard layout, you have NCase m1.
Kangal - Thursday, February 27, 2020 - link
Alistair, you have NOT thought this through.The best shape is the one that maximises Surface Area. Why? Cooling Obviously!
Motherboards are square in shape, as is the PSU. The GPU are rectangle.
The best design, thermally, is to have it stand upwards like a building.
In terms of Heat Generation, the GPU comes first, then CPU, and a distant third is the PSU. So ideally you want the "hottest" towards the bottom, so that's the GPU taking one side by itself. And the other side should have the CPU on the bottom, and the PSU on the top, stacked together to make a rectangle. The GPU should be an "Axial" Design with Two Fans. And the fans should be "inverted" which is a very simple mod. This mod allows the Graphics Card "sucks" air from the top (where the ports are), and it "blows" it out from the side, making it more efficient to get rid of the hot air and as far away from the PC as possible. In a Standard Axial Design, the twin GPU fans "suck" air from the face-side, and exhaust it out the port-side, which is thermally good for a large ATX case with multiple cooling points, but is only "okay" in a mini tower we've described in its default orientation. Yes, even slightly better than the Blower-Style graphic cards.
And when maximising for space and thermals, you would use Air-Cooling. So basically, that's what mITX owners should strive for. Water cooling uses more space and doesn't perform as well. Not to mention downsides to cost, leakage worry, more moving parts, and higher power draw. The main benefit of Water Cooling is the acoustic improvement thanks to a large radiator, and larger slow moving fans. Also, if you are in a "hot room" with low ventilation, a Water Cooled solution can keep the temperatures more consistent for a longer time.
brontes - Friday, February 28, 2020 - link
> leakage worry, more moving parts, and higher power draw"Leaks" are solved with a one time check pressuring with air. They don't develop over time.
You have one moving part--the pump--which is usually a D5 which is an industrial part that uses water/self lubricating ceramic.
Power draw is pretty negligible. With your one moving part (pump) uses 24W max at full power but will usually run around 50%.
> doesn't perform as well
In small form factors this would be heavily dependant on the case design.
Yes it takes up more room so air may be more effective, yes it has a high initial outlay cost, yes it has a learning curve, yes it's $60 every socket change and $120 every gpu change. Yes it's a bitch getting everything set up in a small area initially.
Yes it'll be a hell of a lot quieter than your double axial blower, even with limited rad area and faster fans.
But it really depends on the case. It's hard to tell on this one what's possible even with all the extra pics on the product page.
But to the topic at hand, if you could have it lay down and radiator a single exposed side you'd be fine.
J3EBS - Wednesday, February 26, 2020 - link
Why not go all the way and just say they should make them spherical?Because the internal components don't allow it, and as such there are other considerations besides Side A = Side B = Side C. I think sticking to a small footprint with a taller height is genius, because if fans are placed top and bottom that follows the natural air flow; ITX boards are 17cm x 17 cm and most higher end graphics cards are ~20-25 cm, so should every dimension of the case be sized to accommodate that?
Alistair - Wednesday, February 26, 2020 - link
... a cube is maximized volume in 3D, not a Sphere... hahaJ3EBS - Wednesday, February 26, 2020 - link
Yea, but a sphere is cheaper, less material! Why use more at all?Flunk - Wednesday, February 26, 2020 - link
That doesn't make sense because the hardware you put in the case is not cube-shaped. Video cards are much longer than they are wide or tall. ITX motherboards are pretty much square but not very tall.Alistair - Thursday, February 27, 2020 - link
that's why shorter video cards make sense, they are the same length as the motherboard, that is idealAlistair - Thursday, February 27, 2020 - link
video cards should be 6.7 inches long, just like itxthsrj - Thursday, February 27, 2020 - link
It's not about maximizing volume in the case, which seems to be the only metric for "efficiency" to you; It's about the density of components per liter. The typical DAN Case A4 layout run laps around your cube SFF cases space efficiency-wise, same for designs like the S4 mini, because guess what? Cube cases are 70% empty space, great for a box you stuff things into, not so much for a PC case.Valantar - Thursday, February 27, 2020 - link
Just to add that I agree with the others here: a cube is very inefficient shape for a PC case that is made to fit a motherboard, PSU and GPU. The two first ones can stack neatly into a small cube, but the GPU breaks that symmetry entirely unless you limit yourself to short ITX cards (but then you'll still have to stack the PSU atop the motherboard, blocking CPU airflow). The M1 and A4 clearly demonstrated that the "shoebox" form factor is the most space efficient for standard components.As for claiming a case 175% the volume of this is "just as small"... well, we're all entitled to our opinions, no matter how silly. That case will take up twice the amount of desk space for no actual benefit. And the difference when sitting close to it will be very, very obvious.
sharath.naik - Thursday, February 27, 2020 - link
LOUQE Ghost S1 at 8L and extendable to support multiple configurations for AIO. is simply a better case. Still equally expensive.https://www.amazon.com/LOUQE-Ghost-S1-Ash/dp/B07FS...
nerd1 - Friday, February 28, 2020 - link
It costs $320 with top hat, and does not come with AIO cooler nor PSU, which costs like ~$250 extra. So it costs almost double the price of this.That said I own one, and the cnc made parts are really nice.
Handstied - Wednesday, February 26, 2020 - link
I'd rather go with a case like the ghost s1 at the price they're asking for a mass produced product.airdrifting - Thursday, February 27, 2020 - link
Seems like an interesting product, especially for the 2.5 slot thickness video card support. A lot of the ITX cases can only do 2 slot which really limits your video card choice to EVGA XC (which sucks btw) when you go with a high end card.I agree the price is high, but it does save you the trouble to find a good SFX PSU.
I value the PSU at $80 and liquid cooling at $80, that puts the case alone at a $200 price tag, which is quite overpriced for what it does.
nandnandnand - Thursday, February 27, 2020 - link
Everyone's arguing about cubes, I'm like, "No glass, please."PBCrunch - Thursday, February 27, 2020 - link
The metal parts of the NZXT H1 are not made of stainless steel like it says in the article. The metal used is SGCC steel, which is cold-rolled and zinc-galvanized.This case would be a lot more interesting if it were made of stainless steel, but the metal bits probably wouldn't be painted. Manufacturers that use expensive, difficult-to-machine materials like stainless steel tend to show it off.
zodiacfml - Thursday, February 27, 2020 - link
a cube like case for mini-itx? yes and no. if you have a video card the length of the board while having an external power supply, that will work. outside that, you'll be looking at mini-itx case designs that have existedAdvanced03 - Thursday, February 27, 2020 - link
A $350 case, lol.nerd1 - Friday, February 28, 2020 - link
Pricing is actually quite good considering it comes with 650W SFX PSU(~120 USD), 140mm AIO cooler (~120 USD) and riser cable (~30USD), which adds up to cost like ~270USD. The case alone costs like 80USD then!Hxx - Friday, February 28, 2020 - link
80 dollar psu, 50 dollar cooler and 30 dollar cable. You should add street price not msrp on release day price. so about 160 parts less 350 about 200 or so for the case itself which for a steel/plastic small enclosure is a ripoff. And im not surprised.Hxx - Friday, February 28, 2020 - link
Also you are buying a “bundle “ and normally you would get an additional discount for buying multiple components at once . Nzxt obviously won’t pass those savings to you but those street prices I mentioned are valid if you were buying those items separatelynerd1 - Friday, February 28, 2020 - link
I highly doubt you can get those parts that cheap, and I own multiple SFF systems including Ghost S1 and Dan A4 clone. And $349 is MSRP and not the street price either.airdrifting - Friday, February 28, 2020 - link
Shill detected. No one is paying $120 for a 650W PSU or $120 for 140mm AIO liquid cooler. And $30 for riser cable? LOL. You should also get a discount when you get them in a bundle, kinda like how Corsair RGB version case cost less than buying the case and RGB fans separately. You are a shill.watzupken - Monday, March 2, 2020 - link
This is one reason why I prefer to steer away from ITX. While the board is small, most ITX case tend to be too big for the desk, and too small to place on the floor. This case is on the taller side, but I still feel it will be quite short on the floor. If it is that tall, then I would just go for a ATX case which is typically better in terms of cooling, and less space constraints to fit bigger components/ cooler.