FPSLabs : NZXT Zero Review

Are you ready for some ridiculous cooling power from the NZXT Zero? With an unheard of amount of fans included, can this case blow by the big boy brands and capture the overclocking crowd’s heart? Read on for a comprehensive assessment.

Category: Case
Manufacturer: NZXT
Product: Zero
Gallery: Click Here
Price: $149.99

Introduction
NZXT has been aggressively pursuing the enthusiast case market for
years, and has changed the persona of its gaming cases from gaudy to
refined. Having previously reviewed the NZXT Adamas, the Zero is a
crucial next step for NZXT to get brand name recognition with the
overclocking crowd. Based out of China and Taiwan, NZXT seems like a
company willing to go big when it comes to cooling. For full tower case
lovers, this case packs an insane amount of air cooling which, as
you’ll read later on, really makes an incredible difference. This case
isn’t without faults, but it is a good sign that NZXT continues to
improve upon its weaknesses and strives for excellence, so that one day
their cases will exceed expectations rather than simply meet them.

Specifications

Test Setup
Hardware Configuration

Case: NZXT Zero

Power Supply: Antec TruePower Trio 650

Motherboard: DFI Lanparty 939 nForce4 Ultra

Processor: AMD Opteron 146 2.0GHz (Overclocked 2800 MHz)

Hard Drive: Western Digital 100GB IDE HDD

Hard Drive: Seagate 300GB SATA HDD

Hard Drive: Maxtor 250GB SATA HDD

Video: eVGA GeForce 7800GT 256MB GDDR3 VIVO PCI Express

Memory: OCZ Dual-Channel PC4000 Gold Edition VX 1024MB

Optical: Lite-On 8x DVD+/-RW

Audio: Creative Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS

Cooling: Zalman CNPS9500 CPU Cooler

Cooling: Zalman VF900-Cu GPU Cooler

Cooling: ThermalRight HR-05 Chipset Heatsink

Media: Mitsumi 7-in1 Media Drive

Display: Samsung Syncmaster 710N 17″ LCD

Software Configuration

Motherboard BIOS: NF4LD406 BIOS Update Revision A (2006/04/06)

Chipset: nForce4 Series AMD Windows Vista 32-Bit v15.00 WHQL Certified

Operating System: Windows Vista Business Edition

Video Driver: NVIDIA ForceWare Release 100 v100.65 32-bit WHQL Certified

Audio Driver: Creative SB Audigy 2 Series Vista Beta Driver 2.12.0001

Test Software: Folding@Home Console Client v5.04

{mospagebreak title=First Impressions}
When the NZXT Zero case arrived, we were puzzled as our deliveryman
showed up and presented the case box with one end completely open. Now,
we know United Parcel Smashers and others sometimes likes to throw
parcels around just because they are expensive looking items, but the
box seemed pretty much intact. This leaves me to believe whatever
adhesive, tape, or staples used weren’t enough to keep the box
together. This is definitely not a good thing and makes me wonder if
NZXT skimped out or if this was just a fluke. Either way, that wasn’t
the only problem with shipping.

Once
we carefully took the case out of the box, we quickly skimmed through
the contents and realized that we were missing all four 120mm side
fans! This isn’t the first time we have heard of the NZXT Zero shipping
without its side fans, and it reflects poorly on them. It makes me
question the quality of the manufacturing processes when you miss not
one, or two, or three, but four 120mm fans! The good news is that we
contacted NZXT and they promptly shipped us our missing fans in a
heartbeat. We hope NZXT has solved this issue in all its cases. As
you’ll see later on, the fans make a tremendous difference in
temperatures. As for the packaging, the actual marketing on the box is
simple and stylish, but could probably emphasize the features with
pictures a little bit better.

I’ll
be completely honest with you, I didn’t like the way the NZXT Zero
looked at all. To me, the aesthetics were uninspiring and bland. The
front is simply curved, and is almost entirely plastic with an aluminum
facade screwed atop it to give it a nice contrast against the black.
For a case that was made almost entirely out of aluminum, I was
disappointed that the the front had such a plastic look to it. Upon
further inspection though, I could tell the paint job on the NZXT
Zero was actually pretty good. This is the downfall of all black cases,
though, as fingerprints and smears show up very easily and really stick
out in the right lighting conditions; dust is a prevalent problem as
well. The filters do a pretty good job, but because you have so many
fans, you’re going to get more dust than usual. It’s the price you pay
for having so many fans. The NZXT Zero has a very
clean and relatively simple design. That’s why this case started to
grow on me — despite the ugly duckling-like appearance, this case’s
performance and comparison to the competition in the marketplace left
me with only one or two cases in this price range with the same cooling
power. Luckily they look completely different, and the NZXT Zero looks
more like a traditional full-sized tower but sometimes the space
availability inside contradicts this. The big plus is with some
creativity, water cooling aficionados can equip their rig with either
an exterior or interior setup, as it is certainly large enough to
handle a pump and small reservoir inside.

The front fascia is probably what you will be looking at whenever you
use your computer. Everyone has a different computer setup, but
traditionally most cases that have external connections try to place
them either on the front or top of the case for universal access; even
cases with doors such as the NZXT Zero do the same. However, because
the NZXT Zero has the door hinge on the right side of the case, this
means you have to swing it open to the right side - causing most people
to place the case on the right hand side of their desk. This is a
design issue because the external USB, Firewire, headphone and
microphone connection ports are on the right hand side of the case.
This is an awkward setup due to the design of the case itself.
Hopefully NZXT will think more broadly next time.

Besides that, the front door has very strong magnets that hold the door
in place. These aren’t the pitiful kind you find on every Cooler Master
WaveMaster, these are real magnets that hold the door shut really well,
so props on that. Also, call me picky, but if I’m spending more than
one hundred and fifty dollars on a case, I don’t really want to see the
power, reset, and other cables as they slide down the hinge into the
computer. I would rather these be gone, but on the flip side, anyone
who enjoys modding their case might be thankful that these cables are
so accessible. Either way it’s only a part of a larger gripe I have
with the entire frontal fascia design of the case that opens itself for possible unintentional case damage.

As we swing towards the rear of the case you’ll notice the side fan
panel that is ready to take any 120mm on the market. Although NZXT
ships these side fans with the case already, you could install your
own. Why you would want to do that is beyond me, because the fans are
incredibly efficient at moving air and keeping quiet. This isn’t an
extremely silent case by any means, but the included fans are a great
value that cannot be overlooked when considering purchasing this case
compared to its competitors. The 120mm fans on the back are equipped
with special ‘fan only’ molex connectors that slow down the fans quiet
a bit. Because of the abundance of air coming into the case, the lower
speed of these fans don’t hurt case temperatures at all. You’ll notice
the useless I/O connector plate that everyone throws out but
manufacturers keep on shipping as well as two included thumbscrews.
Now, we’ve seen some neat designs in terms of having side panels with
built-in thumbscrews which made screw management a lot easier, but the
NZXT doesn’t include this or any type of latch release system. This
would have been nice, especially since I encountered some frustrating
problems with the side panel not sitting flush against the case after
removing it.

The
bottom of the case shows off an air ventilation port that really
doesn’t serve any purpose from what I can tell. You can’t mount a fan
here so I would have much rather seen this opening not even exist. Also
note that the case feet do a great job of protecting your desk and
case, but the cloth-like material used can also be a double edged sword
as it lets your case slide around your desk pretty easily, so if you
have pets that like run into random stuff, beware. At the top is the
included 80mm fan that exhausts heated air out of your case. This is a
nice feature, but it’s noisier than the rest of the 120mm fans and some
power supply units may end up colliding with this fan. NZXT should
provide a cover for this area in case interference does occur. It was
just my luck that the test bed PSU fit perfectly fine, but I wouldn’t
have been pleased if it didn’t - leaving another entrance through which
dust could enter.

{mospagebreak title=Features }

To
attach any fan to the side panel, you must first unscrew the filter
guard from the panel, screw in each fan, and then re-attach the giant
filter to the case. It takes a while to do it, but you probably won’t
be swapping fans back and forth, so it’s not a big deal. As we peek
inside, you’ll notice the innards are completely aluminum. This is
great because it reduces weight and acts as a heatsink. This is no lie,
either, because temperatures taken from the the hard drive cage
directly holding drives compared to that of the empty areas were indeed
warmer, but not as warm as the drives themselves. As with any case, the
NZXT Zero comes with its share of motherboard connectors and external
connectors for the blue LED on the front of the case as well. We hope
that one day case and motherboard makers decide on a universal
connector block instead of stupidly connecting each pin, one by one.

Although
the NZXT Zero doesn’t feature a motherboard tray — something we always
love here at GotFrag Hardware — markers letting the user know where to
place brass standoff screws made it easier to quickly install the
motherboard. Notice that this case doesn’t require screwing drives,
either external or internal, directly into the case. This is nice, but
the alternative solution presented by NZXT isn’t exactly pleasant. A
side note: if you’re wondering if an Nvidia GeForce 8800GTX or ATI
Radeon X2800XTX card will fit, know that it will be tight, but you
shouldn’t have to whip out the dremel for this case.

As we look at the bottom you can see the front fan is connected via a
standard molex connector that does have all three wires, so fan control
junkies rejoice, because you can use your rheobus or other
fan-controlling device to scale the RPM of the fans. In reality,
though, you don’t even really need to because the speeds at which the
fans operate are perfectly balanced for maximum airflow and noise.
Before scrolling down, check the flaps on the PSU rail holder. This is
an important detail because its wide enough for even the heartiest of
power supplies. So often the case manufacturers put the bare minimum of
support and rely on four or five screws to secure a power supply;. good
job to NZXT for keep it nice and thick.

The PCI retention mechanism included in the case
can be a source of problems for many users. If you have an abnormal
graphics card, fan support holder, or any other oddly-shaped device,
you may have to skip on the retention bracket and screw the devices
directly to the case. NZXT can only go so
far as to try to accommodate every peripheral possible and still retain
a simple design for users to use. In our case we had absolutely no
problems snapping in all our cards in one fell swoop. It felt really
neat to not have to screw in those devices for once. As spacious as the
NZXT appears, it leaves barely any space in the back. This can be
problematic for those of us cable management junkies who love to
maximize the airflow and hide wires in different nooks and crannies.

Even though the case doesn’t have a side window to show off your sweet
wiring job, it still forces you to install hard drives one way, as
opposed to the Antec Super Lanboy series of cases where users can
easily swap hard drives around at will. This is obviously impossible
with the NZXT Zero, since one end is closed off. To install external
drives in the 3.5″ slots you have to take off this entire fascia.
Again, you probably won’t be doing this often, but it seems like the
design could be improved, because you are left to contend with the
motherboard power, reset, and external peripherals connectors as well.
One rather odd thing to note is that the top LED that is supposed to
light up on the door never worked at all. I didn’t even realize it was
supposed to light up until I noticed a picture NZXT provides of the
case. It’s little things like this that are keeping NZXT from becoming
a common gamer name.

In fact, we believe the design led to the demise of our reset cable,
which runs from the front fascia through a hole in the actual case.
Upon taking pictures, we first ripped off the front to check it out,
and then placed it back on for the pictures you see here. Perhaps when
we closed the front, we inadvertantly sliced off the reset switch,
making it useless. Now, we are giving NZXT the benefit of the doubt on
this, but even if it was our fault this can only mean the design is a
poor one, since the cable was sliced off pretty easily and we wouldn’t
be surprised if were the only ones with this problem. Of course, once
you’re here you’ll also have access to the front 120mm fan and its
filter. Don’t forget to clean this regularly, as it directly affects
the cooling performance of your case if you let it look like Don King’s
head. NZXT should also have provided more screws; the amount the case
shipped with was rather pathetic, and don’t get me started on the drive
rail system this case uses.

Alright,
fine. The drive rail system is completely and utterly the most poorly
designed I have ever used. Yes, it’s that bad. The idea is great, but
the execution is poor. See, the way it works is that you take two drive
rails with built-in thumb taps. You press these things into a hard
drive or optical drive and then slide it into place. The problem is
that I spent twenty minutes trying to get two of these stupid rails
onto one hard drive. The only way I could make this design work would
be to hammer in the drive rails so that they would stop falling out
constantly. Of course I’m not going to hammer my precious hard drives,
so you are forced to manually screw the rails with your own screws
anyway. If NZXT had not even included these and just directed the user
to use regular screws to attach their drives from the get go, they
would save people from a lot of potential frustration and ill-will
towards the company. Removable hard plastic rivets used in the
automobile and airline industry would have been much better suited for
such an application. NZXT could even advertise it as a
vibration-reduction feature, but alas, we have to contend with what we
have.

I finally did manage to manually screw in all my
drives and slide them in no problem. Note that you can remove and
install 5.25″ drives with the front fascia in place, but remember you
do actually need to remove it for 3.5″ devices. Sharp and dangerous
5.25″ metal covers aren’t cool, as you can cut yourself pretty easily,
so handle this and the side panel with caution or you’ll start bleeding
pretty fast. There is enough space for four hard drives, but five would
have made it really stand out in the full tower crowd. After installing
all optical and hard drives, you notice your hard drives are little bit
on the cramped side; more specifically, your power and data connectors
will always be brushing up against the side panel you are removing.
It’s not a big deal since it doesn’t really affect anything when you’re
opening the side panel, but just make sure everything is fastened as
securely as can be. The lack of space for cables on the other end of
the case is where this comes into play. Yes, it would have
fundamentally changed the way the front of the case is designed, but it
probably would have been for the better. As it stands right now, the
front fan is forcing air through miniscule holes and is hardly ever
directly blowing on the drives. This would be a major problem if it
weren’t for the amazing side fans, but it’s another design issue to
pick at if you didn’t get your side fans.

{mospagebreak title=Noise & Temperatures}

Once everything is installed, you’ll realize that your hard drives are
left to rattle in the cage. This is annoying, because for the most
part, the majority of the noise within a case will be coming from this
area. Although it looks like a mess, the cables and connectors
throughout the case don’t really impede airflow at all due to the air
being moved by the 4 120mm fans.

The
great thing about this case is that for all the fans it’s equipped
with, it’s a pretty quiet case. Obviously if you are overclocking, you
will have to try and find a balance of noise and cooling that satisfies
your needs. However, by default the fans are quiet and you’ll most
likely be hearing your GPU and HDD’s whirring away anyway.

For our testing purposes we used a Fluke 62 Mini Infrared Thermometer. It
offers best accuracy in its class, + 1% of reading. It also has a very
wide temperature range from -30º to 500ºC (–20º to 932ºF.) The Fluke 62
was used at a constant distance of 10 inches from each surface
measured. The picture displaying the Fluke 62 above was for
illustrative purposes only, so don’t email me saying I was measuring
the chipset incorrectly! At stock speeds, there is an amazing
difference when I installed the fans. Keep in mind that when I was
overclocking, the entire rig was noisy, but that was due to the
increased CPU fan speed. While taking each measurement, Folding@Home
was runing to ensure 100% CPU utilization at all times. With our test
setup, the AMD Opteron 146 has a stock speed of 2.0GHz and was
overclocked to 2.8GHz, which required the OCZ Dual-Channel PC4000 Gold
Edition VX ram to run with 3.2 volts, and the nForce 4 chipset to run
with 1.8 volts. This of course caused extra heat to dissipate into the
case. Even so, this goes to show you that the fans NZXT ships with the
case are no joke, and shouldn’t be simply tossed aside unless you feel
the need to go extra quiet or bling out the case with addtional LED
fans. Major kudos to NZXT on great cooling performance.

{mospagebreak title=Conclusion}

The
NZXT Zero offers amazing cooling, and is geared specifically towards
users who value a quiet computer while being able to run the hottest
components on the market today. The great thing about this case is that
it has plenty of expansion ports and can facilitate a water cooling
setup. However, there are just too many minor problems with this case
for it to be considered a top flight case. When spending $149.99
without a power supply, you shouldn’t have to deal with this many
issues. Despite this, I was flabbergasted at the cooling performance of
the NZXT Zero and would reccommend it to those who need raw cooling
power above all.

Pros
+ Nice exterior finish.
+ Comes with eight quiet cooling fans, great value!
+ Interior just long enough for huge graphics cards.
+ Very light for a case this size.
+ Strong magnets hold door in place well.

Cons
- HDD cages provide no padding, create extra noise.
- Very fingerprint-prone.
- Fan filter access cumbersome.
- Cramped bottom, HDD, and rear area makes for unruly cable management.
- Ill-placed front USB/FireWire and Audio ports.
- Possibly for some, the lack of included power supply.
- Design of the fascia erratic, needs reconsideration.
- Not enough screws, top front blue LED doesn’t work, sliced reset cable, unnessary blow holes allow dust in.
- Shouldn’t be missing four huge fans.
- Frustrating drive rail system, needs to dumped.
- PCI retention mechanism could interfere with components.

Rating
7.0 out of 10

The
NZXT Zero is a solid product that does an extremely good job cooling
all the hot components inside a case. However, the case has too many
minor infractions to ignore, and that is why I believe it may only be
worth the money if you factor in the supplied fans. I would like to
commend NZXT on such a well-performing case and would be excited to see
what improvements and future case designs they have to offer. I can’t
stress enough how great this case is at cooling and keeping quiet at
the same time, so if NZXT could fix all the little faults that are
holding this case back and address the fascia design issue mentioned in
the article, then the market would be theirs for the taking. With
that, I can absolutely say I wholeheartedly recommend the NZXT Zero for
those individuals who are interested in insane amounts of air cooling
and are willing to deal with the oddities the case presents itself
with. Thanks for reading!