My Personal NZXT H440 Mini Review

[aigomorla]

Introduction
NZXT has claimed they made a case which is the Fractal Define R4 Killer.
Does it live up to the hype?
Both cases are in the class "Mid Tower ATX"
Lets see if NZXT can live up to the claims.
I will try to show you guys everything i can in this mini review.

Case and Packaging
The Box can packaged like any other case box.
You have fairly fancy box, instead the plain brown box one gets with a fractal or a bitfinex.

Inside the box came all the required mounting hardware:

M3 flat screws, 6/32 Flat screws, zipties, and extra standoffs:

The Actual Case
The Case features a interesting design of having the power button and USB headers on the top instead of your typical front location:

Closeup of the Power Button and USB Headers:

Stripping away the side panels, the top and front face plates we get down to the shell.
The viewing profile, here you can see the glorious NZXT logo and shield which hides the PSU:

The rear Profile:

The Rear of the case:

The case offers a Fan port which allows all the fans to be neatly wired without the requirement of a fan header, a total of 10 fans is possible:

You also have a LED Connector to connect the LED's on the case.
I will go into the LED's later on this review:

[Continued on next post as i reached the max picture post count.]

 

[aigomorla]

Continuing on the case, the side hiding the wires and the top of the case are sound padded.
These help buffer noise inside the case.
The front:

The side panel behind the motherboard. It is nearly impossible to not leave a imprint on this pad as it will pretty much compress when you have wires behind.

The front of the case is not a door. This requires a removal of the front panel to review its washable mesh fan filter for the front.
The fan filter is attaches itself to the front via 2 magnets:

Motherboard Mounts
I have included three motherboard classes, to show you how a board would look and fit inside the case. The MATX will be the last one as it will represent the completed build.

The ATX board i ran into a few problems.
The case seems to be a bit short. Here you can see my issues when mounting a RoG class board:

Leaving the rubber grommet in place i ran into spacing issues.

If i attempted to screw the end screws in, it would most definitely warp the board. Something i would not want to do on a expensive board such as a RoG.

Full Size ATX boards also covered the cable route holes.

I suppose one wouldn't need them if the board went out all the way as they could just go behind the panel, but the board also ended up touching the rear steel plate. Being a water cooling person, we typically don't like any metal touching the board as it could lead to problems with shorts, as some back plates did.

Moving onto ITX, as i dont see why a person would want to use a ITX in this build but i decided to throw one in anyhow.
I figured there might be a soul who wanted to do a complete watercooling setup on a ITX, and required a case larger then your typical node 304 build.
You can see here, the ITX board will not fully cover the rear hole.

That rear hole in the case is used for heat sink mounting without the requirement of removing the board from the case, as in the old cases without.
However when using a ITX in this build, that hole also allows for a clean cable routing to the ATX power sections.

The MATX, is the representation of the complete build.
This is a complete wire / setup.
The NZXT does make things very nice for the show case section and allows a very open air flow inside the entire case.

It also didn't require a lot of skill to set it up this way. Id say even the novice can get this case to look the way i did without very much difficulty.
The rear of the case has built in ziptie mounts to neatly tie up wires:

Continue on last post...

 

[aigomorla]

My forte, the water cooling section.
Although i didnt water cool this build, it seems this case did have a partial fondness to the water cooler.
The first and simple question, can it hold a 120x4 class radiator? The sad answer, no... it seems the cases which can even hold it will be beyond the price range of 300 dollars. :\

You can also see the front fans which the case comes with here:

The case however does offer 2 locations for 120x3 class, it also has an option for 140 class, the max being 140x2.
I do not own any 140 class gear so i will not be able to show you any mountings with a 140 class.

The front and Top offer 120x3 mounting locations, however the top seems to not be able to handle a thick class radiator without overlapping the board.
This may lead to having access to your 8pin ATX plug very difficult.
The front all tho, seems like it was a match made in heaven for a 120x3.

You would need to however sacrifice your drive bays, but the showcase part offers 2 spots for you to mount your drives under your board.

You however can not mount 2 120x3 at the same time.
I have attempted to show u the problems you run into when trying to mount a thin 120x3 and a thick 120x3 at the same time here:

You essentially block out the last 120x3 section, and with a thin class radiator, that is a no go, as these class require lots of air though the fins for optimal cooling.
The optimal layout for radiators i feel would be a 120x3 up front, and a 120x2 up top, if one was to water it out.
This type of setup tho, will again, block your 8 pin ATX, but would be able to support a cpu + SLI setup. You would also lose out on having more then 2 drives mounted due to the sacrifice of the drive bays.

I will update this section later at night to show the LED's on the case.
As the daytime will kill any effect the case has.

 

[aigomorla]

Final Words
So lets get subjective...
The things i liked about the case were:
1. Sound Padding, although the rear side padding is prone to get damaged over many removals. The case has fairly good sound dampening qualities for having that many fans.
2. The appearance. The case is very blingy, they come in different color schemes:
The Black and white which i showed in this mini review.

Black and Red:

Black and Orange:

Black and Blue:

Black and Green:

The wide selection of color will most likely fit almost any build you wish to show off with appropriate gear.

3. Very good cable management, makes even the novice builder a professional builder.
4. The Fan Ports, although there is no speed adjustment for these ports, so your basically stuck with one speed.
However they are included free which is a bonus.
5. LEDs, they do add a nice accent to the case, i will show them off later.

Things I dont like:
1. Too short for full sized ATX, board touches steel rear which can lead to a potential short.
2. The Fans which come with them are very underpowered, i am thinking of replacing all of them.
3. Can not mount 2 120x3.
4. Made of Steel and not Aluminum making the case fairly heavy.
5. The HDD racks are too widely spaced, they could easily fit 7-8 drives if they narrowed the spacing.
For me to mount those drives, i had to stack the Drive on top of the lower one, and as you could see i still had good spacing.
6. Rear side sound padding wont last with constant removal.
7. Lack of 5-1/4 bays.


Is it the Define R4 Killer?
I don't think it is.
The Define R4 is also a very nice case, it has its benefits, its a more practical case without the showy features the H440 has.
If one was to decide between a R4 or a H440, they would be fine with either.
The R4 although does give you 5-1/4 bays which the H440 doesn't, but the H440 does offer a better water cooling layout if one chooses to go that route.
If i wanted to build a Bling rig, with watercooling, the H440 would probably be one of my first pics, provided i was going the MATX route, and not ATX route.
If one wanted a practical case, with good design, didn't care for the water cooling, or showy features, the Define R4 would still be my top pick.

 

[Essence_of_War]

Random question aigomorla, which HSF are you using on the MATX complete build?

 

[aigomorla]

Random question aigomorla, which HSF are you using on the MATX complete build?

noctuna se14

 

[velochap]

In your build (3x120 rad in the front?), where did you place your res/pump? The PSU section looks like it'll get too crowded and the floor in front of the mobo is going to have drives installed. The roof?

 

[coffeejunkee]

Thanks for the effort. But I'd like to point out that mobo is an eATX model which the case doesn't support. So yeah, not too strange you ran into issues.

 

[aigomorla]

In your build (3x120 rad in the front?), where did you place your res/pump? The PSU section looks like it'll get too crowded and the floor in front of the mobo is going to have drives installed. The roof?

didnt install water on it

i just showed it can handle water fine.
You could install a res in front of the rad, however as i mentioned in the review, when u install a rad up front, you will lose the front drive cages.

The fans it comes with are worthless also.
Get new fans.

Thanks for the effort. But I'd like to point out that mobo is an eATX model which the case doesn't support. So yeah, not too strange you ran into issues.

Its a EATX?
i did not know that... because my classified is a EATX, and that board is much bigger.

I thought that R4M a regular full sized ATX.

 

[coffeejunkee]

Its a EATX?
i did not know that... because my classified is a EATX, and that board is much bigger.

I thought that R4M a regular full sized ATX.

EVGA Classified is XL-ATX or HTPX for the dual cpu model. Both are bigger than R4M (which is eATX although it doesn't use the full allowed 13" for eATX spec): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ATX

 

[thedosbox]

Its a EATX?
i did not know that... because my classified is a EATX, and that board is much bigger.

I thought that R4M a regular full sized ATX.

coffeejunkie is right. MicroATX boards are shorter than standard ATX, but have the same width (244mm).