NZXT H200i/H400i Mini-Tower Review: Strong Performance, Good Price

[Guest]

These mini and mini-ITX towers offer strong performance and value.

NZXT H200i/H400i Mini-Tower Review: Strong Performance, Good Price : Read more

 

[Giroro]

I really dig NZXT's style right now, especially their motherboards, which look super classy when you add their purple trim (I wish they came in Ryzen).

But I really need more connectivity than what these cases offer. Surely they can figure out a way to slot in a laptop optical drive or something in a way that doesn't affect their overall look too much. Sure that wouldn't look as nice, but external drives look way worse. In the very least I need an SD reader... I have no idea why my Galaxy S7 has such a hard time transferring files over USB, but it takes about 2 hours for a 100MB file transfer when I can just remove the micro SD card and do it directly in about 5 minutes.

 

[logainofhades]

$130 for a mini-itx case? I think I'll pass.

 

[Lutfij]

Price tag is almost round the custom designed one off cases arena. I'd go that route instead of NZXT's path unless there were no other options(or that Phanteks and the likes were out of business).

 

[alextheblue]

I don't care for the layout of NZXT cases. I had the displeasure of working with one of their H440 units recently. The PSU Bunker is annoying, as is the rear-accessible-only filter for said Bunker. With the 440 the backwards 3.5" bays were an unnecessary nuisance, though that won't be a problem for these two since they only house a single 3.5" anyway. The lack of an optical bay isn't great, but I understand it. Also disliked the placement of the 2.5" mounts, if they were a tad higher or sideways it would have helped with cable routing. The fan "controller" was also a piece of garbage, the second you hooked up aux power (feeding a lot of fans) it ran them at full speed, period.

It looks like a few of those nuisances carry over to their newer models like this one. The bottom filter can't be accessed from the front and the PSU Bunker is ready to tempt me into punching holes so I don't have to get extension cables (depends on board layout). I don't know about their newer fan controllers. Hopefully it lets you hook up to SATA or Molex power so you can drive a bunch of fans and still adjust PWM speed via the BIOS. That wasn't the case with the H440's built-in controller.

I much prefer Fractal cases overall.

 

[Kaziel]

@ALEXTHEBLUE

Yep, you would think that they would've found a way to move it to the front by now.

 

[markpattersonesq]

What size psu can fit the h200i? ATX or have to use SFX? Only info in specs is max 311mm length...