Gadgetory

the world's glass manufacturers must have found themselves confused by sudden influx of tempered glass orders from computer case makers we started with a review of Rose Wells Cullinan case which we saw at combi Tex and is a Jones boat design that's also solved by an ADIZ and then we moved on to the n1 303 following these two cases quartz saves brand new 570 X was featured in the mix we've talked about the 460 X today we're returning to the case world with a review of NZXT is at latest s 340 case the s 240 elite enclosure a refresh of one of our long favored enclosures before getting to that this coverage is brought to you by AMD and it's rx 470 GPUs priced affordably only 160 to 180 dollar range of graphics cards check the link in the description below for a couple of holiday sales on our x4 70s NZXT s340 elites builds upon the existing foundation the s3 40 it retooled a few things in the s3 40 so we've got some changes made to the core of the case the SD 40 elite next to me is priced at around $100 MSRP and the s3 40 non-elite is priced at about 70 and then just for kind of an idea of the enclosure market with tempered glass right now you've got things like the 570 X priced at around 170 180 dollars the pending and the Corsair 460 acts a bit cheaper the Roseville Cullinan in the 130 150 odd range and then this kind of stands out mostly alone in the 100 dollar market three color options are available for the s 340 elite flat black black with red accents on the cable management bar and white and black this is a place where NZXT excels its designers know how and where to apply their accents and they help differentiate the options even within the brand so that users can feel a bit more unique in their system builds as for the s3 40 as a point of comparison the biggest changes are pretty obvious first of all glass side panel that's the big one and then there's also new SSD slat on the side of the power supply shroud and in the power supply shroud there are a couple of new cutouts for cable pastors one obviously used for that extra SSD sled and the others on the top of the case there's one in the front of the shroud so that you could route something like a hue plus cable or LED strip through there if you wanted to those are the major and obvious changes but some of the best changes are actually a lot more subtle and more important in our Coursera 570 extra view we said that NZXT destroys its competition and cable management in this case is why the s340 non-elite is what innovated cable management bars in mid towers and a five millimeter expansion of that bar has been implemented in the elite version of the st 40 that better allows for bundling large cables like your ATX 24 pin cables and keeping them out of sight this is further aided by exceptionally simple but flawlessly executed cable management clamps which again pretty simple it's just a piece of plastic but it's reusable and that's nice and it holds cables in place well this eliminates of course the need for zip ties and twist ties that inevitably get cut as you make changes to the case and it's cable management layout one collet I have to make here is that in our MSI Trident review we just talked about how VR ready is branding that's sort of thrown around on everything now on things that even with silicon only by technicality is VR ready again like the Trident yeah it works kind of but that's about the extent of it this is a case and although NZXT has avoided use of the phrase v already they still have in their marketing materials let me get this right gets better with VR so not that much better than VR ready how then does this get better with VR well let me show you a puck I can't tell you how excited NZXT was to show us this puck when we visited their offices it is literally a piece of rubber with magnets in it they're very happy about it and it does this check this out might have missed it but it's stuck to the front of the case now so that is for holding your HTC vive or oculus rift I to NZXT is credit yet I guess a high-quality magnet and rubber amalgam it feels okay I guess but again magnet and rubber this is not innovative technology kind of a silly thing I can't beat them up too much about it because it's not really core to the case but I don't know that I'd put it all over my branding either because for NZXT it makes far more sense to spend that marketing air and that marketing material on things they do well like their cable management not things like a puck alongside its hockey puck NZXT furthers its VR branding by building an an HDMI pass-through within the case which passes your GPUs HDMI out to the HMD through internal case wiring theoretically this gets you an extra foot or so of cabling but that's really the start in the end of the feature and considering the vast majority of users of this case will not even own a VR headset and further considering that this case is not really positioned to target non owners of VR headsets anyway it does seem a bit superfluous and like it's just trying to take another box regardless just like there are better places for ngiht to spend their time there are better places for this review to spend its time let's finalize the specs and walk through the rest the case and then cover the thermals G ends criticisms for improving those thermals and the conclusion the s340 elite includes with it to fans and both are in exhaust configuration both 120-millimeter top and rear of the case if you're wondering why the setup was chosen it's because the tempered glass side panel extends all the way to the front of the case blocking any chance for side intake through the front panel this is how the 570 X and the Cullinan and most other cases breathe by the way through side intake in front panels and of course through the bottom and top if there are cutouts there unfortunately because the bottom of the case will shoot all of its air unnecessarily to the power supply breathing through the bottom is sort of useless we'd have to position a fan in the middle or the top of the front panel to direct airflow into components that actually matter but again we're then relying on that cutout in the top to breathe and that mostly relegate sus2 awkwardly positioned intake that will almost exclusively cool the CPU clearly not the most important component to cool since it's already the most exposed to push its air outward anyway let's look at how this performs in benchmarking prior to further analyzing the choice is made by NZXT as always check the link in the description below for our full testing methodology and review article that contains more depth the components used and the approach to testing overall if you have a question check their first starting with CPU temperatures the s340 elite at max rpm lens at around 50 5.8 Celsius delta T when under load conditions this positions the unit behind course there's 270 R a $60 case and well behind the 5 DX this is considerably worse than the 570 X's capabilities also at max rpms but the 570 X is a far more expensive case different market its larger and not necessarily a direct comparison between the two let's look at GPU temperatures next the s 340 elite is better only than the 570 X with its lowest fan speeds or better than the TJ Max abusing and when 303 with 0 fans obviously want to buy fans with that case the s340 elite with a 1300 max rpm sits at 50 3.9 Celsius delta T and it's complete lack of change between fan RPMs if you look at the numbers here you'll see they're basically the same even with our methodology which eliminates ambient fluctuation demonstrate something critical this lack of changing means that the GPU is receiving exactly zero benefit from the cooling solution because changing the fan RPMs again doesn't really impact the performance the only reason we see any change is because some of the hot air that radiates off of the CPU cooler is being drafted away from the PCB backplate and if you live in an environment where ambience is around 30 °c or higher any GTX 10 series GPU will either boost its fan speed or limit its clock speed to handle this temperature since 81 to 83 Celsius should be pretty easy to hit with high ambient in this case speaking of here's a look at the case internal ambient temperature is something we just started measuring external ambient for these measurements is in the range of about 20 to 22 Celsius the SD 40 elite is among the hottest cases on our bench hitting about 46 Celsius internal ambient when the thermocouple is triangulated between the cpu GPU and the front of the case this is not a delta measurement by the way but rather an actual temperature reading and ambience in this case can easily drive GP thermals up NZXT ends up a full 10 Celsius warmer than the 570 X and that's again the most expensive case on the bench but it's about 4 to 5 Celsius warmer than B 270 R as for noise the SD 40 elite complete system runs a DBA of about 38.1 when at its max fan rpm DBA drops to thirty four point five when running 810 50 rpm fan speed so it's a bit quieter and part of this noise output is because the fans are directly against the top and the rear panels which again exposes them a bit more makes them a bit louder to the user NZXT s340 elite has a clear disadvantage in thermals it's not the most important metric in the world for a case but still you want to keep the GPU clear of any unnecessary clock throttling and that's going to happen if you're hitting 80 to 83 Celsius it's not for sure going to happen with a single GPU configuration but we're riding that line enough where it's something that deserves some notice at least something to talk about and explain how this could be improved on the s340 elite so first of all the user is obviously going to have either a tower cooler or a liquid cooler there's really the only two options especially if you're spending $100 on a case you're just probably not going to be using a stock cooler even still that will fall into what I'm about to say so with the liquid cooler you're not worried about air intake that much think about it we put the radiator in the back of the case and what happens the air goes out the back the hot air goes out where does the cooler air come from well we've got this hole on the top let's assume there's no fan there anymore there's a hole in the top there's a fan right next to it it will naturally at least draft a little air in from the outside and the rest will be relatively cool enough anyway that the CPU will remain within fair operating range CP is not quite as important as GPU cooling because they run cool enough anyway so that's what you have with a liquid cooler with a tower cooler it's got a fan strapped to it probably a hundred twenty millimeters maybe more it's going to just force that air out of the back naturally there doesn't need to be an exhaust down there it helps it helps primarily in keeping the heat from that's writing off of the CPU cooler from warming up the PCB backplate of the GPU but that's kind of really a minor thing to complain about because the greater gain would be again no fan either back here or up here and then intake but the problem is as I discussed there's no side mesh for this front panel so what do we end up with well there's no way for the front fans to breathe you put a fan on the bottom it pushes all the air into the PSU shroud doesn't do anything put in the middle it can't breathe at all it's got a pull air from way up here it's like a foot away it's not going to do very well put a fan at the top okay it'll do a little bit but now you're only forcing it straight into the CPU or the radiator so again who cares it doesn't help your GPU so what do we do well in both of these configurations there's an obvious missing link intake there's no intake in the case so that's okay I guess for dust but if you hope to run a I see SSDs in the lower PCIe slots you're kind of screwed and the same is true if you have a multi GPU set up you just don't want to run them in an s3 40 elite because it's going to hamstring performance and it will choke the clock rate those GPS won't get enough air they will suffocate and that's whether you have an AIC or a second GPU and this doesn't have to be a sacrifice of looks for performance either it's something that NZXT could learn a bit from in the market they do great with their design with their aesthetic they're really on point with that stuff especially cable management but they don't have cooling quite figured out yet so here's how I would improve this case instantly you take the front panel it can stay steel doesn't matter if this is remain steel but this sort of one inch gap right here just put it on something like this and now you've got a grille side and you can take air in through that and have a fan whatever you want it'll be able to breathe reasonably and you'll have a full one inch to breathe that's plenty of space to bring air into the system as intake that's how you improve it and even again stock if you had a setup like this it would make sense to ship the case with maybe a dual intake front setup or one intake fan on the front maybe in the front middle and then one exhaust fans who are maybe in the back and it would be miles better than this current setup let's wrap this up the s340 elite does some things brilliantly it's cable management is best-in-class hands down no one does cable management at this price point better than NZXT right now Corsair has a lot to learn in this department similarly and exe has a lot to learn and cooling as we just said so to each their own pass throughs in the PSU shroud are also well positioned if beginning to look a bit like a designer t-shirt with all the holes in it it's still functional and the plastic clamps are perfect to accompany those on the back side of the case the interior is clean the tempered glass checks a box I guess and the ease of installation is also in the top tier of enclosures NZXT does well to hit the small points like exposing expansion slot screws so that you can actually get at them with a perpendicular angle unlike competitors who favor cross threading as a means to get this out of the case that said NZXT again has some to learn from Corsair just like Corsair some to learn from NZXT I only mention those two explicitly because they are sort of the direct competitors in their respective markets and both have been on our benches lately obviously there are people like fan tax and fractal who deserve attention but just haven't tested any of their most recent cases so then let's keep it to those two competitors right now Corsair kills NZXT and cooling performance they destroy them and if NZXT would just make that so the front panel could breathe a little bit better and move their fans they'd be fine they'd be pretty competitive with Corsair and again cooling not the most important metric in a case but we're using decently cooled components and they're still kind of making me feel a little uneasy at least on the GPU side with regard to thermals if you had a high ambient environment which 30c in some regions of the world is not unreasonable so it could be improved and that's not a bad thing there's always something to improve on for NZXT it's cooling likewise as an enclosure the s340 elite is really competitive at its price point it's $100 case it's unbeatable in terms of cable management and ease of installation maybe not unbeatable I'm sure there's well there is stuff that's easier to work with but for the price it's pretty damn good you're not going to be complaining about installing a system in this case so the feature list is good given the price point there's not much nearby competition you have stuff like the in win 303 certainly deserves mention it's a bit cheaper but it comes with no fans so you do have to add to the cost at least two fans because otherwise it's a hot box and will incinerate your components so I had two fans of that maybe plus 10 to $15 for cheap ones and it's pretty directly competitive with this case in terms of price point so that deserves mention if you don't know about it look up the n1 303 we even have review on it the Corsair 460 X deserves mention that's another similarly priced case it's tempered glass it's more expensive but it's not too distant from this one like the 570 X's next one the Rosewood Cullinan if you really like tempered glass and you kind of like this that one's got more of it so depending on how much you like tempered glass that's worth a look it's $130 right now 150 sometimes so it's kind of within reach of this case but this one is still among the best-designed tempered glass cases at its price point at $100 not much comes close to right now some out there but not a whole lot so NZXT has done well at improving what they're good at again table management big steps forward especially at $100 again it's really not a bad Buy and I would recommend it but just be aware that you should not build in here with a multi GPU set up with an AIC in front of your GPU or if you're just running fat video cards and you're going to be cramped against the power supply shroud anyway so those are the caveats other than that it's an okay case and might as well look into it so thank you for watching as always pay channeling the postal video for more information link in the description below for the full review and the test methodology I'll see you all next time most important metric in the world for a case normally looks kind of trumps that I should avoid that word right now