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NZXT H440 Silent Mid Tower Review

2014-02-02
hey this is Dimitri with Haruka Knox and welcome to another video review there are certain trends within the case industry that we're noticing and that is things are getting smaller and more space efficient but also we're seeing increasing demand for silent designs as our priorities shift and it's awesome to see NZXT right on point when it comes to filling that limited market void so this is the h4 4-0 an extremely simple and elegant mid tower designed for her absolute silence and it is released at $120 it is also quite compact much smaller than the previous h6 30 and one thing you notice right away is the sort of this entirely closed off design there are no optical slots and the front panel is completely bare with just a simple logo at the bottom the side window is not tinted but I really love their approach with the H Series no random angular designs as we've come to expect from NZXT and the window is very large to show off the beautiful internals and it also reveals the bottom power supply chamber with the illuminated NZXT logo that can also be switched off the entire outer shell is covered with steel so build quality is totally outstanding plus the reflective paint job add to this modern design now the case also will be available in black and red combinations which I think would look stunning now given this is a silent enclosure ventilation strips are limited to one side on the front panel so your front intake fans will have to work extra hard for adequate air flow and taking off the front panel we find a magnetic dust filter and three 120 millimeter included fans with dual 140 millimeter mounts available so right out the box the cooling potential is mostly utilized and that's awesome to see now the panel itself has a slight opening in the bottom as well to help with intake and very thick layer of noise dampening foam plus about two centimeters of clearance between the panel and the fans so they're not completely choked but there will be some resistance it is a similar scene up top with ventilation at the rear and on the left side plus the same layer of noise dampening foam all the connections are located at the top with four USB ports audio jacks and PR buttons all which are attached to the brain so taking off the top panel is hassle-free and what we have here in terms of cooling options is another array of triple 120 millimeters or do 140 mm air mounts with mounting strips for a little bit extra flexibility for maneuver and what makes the H 440 special is the ability to house dual 360 radiators thanks to the absence of the optical drive cage coming around to the back we've got standard exhaust with the same slide amount for the fan IO LED button for some illumination 7 PCI slots and then bottom out the power supply the case stands quite high off the ground with rubberized feet clusters the removal power supply dust filter and some mounting holes on the floor for some extra drives now let's take off the panels and explore the internals but first each panel is covered in noise dampening foam as well and because it is quite thick you can see the cable marks and once fully assembled it was actually quite difficult closing the panel because it does limit the clearance the thumb screws also stay with the side panel that I would love to see become sort of the standard and with the unique design of the H 440 they've moved things around and first thing you notice is the complete separation between the three chambers all the drive storage goes behind this panel it could have been a little more clean but since we never really see it it doesn't really matter the power supply is completely enclosed within its own chamber on top of which we get to SSD brackets with appropriate cable cutouts for routing there's also a 140 millimeter exhaust fan included at the rear so pretty impressive out of the box cooling and moving on to the drive cage there are five catties that are well spaced out to allow optimal front airflow penetration i'm really happy to see they've moved away from their flimsy plastic drive caddies to fully metal ones with rubber grommets from mechanical drives and SSD support and regardless of the drive you're using all SATA ports are lined up without an issue and also notice the thumb screws stay with the bracket which is awesome now the whole idea of this large space between the caddies is for less resistant airflow from the front and what I would have loved to see is an integration of SSD mounts at the bottom of the caddies so you can basically utilize dual drives on each drive caddy and perhaps remove the one that you're not using for a more efficient airflow I'm not surprised to see a 10 fan hub and the rear plus a lot of cable tie mounts to secure all your wiring and rubber grommets for routing the power supply chamber is closed off from the front but we do get all this space at the rear so assembling a clean system is even possible with your eyes closed and there are some cable tie mounts to get you started and additional drive mounts as well now the compromise here is that the clearance between the side panel is limited especially because the thick foam so really making sure everything is tucked away and the cabling is flat as possible is recommended now coming in to water cooling options removing all the drive caddies there is clearance to mount a 360 rad in either direction although I noticed there wouldn't be enough clearance to mount a three and a half inch drive at the bottom with these 45-degree fittings and giving how much room there is at the bottom it would have been nice for NZXT to take this into account installing a 240 rather the front still allows two out of the five drive caddies to be in place and check out how much room there is for push and pull scenarios and much thicker radiators now depending on the orientation of your top radiator the top drive caddy might have to come out to make clearance for those fittings but it is still very impressive how this thing can handle water cooling causing the top panel you see there's very little room for exhaust less than a centimeter to be exact and that's why I think ventilation cutouts would have been more ideal around the entire panel and not just on those two sides and finally starting with the assembly removing the power supply bracket and getting all those cables in order you can see how carefree you can be as none of that actually affects the system on the other side there's close to three inches between the top panel and our memory modules and close to 11 1/2 inches of GPU clearance and tilt drive caddies of course that can be removed for additional clearance I also love those few extra cut outs underneath the motherboard and the extra routing for your GPU power cable that really made sure to make cable work in this case extremely simple and it looks great and turning the case around making sure no cables are loose and it does a fine job at being one of the easiest cases to work in and in conclusion the aged 440 brings a lot to the market with its outstanding build quality and elegance and with the absent optical drive cage very impressive array of water cooling and out-of-the-box cooling potential with four fans included the three chamber design while not entirely new has been refined to almost perfection with excellent cable management new metal drive caddies along with sound isolation and price are all positives that makes this a highly competitive silent enclosure now there's always seems to be a compromise when it comes silent designs and I wish there would be more ventilation on both the top and front panels and I would have loved to see dual drive support on a single caddy at the same time just to free up some front intake but aside from these minor complaints NZXT has managed to yet again to deliver an excellent all-around chassis that deserves damn good and damn good value a word as regardless of what you're planning to do with the H 440 it will handle it all and it will do it silently so this concludes our review of the H 440 now of course we can't leave it off without mentioning the extremely popular define R 4 and we'd like to hear your opinion which one you'd prefer and why as always thanks for watching don't forget to subscribe for more similar content and we'll see you in the next one
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