the age for 45 mins ext comes packed
pretty unexceptional yours will of
course have a picture on the side of the
box but other than that you got some
styrofoam unexceptional styrofoam would
have liked to see better styrofoam but
this is the usual rigmarole let's move
on to the case itself the aged 440 is a
quiet optimized case they're going for a
clean classy overall aesthetic and
actually considering the price very very
solid build quality so we'll start at
the front of the case where you've got
well okay you've got a clean aesthetic
so you've got kind of a little pattern
here that we've seen on each series
cases before and other than that you've
got a completely blank front with a tiny
little NZXT logo down at the very very
bottom when you move over to the right
hand side panel you find is more blank
more empty just one little black accent
line you've also got access to some of
the vents for the front now this case is
not as airflow optimized as I would like
even for a silent case all you've got on
the front are these vents right here
some access from the bottom to fresh air
and then all you've got on the top are a
couple events I think it was at the back
yeah there's a there's some ventilation
at the back and then there's some
ventilation on the left-hand side and
that is pretty much it when you consider
that there's up to two 140 millimeter or
three 120 millimeter fans in each of
these locations it really doesn't feel
like enough to me but that's not to say
that your system is going to overheat
it's just that those fans will be a
little bit on the starved side so let's
move around to the left-hand side where
you can see the ventilation I was
talking about before an extremely nice
looking side panel window I mean look at
that
you can't see the power supply this is
something we've been seeing as an
aftermarket mod for quite some time
encasing the power supply and something
really clean and sleek looking you've
also got an illuminated NZXT logo that
you actually don't have to leave lit up
if you don't want to there is a switch
on the back that allows you to turn that
on and off this also has the added sort
of value-add here of there you go
illuminating the rear i/o almost the
entire back of the case can be lit up so
you can see what you're doing in the
dark
and you can also have sort of like a
neat rear glow sort of effect of your
system if you want okay also on the back
we've got a 120 millimeter or 140
millimeter fan mounted this is something
NZXT has been doing for a while with
their slidable fan mount so you can have
the fan up a little bit higher a little
bit lower this will help you not
interfere with other components such as
tall vrm heat sinks on a motherboard you
can also see that it's 7 PCI slots
you've got those stupid grommets that I
have no idea why anyone keeps including
and then finally your power supply at
the bottom you've also got those vents
that I was talking about in the back and
that pretty much wraps things up for the
outside except for the top i/o so it has
two USB 2.0 ports two USB 3.0 ports
headphone and microphone jacks as well
as a power switch and they reset switch
now let's open her up and find out where
the magic truly is well one thing that's
magical is the fact that in almost as
many places as they could NZXT has gone
and included these little retainers for
their thumb screws so that when you take
the screw out of the side panel or when
you unscrew it it doesn't fall out and
you don't lose it the next thing that's
magical is this is feels like actual
neoprene on the inside so they seem to
be using a very very dense foam for the
sound dampening material on the inside
of the case it is a little bit bulkier
than the bitumen for example that
fractal design uses but it has a very
nice quality feel to it a little bit
spongy and obviously I'd need an
anechoic chamber or something if I was
going to test the actual efficacy of it
but it at least looks and feels good
cable management looks exceptional right
so you've got this bottom compartment
where it's hiding the power supply and
all the power supply cables even though
it's modular power supply there are
quite a few cables plugged in as you
guys would be able to see if I could
show you that so it's nice to have that
hidden away there's two two and a half
inch SSD mounts down here that are
handled by a single thumb screw then you
actually screw the drive onto the sled
slide it back and they've got cable
management holes specifically for those
and for any bottom cables that you want
to route such as the front i/o or your
USB 2 or your front panel audio all that
kind of good stuff on this side we've
got another thing that we've seen as an
aftermarket mod quite a few times in the
last couple of years and this is a
stealth cover for all the wear normally
you'd have five and a quarter
HBase I wish that they had made this a
little bit stealthier they could have
done it fairly easily by just putting
another panel here but that would have
added additional cost so it's the kind
of thing that you could easily put on as
an aftermarket option but there you have
it at any rate that's there so instead
of having any five and a quarter inch
base this case is all three and a half
inch bays here in the front which I'll
show you from the back in a moment or
radiator mounting options and then
you've got your two SSD cages right here
so let's contrast what the front looks
like you've got your cable management
grommets right here and you know all
your hard drives hidden away behind a
stealth cover and ah yes the back of the
case so the thing about that thick foam
you can see that there's a lot of
indentations here in it from when I slid
it on to the case the thing about that
thick foam is that it takes up a lot of
space behind the motherboard tray that
you would normally be able to use for
cable management so even though I like I
thought that I had a ton of space back
here because it looks like well over a
centimeter space at every stage and then
it actually widens back here where the
24 pin needs to come down I really
didn't have that much space and you're
going to need to make use of all the
umpteen bajillion little cable
management hooks that exist on the back
of motherboard tray the good news is
that you have them so I was able to tidy
things up enough fairly easily just with
a couple of twist ties that I was able
to close the thing up without any
difficulty also here on the back of the
case we have an 11 port fan power
splitter this is awesome love to see
that I wish that it was also fan control
even if it was just something like a
switch that I had to reach into the
inside to do I mean I guess what you
could do is you could probably mod it
and it's just a simple molex power input
so you could mod it and change the power
in to seven volt or something like that
but either way this thing is absolutely
awesome so it's got one one intake or
one input on fan one I believe it is and
then you can have 10 fans come off of it
so so sorry 10/10 fan power splitter the
only thing I don't like about it is that
if you add any other fan so the three
120 millimeter fans that are included in
the front are reasonably quiet the one
140 millimeter fan in the back is
reasonably quiet but any fans that you
add will be running at full speed if you
run the
off this so it would have been nice to
see them able to be controlled now
something I didn't do when I was
actually building the system I just
realized now is take off the front panel
the panel both the front and the top are
quite a bit heavier than they actually
appear due to the metal construction and
as well as the neoprene foam so that
gives you access to the magnetic fan
filter as well as those three 120
millimeter fans in the front so you can
do up to two triple radiators in this
thing natively without any difficulty or
you can opt instead for dual 140
millimeter 280 millimeter radiators up
here we've got the little control the
little power module for the built-in
local illumination as well as the i/o
LED and all that good stuff and then
other than that it's pretty bog-standard
back here except well for these hard
drive cages so NZXT has gotten away from
the whole plastic hard drive tray thing
unfortunately they've only included five
of them so natively the case only
accepts seven or eight two and a half
inch drives because there's one more
mount hiding down here in the bottom or
three two and a half inch drives and
five three and a half inch drives in
these trays they have permanently
attached the little rubber grommets to
them for noise and vibration isolation
and there's actually one other thing I
didn't really like about them and that's
the fact that when you slide them in
there's no real rails for them to sit on
the entire time like they're just free
until you slide them all the way in and
then they hook on to the other side so
there's two thumb screws at the back of
each one you loosen that and then once
you pull it out these are great
again these thumb screws don't come out
on their own so they'll actually stay in
there so once you pull it out it just
swings freely until you pop it into the
little spot on the other side of that
that stealth cover over there so I love
to see a return to quality with metal
drive cages instead of plastic ones but
I wouldn't have minded seeing a little
bit more of a solid support for it now I
understand why they did these two things
so less support as well as fewer drive
cages does give you more ventilation so
that front those front fans at least if
they're going to be choked by the front
panel they might as well not be choked
by the the hard drive cages behind them
so I can see their point in doing this
it's just not necessarily something that
I 100% agree
if inside this little NZXT box of
accessories we find all of the screws
that we will need as well as a little
NZXT sticker nothing truly exceptional
in there oh yeah nice big cpu cut out so
you're going to be able to access your
CPU socket pretty much no matter what
and then I did have one other complaint
about the case although this is a fairly
minor thing so I've got an ax 1200 eye
in here and the modular interface is
pretty hard to get at because you can't
actually it seems remove oh no wait no
yeah it's riveted in so you can't
actually remove that stealth cover on
the front of the case it's a little bit
hard to get at your modular interface
and here especially once you have a
bunch of cables plugged in but this is a
minor complaint because it's the kind of
thing that you really won't have to deal
with all that often so all the i/o and
all the cables are attached to the top
of the case here
there you go very very simple very very
clean so the way that you that you sort
of get at the top is to just pop this
off and then there's no wires attached
to or anything like that it's extremely
hefty extremely solid feeling and then
the only ventilation is here along this
side and here along the back and it's
got more of that neoprene feeling foam
on it you can also see now the h100 I
that I have installed there you go so
we've got two 120 millimeter fans and
you can actually slide them around
depending on exactly where you want to
position them and then you can put a
third one here although it should be
noted that if you do install a third fan
and radiator here you won't be able to
mount the radiator this way around so
you can see I have the tubing coming
down on this side because that'll
interfere with the top hard drive cage
let a limit you instead - for hard
drives for three and a half inch drives
instead of five three and a half inch
drives although if I was using this case
I'd probably be going for like an
ultimate liquid cooling quiet machine or
something like that so I get some nice
high static pressure fans like nff 12s
I'd get to triple radiators I'd run them
an extremely low rpm and then I'd be
able to basically overclock the snot out
of the system inside in spite of the
fact that it's extremely silent you
would be limiting your expansion options
in terms of storage though because you'd
pretty much be stuck with these two SSD
mounts and then the SSD mount on the
bottom the good news about that though
is that there's nothing limiting the
height of these drives and Western
Digital has I believe a two
terabyte two and a half inch drive
that's a non-standard thickness it's 15
millimeters or 17 millimeters thick so
that gives you some great options in
terms of both SSD and mechanical drive
expansion even if you're stuck with a
two and a half inch form factor I think
that pretty much wraps it up guys thank
you for checking out my unboxing and I
guess it's a review of the H for 40 from
NZXT don't forget to like this video if
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