NZXT H440 Mid-Tower Case Review – 5.25-inch Drive Bays Are Gone!
NZXT H440 Final Thoughts and Conclusion
NZXT has shown us what the future may hold with the H440. This case drops the 5.25 bay altogether and hides your power supply, making everything look very neat and clean, while providing great airflow throughout the case.
When youre looking to purchase this case, youll have to ask yourself one important question, How often do I actually use my optical ROM drive? If your answer is a very low number or even zero, then this case is definitely one to consider. If you need to use an optical drive, there are a bunch of external solutions to use in place.
But there are more things that fit in these 5.25 bays than optical drives. I think one of the first things that people are going to think of with a 5.25 drive bay are optical drives, and in all honesty, it does come to mind for me, too. So what else comes to mind with 5.25 drive bays being nixed? Well, fan controllers, media card readers, and reservoirs are a few others that come to my mind. Since this case is geared towards water cooling, those of you (myself included) who have 5.25 bay reservoirs in a setup, youll have to rethink and rebuild your loops layout!
Overall the H440 is a wonderful case. Dont expect to put massive water cooling systems inside this case, but it is a fantastic case for AIO systems that sport smaller components. Even the compactness of this case didnt hurt the functionality of this case.
If you want to pick up this case, you can choose either white with black accents or black with red accents, both running $119.99 shipped on Amazon and it includes a 2 year warranty. This case is set to be released later this month, so you wont have to wait too long.
The exterior build quality of NZXTs H440 is superb! I really liked the thick and durable glossy white paint with black accents, the steel was also nice and thick proving to be very rigid, and the unique features were nice. The design is very minimalistic and easy on the eyes. The added window on the left side of the case gives it that little bit of extra aesthetic appeal, and I quite liked it.
Inside the H440, there were fairly minor complaints. The biggest complaint that I had would be with the 2.5 SSD trays that sit on the PSU shroud. These were very difficult to get wired up, but when they were, they looked great. A hot swap connection in place of these trays would have been more ideal, even if it added a couple bucks to the cost of the case. There isnt a lot of room for large radiator/fan combos, but there is a ton of cooling potential, with this case having the ability to hold two 360mm and one 140mm radiator all at one time.
One other thing that I would have really liked to see is a fan controller built into this case somewhere. With the lacking 5.25 drive bays and the ability to hook up to 10 fans to the built-in fan hub, I would really have loved to be able to control the speeds of these fans. If you also like to use an internal USB memory card reader you are out of luck.
The H440 is a great little case and is priced right for the market that it is targeting. I feel that if this case were full-tower in size and packed even more features, while carrying over the features found here, I think NZXT would have another hit outside of the H440.
Legit Bottom Line: The NZXT H440 is a compact mid-tower case with a ton of cooling potential, only a few flaws, and is built better than many cases on the market today.