It’s been a while since I’ve added any
reviews here huh? I’m just a bit busy with other sites that I’m
taking care of, but I’ve got several things coming up here. Going to
finally get some console game reviews up soon, Wii and Xbox360,
hopefully this week actually… we’ll see how my schedule is.
Today for review I’ve got the NZXT
Panzerbox Aluminum Case which is a small case on the outside, but the
way it is designed inside allows for lots of room to install most any
system. The Panzerbox is sort of meant to be a portable case, it’s
small and compact in size, but yet has a lot of room for even large
video cards and several hard drives. It features 190mm fans on the
top and in the front, along with a 120mm rear exhaust fan as well so
it offer quite a bit of cooling for your system. The case itself is
designed and built well, being made of aluminum makes it lightweight
for taking with you to LAN parties. The Panzerbox makes for a great
home for you gaming system.
Product
Name: NZXT
PANZERBOX Aluminum Chassis
Author: Kristofer
Brozio
Sponsor: NZXT
Tech
Specs,Features or the Basic Info:
Welded All Aluminum ATX Chassis
Panzerbox features the best
airflow in its class, boasting two 190mm and one 120mm fans that
churn out a combined 300 CFM. The Panzerbox’s pure aluminum design
makes it a light and luxurious option for travel and LAN parties and
the welded chassis enhances strength and support. Dual radiator
support and full expandability with room for high performance 10.5″
cards, 4 hard drives, 3 5.25″ drive bays, and oversized
heatsinks offer gamers and enthusiasts even more options to increase
performance while a removable motherboard tray makes upgrades easy
and painless.
Features:
* Mid Sized, Extreme
Performance : Fitted with dual high performance 150CFM controllable
190cm fans and a dual radiator bracket to provide the best
performance, the Panzerbox
offers high performance for a mid sized case due to its unique
layout.
* Removable Motherboard Tray: A
removable motherboard tray makes upgrading easy and painless.
* Pure Aluminum: Build in all
aluminum, the Panzerbox is light and luxurious, perfect for traveling
and showing off at LAN parties. Compared to
similar products with high
airflow and ATX expandability, the Panzerbox is almost 25% smaller
and 50% lighter.
* Full Expandability: Room for
high performance 10.5″ cards, over sized heatsinks, even larger
dual radiator solutions.
* Top mounted USB/Audio/ESATA
Ports
Specs:
MODEL: Panzerbox SERIES
CASE TYPE: MID TOWER Welded
Aluminum
FRONT PANEL MATERIAL: ALUMINUM
DIMENSIONS (W x H x D): 44 X
455 X 455 mm
COOLING SYSTEM:
-FRONT, 1 X 190mm fan@1100RPM,
150CFM (included)
-REAR, 1 X 120mm, TOP, 1 x
190mm fan@1100RPM,150CFM (included)
DRIVE BAYS: 7 DRIVE BAYS
-3 EXTERNAL:5.25″ DRIVE
BAYS
-4 INTERNAL 3.5″ DRIVE
BAYS
MATERIAL(S): Aluminum
Construction
EXPANSION SLOTS : 7
WEIGHT: 6.3 KGS (W/O Power)
MOTHERBOARD SUPPORT:
MOTHERBOARDS: ATX, MICRO-ATX, BABY AT
{mospagebreak title=Outside View}
A
Better Look at Things -Outside:
The Panzerbox comes packaged very
well being protected by styrofoam and a plastic bag covering.
The case is all black in color and
is almost half mesh screen actually to keep things cool inside. The
left and right side feature a rectangle spot of screened ventilation
on the side panels.
The front is where you’ll find
three 5.25” bays, next to those you’ll find the power and reset
buttons. Under the bays is the 190mm cooling fan and a silver NZXT
badge.
The top of the case is where
you’ll find the USB, eSATA and audio ports. The entire top is a mesh
and where the second 190mm fan is located.
The back of the case is configured
a bit different than other cases, you’ll notice the PSU slot is
vertical. Other than that the layout is like other cases, 120mm
cooling fan, PCI slot, place for i/o plate and included are two holes
for water cooling. NZXT has included thumbscrews for the side panels
and the removable motherboard tray to make everything easily
accessible.
On the bottom of the Panzerbox
you’ll find four rectangular rubber feet.
{mospagebreak title=Inside View}
A
Better Look at Things -Inside:
Moving to the inside, after we
take off the door, we find it’s very spacious looking in there.
Inside we find the user manual and
a white box where all the accessories are.
The hard drive bays come in two
parts basically. Two HDDs can fit in the top section beneath the
5.25” bays and two more can fit into a removable cage in front of
the 190mm fan located in the front of the case.
Here’s views of the top and back
showing the 190mm and 120mm fans along with the PCI slots etc.
The power supply mounts vertically
in the Panzerbox, on the bottom of the case is a little stand for the
PSU to sit on to allow air to flow all around the PSU.
Removing the right panel allows
access to the opposite side of the case obviously, it’s very open on
this side as well.
The motherboard tray just slides
out after you remove the thumbscrews on the back.
{mospagebreak title=Installation etc}
Installation,
Testing and Comparison:
I started off with installing the
motherboard on the tray, simple, easy to do just like any other case.
I installed one hard drive in the
removable rack. The rack features anti-vibration strips on the inside
where the HDD touches the rack. The included thumbscrews make
installing the HDD much easier.
I had to make room for an optical
drive in the Panzerbox, the cover are aluminum and held on with
thumbscrews that are used for the installation of the optical drive
as well. The inclusion of all of these thumbscrews in the Panzerbox
makes all of the installation process much easier overall.
During the installation process I
noticed that the top ports are connected to a PCB, which is normal,
but NZXT uses connectors that can be removed, they’re not soldered to
the board. I think this is a nice feature as many times users don’t
use all of the connections and are left with the wires just hanging
around in the case. Here though you can just unplug what you’re not
going to use and put the cable back in the box for safe keeping and
you don’t have to worry about trying to hide any unused wires.
I mounted the power supply with
the fan facing outwards which coincides with the mesh grill on the
side panel, this way the PSU pulls cool air from the outside of the
case.
Here’s a look with everything
installed in the Panzerbox, it looks a bit cramped in there when the
PSU is mounted vertically but really there is a lot of room. The
design or layout of the case allows for use of large video cards and
large CPU coolers as well, so most any system should fit fine in the
Panzerbox.
Here’s a view from the front, not
much to look at though…
The small size of the Panzerbox is
misleading, once you open it up you’ll find plenty of room in there
for most any system.
I had no problems at all getting
my system in there, the GTS250 that I installed is a larger sized
card and it fit with no problems at all.
The case is well made with and
designed, it should be able to withstand most any abuse and still
protect the system inside. It’s aluminum making it lightweight, but
it’s sturdy.
Quite a bit of the Panzerbox is
mesh making it excellent for keeping your system cool.
One small complaint I could have
is that the fans are a bit loud, at least for me personally. I think
with all that mesh you could easily lower the fan speeds with a
controller and still keep your system nice and cool.
Another small complaint would be
that there are no fan grills on the fans, 120mm fan grills are easy
to come by, but I’m not sure how easy it is to get a hold of a 190mm
one though. If you’ve ever got a wire caught in a fan then you’ll
know it’s fairly important to have fan grills on the inside of your
case.
Summary
and Comments:
The NZXT Panzerbox is a well built
and designed case, it might be small but it offers up lots of room
and it’s big on features.
I really like this case actually,
I’m going to be using it for another system actually, a gaming system
that will be connected to my 47” HDTV via HDMI. It’s going to sit
next to my entertainment center, which is black in color also so it
should fit right in.
DragonSteelMods gives the NZXT
Panzerbox a 4.5 out of 5 score and our Recommended Award as well.
Pros:
+Very well made
+Lots of room actually
+Nicely designed
+Thumbscrews for most everything
make installation that much easier
+Excellent cooling ability
+Removable motherboard tray
Cons:
-A bit loud (at least for me)
-No fan grills
I
would like to thank NZXT for the chance to review the Panzerbox and for their continued support of DSM.
review# 614
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