For the NZXT (Enjie) brand, I believe that many players who like computer DIY have more or less touched or heard, and their computer hardware product line is very rich, including chassis, power supply, radiator, motherboard, and even peripherals, etc., and each field is very fine, the most representative non-chassis is the one. In the field of chassis, in recent years, NZXT has launched many styles, with excellent design, performance and practicality, harvested a lot of good reputation.
Due to the different needs of different players for chassis, NZXT has also introduced different types of chassis to meet the needs of players. For example, the H500/H700 Series (ATX), H200 Series (ITX) and H400 Series (MATX) of the tower structure, etc., but some players prefer the compact Mini-ITX chassis, so NZXT brings NZXT H1, from the appearance point of view, this chassis has the most unique shape design of the H series, using an upright cube shape.
In fact, the NZXT H1 chassis has been released as early as the beginning of 2020, but what we want to review today is the new version after the NZXT optimization upgrade, the new NZXT H1 chassis has increased the volume from the previous generation's 13L to 15.6L, making enough space for the graphics card and bringing better heat dissipation. Moreover, the interface, PCle adapter cable, power supply and other aspects have been optimized and upgraded, and the comprehensive performance has been further enhanced.
The chassis is available in both white and black models, and we got our hands on the more popular mainstream white version. It is worth mentioning that the chassis also has a custom NZXT 140mm integrated water cooling (3-year warranty), an NZXT 750W Gold Gold full module power supply (10-year warranty), and a PCIe4.0×16 riser card. Almost all of the external components needed on the ITX chassis are matched, and then as long as the hardware configuration on the motherboard is on the line, it is very friendly for DIY players who are just getting started, saving a lot of effort.
Chassis appearance: simple upright square, very compatible with the desktop
The outer packaging of the NZXT H1 is simple and clear, with purple and white colors matching each other, the main surface of the package is the NZXT H1 chassis shape, and the side is the detailed description of the chassis. After removing the main body of the NZXT H1 chassis, the overall chassis has a small and exquisite visual sense, in the shape of an upright square, which is comfortable when placed on a simple desktop, and it looks very eye-catching when placed with the monitor and keyboard.
How ingenious and chic is it? It is simple and sharp overall, all in one go, and looks very linear. Its paint surface is very uniform, using SGCC steel plate, which is both tough and textured. Measuring 405mm x 196mm x 196mm and measuring about 13L, it looks like a slightly enlarged version of the Xbox Series X, with a very delicate design. One of the biggest advantages of its design is that the footprint of the desktop is very small, even if it is placed on a study table with tight space, it is completely sufficient. Of course, the small footprint is exchanged for increasing the height, so its height is 387.7mm, so its scalability is also good, so it can be equipped with a long graphics card of up to 324mm.
The front of the NZXT H1 chassis is a piece of dark black tempered glass, if you do not look closely, it is difficult to see the installation situation inside, adding a bit of mystery, which is also in line with NZXT's consistent brand personality, and this design combines RGB lighting effects at boot time, which can present a lighting effect with higher appearance. The other three-sided test adopts a regular punching design, which looks dense, but it is very neat, the look and feel is quite good, and another benefit is to improve the heat dissipation effect of the chassis. In addition, since the inside of the hole is equipped with a magnetic dust filter, the player does not have to worry about dust or debris drifting in.
Internal structure: After optimization, the use of internal space is more reasonable
At the beginning of last year, the safety hazard that may catch fire during use of the NZXT H1 has been discovered, because the metal screws on the PCIE extension line contact the line on the extension line, which leads the original ground wire to 12V, causing a short circuit. The official advice given at the time was that users who already owned the NZXT H1 could replace the screws of the PCI-E extension cable with plastic screws to avoid the possibility of a fire caused by a short circuit.
This optimized version of the NZXT H1 chassis has been improved in design, not only corrected the PCI-E adapter cable will catch fire, but also added a fan in the upper left part of the back of the chassis, if the NZXT H1 before the optimization is called "stuffy furnace", the new model with fan support is undoubtedly better in heat dissipation.
It adopts an upright cube shape, so the internal structure of the NZXT H1 will definitely be different from the common chassis, but this is also the special feature of this chassis. Open the gray and black tempered glass on the front to see, it can be divided into four positions, of which the upper left is the power supply and hard disk warehouse, the middle left is the water-cooled and motherboard installation compartment, the right side is the independent graphics card installation compartment, and the bottom is the main board IO interface outlet compartment. Due to the very small and exquisite design, the internal space of the NZXT H1 is basically used in place, which is why it has such a highly compact shape.
Of course, the internal space can have such a high utilization rate, and another reason is that the version of the NZXT H1 chassis is equipped with a 140-specification AIO integrated water-cooled radiator and a 750W gold medal full module power supply, in which the water-cooled radiator fits perfectly with the chassis, it is larger than the ordinary 120 cold-row, the heat dissipation effect is also better, but it will not take up too much space like the 240 water-cooled. In addition, the water pump of the water-cooled radiator is integrated in the cold drain rather than the conventional cold head, so it can effectively reduce the volume of the cold head and adapt to various Mini-ITX motherboards.
The top of the NZXT H1 chassis is pre-installed with a 750W fully modular SFX-L power supply, which is 80Plus Gold certified. The power supply fan has a specification of 12cm, which theoretically provides better mute than standard SFX with small fans at high loads. The module wire distributed by this power supply is also a soft flat wire, which is closer to the flexibility of the customized silicone line, and the length of the wire and the position of the H1 interface are highly matched, and the user does not need to spend a separate purchase of custom wire installation. On the right side of the power supply are two 2.5 SSD or HDD mounting positions to meet daily data storage needs.
Because the output port of the module power supply, the hard disk shelf, the power supply interface of the graphics card, etc. are designed on the front of the chassis, that is, the side of tempered glass, so considering the overall appearance, NZXT has designed a metal cover for this chassis that is also tool-free to load and unload, which can cover up most of the complicated power supply cables. The compatibility of the graphics card part of the NZXT H1 is divided into two conditions, when the graphics card height is within 128mm, the graphics card length limit is 324mm, and if the graphics card height is in the range of 128mm to 145mm, the graphics card length limit is shortened to 265mm. The thickness limit of the graphics card is 2.5 slots,
Installation experience: Comes with integrated water cooling and power supply, the installation process is handy
The four-sided housing of the NZXT H1 chassis is easy to open, with the front facing it, which can be opened directly outwards by hand, while the left and right sides are connected to the top, so just slide up to open. The installation experience after opening is also very simple, and users who are just getting started should also be able to easily complete the installation, just need to pay attention to some details.
The NZXT H1 chassis is unique in that it is equipped with integrated water cooling and power supply, so the installation process is much more convenient. You only need to pull open the small water cooling row on the side of the chassis to open the motherboard compartment. The whole installation process is basically in one go, and the cable management is also very simple, and finally only need to bend the inlet and outlet pipes to the sides, you can close the water cooling bracket to complete the installation.
Overall, since the NZXT H1 chassis provides water cooling and power, and the power supply at the top is directly pre-installed, we don't even have to touch it. The small cold row of water-cooled is also fixed, just with the motherboard installed on it can be quickly installed, the entire installation process is very smooth, hardware installation, cable management has not encountered problems.
Heat dissipation test: can meet the needs of daily use
This time we directly installed a high-end audiophile-grade Intel Core i9-11900K processor on the NZXT H1 chassis, with RTX 3070 public graphics, and the heatsink is built-in 140 all-in-one water cooling, to see what height this chassis can reach in such a demanding environment.
First use 3D Mark's Time Spy pressure test, this test can be a long time to the GPU graphics card to apply a very high load pressure, comprehensive inspection of system stability, reliability, in the cycle 20 times, taking more than 10 minutes of test, the highest video card temperature to 93 ° C, such results can also be imagined, after all, it is not so good heat dissipation inside the ITX chassis, and NVIDIA This RTX 3070 public graphics card itself is also more heated, so the result is that the graphics card temperature is high, However, it is within the acceptable range. The CPU side is very cool, the temperature is only 46 ° C, indicating that even if it is the compact space of the ITX chassis, the installation of high-end long graphics cards does not have to worry too much about the problem of too hot.
After seeing how hot the Intel Core i9-11900K processor can be, this time we use the 3D Mark CPU Profile benchmark to cycle through the conditions for turning on the maximum thread, which also represents the full performance potential of the CPU when using all available threads. In more than 15 minutes of testing, the temperature of the CPU Package came to 84 ° C at the highest, and it can be stabilized at an average of about 79 ° C, which is a decent level and can meet the daily use needs of users.
As you can see, even if the NZXT H1 chassis is equipped with high-end hardware, it is basically able to control, which is a good example for users who want to use it to build a set of high-performance hosts, but dare not put it into action.
Summary: After improvement, the experience is better
In today's variety of chassis design styles, NZXT can still maintain its own unique design personality, which is very rare. NZXT H1 chassis is a very NZXT characteristics of mini ITX chassis products, it not only solves the player's ITX installation needs, easy to get started experience is also more in line with the players who have just started, to solve the PAIN POINTs of ITX chassis difficult to install. At the same time, it also has a good thermal performance performance, placing it next to the desktop, and forming a beautiful landscape with the monitor and peripherals.
As a new upgrade version, NZXT H1 has optimized upgrades in the configuration of graphics card height limit, PCle extension cable, power supply, etc., equipped with a customized NZXT 140mm integrated water cooling (3-year warranty), an NZXT 750W Gold full module power supply (10-year warranty) and a PCIe4.0×16 riser card, which provides convenience for players when selecting ITX-related hardware, and also solves the problem of chassis compatibility. However, it is also because it is equipped with these two pieces of hardware, so the price of this chassis has also increased, and it can be learned from the official website that the NZXT H1 chassis is priced at 2999 yuan with 140mm water cooling + 750W gold medal full module power supply. For the entry of the small white, it is excellent to solve many ITX chassis easy to appear DIY problems, is a good choice for purchase, it should be mentioned that this chassis will be listed in April, interested friends may wish to pay more attention to it.