News NZXT H1 is new SFF case that includes 650w SFX and 140mm AIO

Interesting new case from NZXT. The price is high at $350 but does come with bundled 650W SFX power supply and 140mm AIO. I don't think it's a fit for most of us here but in nice to see a "mass market" vendor deliver interesting, nicely designed SFF cases.

NZXT H1 Review: SFF Excellence, PSU and AIO Included

NZXT’s H1 is ready for powerful hardware inside its itty-bitty build space.

www.tomshardware.com

NZXT | Gaming PC products and services

Love your gaming PC | We meticulously design a curated suite of premium products to make extraordinary gaming experiences achievable and fun.

www.nzxt.com

 

[Valantar]

Not really, the radiator they are using and its placement is a direct copy of the ONE.

Doesn't the One use dual 240mm rads? I guess there are structural similarities in terms of ports and barbs on the rad, but that's also a necessity due to how the tubes need to be routed to give sufficient flexibility for the fold-out mounting without becoming too thick. Of course the One's radiators also fold out, sure. But Corsair also uses a traditional Asetek pump+block combo, while this has the pump mounted inside the radiator. All in all there are obvious similarities, but calling it a direct copy is going way too far.

But besides this, you seem to be saying that as a counter-argument to what I was saying, which doesn't make sense to me. The Corsair one is very clearly a completely different design from this case. Different component placements, different design thinking, different cooling layout, etc. Better in some ways, worse in others. The One has extremely clever cooling, prioritizes rear-placed I/O, but has limited GPU compatibility due to the use of extensions for outputs and the semi-proprietary GPU AIO mount. The H1 has bottom I/O, so no extensions for anything except power, which is a smart choice IMO even if it sacrifices ease of port access, has a similar but by no means identical CPU cooler, and much wider GPU compatibility - but of course no water cooling for the GPU. In other words, fundamentally different designs with quite different priorities. Just because they're all compact upright cases doesn't make them the same.

 

[deadshot1982]

These things need to sell. The TG is useless though.

I found a solution. I purchased a sticky thermal silicon sheet and cut it to size and placed it inside the glass. Now the problem is solved, now solid black.

 

[Valantar]

I found a solution. I purchased a sticky thermal silicon sheet and cut it to size and placed it inside the glass. Now the problem is solved, now solid black.

Still a heat trap, though.

 

[tinyitx]

I wonder if using one or a pair of those PCI slot centrifugal fans (fixed by some diy method, perhaps positioned near the front exhaust of an open air display card) will provide noticeable cooling benefit as those fans can extract hot air via a 90-degree, thus could be beneficial to extract hot air via the bottom.

 

[deadshot1982]

Still a heat trap, though.

Actually my temps are the same as my Nzxt H200.

 

[Valantar]

Actually my temps are the same as my Nzxt H200.

I'm not saying the case is bad, just that the tempered glass is a heat trap for any GPU with "vertical" (relative to the PCIe slot) heatsink fins. Vented mesh would be better, that's all

 

[owliwar]

my 2 cents from south america where we dont have sfx psu:
I really like it. and the psu bundle will make the case very attractive for markets where there is no market for sfx psus for any reason.

for ex, I know of a single retail in brasil that have good sfx psus, and is usually a single model available for around 300 USD (with direct conversion). an ITX inwin case with PSU included can be bought for around 400 USD.

I mean, its expensive. but considering the price os the PSU alone, I can see this costing around 500USD here for the retail price.

ok its hella expensive but I still kinda dig it

 

[deadshot1982]

I'm not saying the case is bad, just that the tempered glass is a heat trap for any GPU with "vertical" (relative to the PCIe slot) heatsink fins. Vented mesh would be better, that's all

I'm just letting you know if my temps are ok then it's not. A heat trap would raise the temps. Most reviews say the temps are ok. Mine are ok , from my experience.

 

[Valantar]

I'm just letting you know if my temps are ok then it's not. A heat trap would raise the temps. Most reviews say the temps are ok. Mine are ok , from my experience.

That's a misunderstanding. Temps being ok doesn't in any way mean that there aren't thermal/airflow inefficiencies in the design of the case, it just means that your parts aren't enough to overload the case given its current deficiencies. Neither does there being inefficiencies in the design of the case make it a bad design, nor one that can't handle most (or even all) relevant parts configurations - just that it could be better. Also, saying "A heat trap would raise the temps. Most reviews say the temps are ok. Mine are ok" doesn't make sense. Raise temps from what? The answer to that would obviously be "from what they would be if there was a vented panel there. Which there isn't. So, unless you also have a vented panel and have compared temps with the two, temps being ok doesn't in any way indicate that they aren't higher than they would be with a vented panel.

For the airflow and parts layout of this case, having a sheet of perforated metal there instead of the glass would undoubtedly lower GPU temperatures further, simply because there is currently nowhere for air expelled off the top of the GPU to go except back into the GPU fans (a tiny amount might escape upwards or downwards, but the lack of fans to create airflow makes this unlikely - the pull from the GPU fans will counteract any convection) before finally being partially expelled out the bottom instead. I haven't seen many reviews of the case (a couple is generally enough for me), but at least Optimum Tech points out this very thing.

Tl;dr: just because thermals are okay doesn't mean they couldn't be easily improved by small design changes, and in this case NZXT chose to sacrifice GPU thermals somewhat to be able to check the "has tempered glass" box on the design spec sheet.

 

[deadshot1982]

That's a misunderstanding. Temps being ok doesn't in any way mean that there aren't thermal/airflow inefficiencies in the design of the case, it just means that your parts aren't enough to overload the case given its current deficiencies. Neither does there being inefficiencies in the design of the case make it a bad design, nor one that can't handle most (or even all) relevant parts configurations - just that it could be better. Also, saying "A heat trap would raise the temps. Most reviews say the temps are ok. Mine are ok" doesn't make sense. Raise temps from what? The answer to that would obviously be "from what they would be if there was a vented panel there. Which there isn't. So, unless you also have a vented panel and have compared temps with the two, temps being ok doesn't in any way indicate that they aren't higher than they would be with a vented panel.

For the airflow and parts layout of this case, having a sheet of perforated metal there instead of the glass would undoubtedly lower GPU temperatures further, simply because there is currently nowhere for air expelled off the top of the GPU to go except back into the GPU fans (a tiny amount might escape upwards or downwards, but the lack of fans to create airflow makes this unlikely - the pull from the GPU fans will counteract any convection) before finally being partially expelled out the bottom instead. I haven't seen many reviews of the case (a couple is generally enough for me), but at least Optimum Tech points out this very thing.

Tl;dr: just because thermals are okay doesn't mean they couldn't be easily improved by small design changes, and in this case NZXT chose to sacrifice GPU thermals somewhat to be able to check the "has tempered glass" box on the design spec sheet.

From my experience my 5700XT runs between 70-73 degrees my 3800X runs between 65-70 degrees

 

[Valantar]

From my experience my 5700XT runs between 70-73 degrees my 3800X runs between 65-70 degrees

That's not bad. But I would still expect a >5° drop if the panel was mesh instead of glass (more than that if there was some sort of exhaust fan). 70-73 degrees with a ~210W GPU means that anything more powerful would be well into throttling territory, so I guess you've hit a good balance in terms of what the case can handle

 

[deadshot1982]

That's not bad. But I would still expect a >5° drop if the panel was mesh instead of glass (more than that if there was some sort of exhaust fan). 70-73 degrees with a ~210W GPU means that anything more powerful would be well into throttling territory, so I guess you've hit a good balance in terms of what the case can handle

Thats with my clocks in the 2000mhz+ range 60's when clocked in the 1900's. Plastic washers mod works wonders and I did it on a 5700 xt Pulse.

 

[deadshot1982]

Thats with my clocks in the 2000mhz+ range 60's when clocked in the 1900's. Plastic washers mod works wonders and I did it on a 5700 xt Pulse.

I've been playing COD MW temps are 63-65 degrees

 

[deadshot1982]

I've been playing COD MW temps are 63-65 degrees

 

[Valantar]

Thats with my clocks in the 2000mhz+ range 60's when clocked in the 1900's. Plastic washers mod works wonders and I did it on a 5700 xt Pulse.

As I said, not bad at all, though it still makes me wonder what thermals would be like with a vented panel rather than glass, as they should still be better. You could test an approximation of this quite easily; just find a suitable benchmark and run it until you hit thermal equilibrium, then let the system cool, remove the glass panel and re-run the test. Of course with dynamically clocking parts like modern GPUs you'd also need to monitor clocks and not just temperatures.

 

[rfarmer]

As I said, not bad at all, though it still makes me wonder what thermals would be like with a vented panel rather than glass, as they should still be better. You could test an approximation of this quite easily; just find a suitable benchmark and run it until you hit thermal equilibrium, then let the system cool, remove the glass panel and re-run the test. Of course with dynamically clocking parts like modern GPUs you'd also need to monitor clocks and not just temperatures.

I know in the HardwareCanucks review of the case he got almost 15C better thermals for the GPU after removing the TG panel. I really hope either NZXT, or an aftermarket company, make a vented replacement panel.

 

[chyll2]

a fan duct to the GPU is a good experiment for this. In the hardware canucks review, removing the TG resulted a much bigger temp drop compared to CPU. This might be due to the GPU recycling hot air where as the radiator is always being cooled by fresh air. (unless I am wrong and that the AIO is doing exhaust)

 

[Valantar]

I know in the HardwareCanucks review of the case he got almost 15C better thermals for the GPU after removing the TG panel. I really hope either NZXT, or an aftermarket company, make a vented replacement panel.

I generally hope NZXT starts selling vented panels for their cases - I would really like a vented front panel for my H200 (cloth covered would be sweet, considering making my own, though I'm a bit reluctant to butcher my only front panel). I get that tooling would be expensive for what would inevitably be a low-volume product, but it's such an obvious value-add that I imagine they could sell decently nonetheless. For the H1 they could even keep the internal frame from the glass and just replace the glass with metal, that should drive down prices quite a lot. Or of course just copy the tooling for the rear panel minus the cable cutout.

 

[Boil]

a fan duct to the GPU is a good experiment for this. In the hardware canucks review, removing the TG resulted a much bigger temp drop compared to CPU. This might be due to the GPU recycling hot air where as the radiator is always being cooled by fresh air. (unless I am wrong and that the AIO is doing exhaust)

From the NZXT H1 web page:

"The dual-chamber airflow is thermally designed to allow the CPU, GPU, and PSU to pull in fresh air, and exhaust hot air without affecting temperatures of neighboring components."

All fans (CPU AIO, GPU, PSU) are set as intake. Pure positive pressure out the back is the only exhaust.

Or of course just copy the tooling for the rear panel minus the cable cutout.

Here is to hoping NZXT follows the path laid out by the Phanteks Evolv Shift, and offers an "Air" version (where the front panel is like the back, but with the cable cutout removed)...

One solution I would see is two to four of the 40mm x (10mm or 25mm) Noctua PWM fans attached to the back panel, exhausting the GPU chamber...?

I guess one could do the same on the CPU side, depending on fitment...?

 

[deadshot1982]

From the NZXT H1 web page:

"The dual-chamber airflow is thermally designed to allow the CPU, GPU, and PSU to pull in fresh air, and exhaust hot air without affecting temperatures of neighboring components."

All fans (CPU AIO, GPU, PSU) are set as intake. Pure positive pressure out the back is the only exhaust.



Here is to hoping NZXT follows the path laid out by the Phanteks Evolv Shift, and offers an "Air" version (where the front panel is like the back, but with the cable cutout removed)...

One solution I would see is two to four of the 40mm x (10mm or 25mm) Noctua PWM fans attached to the back panel, exhausting the GPU chamber...?

I guess one could do the same on the CPU side, depending on fitment...?

That definately seems to be the case as I feel hot air leaking out the back.