Review: NZXT H440 New Edition (2015)
The NZXT H440 New Edition, released in 2015 as the name suggests is an evolved version of the original H440 and retains the power supply cover and drive back cover to hide your cables with the bonus of an 8-way PWM fan hub attached to the back panel, it’s a nice addition, however, it does have it’s problems.
The exterior of the case I purchased is matt black and feels very high-quality, other color combinations are available if you don’t like the all black stealth look. I chose the acrylic window option of the case to show off my new hardware, laden with RGB lighting. Every panel can be pulled off and has sound deadening foam padding on the inside which does somewhat limit cable space behind the motherboard tray.
Exterior connectivity includes microphone and headphone jacks, two USB 2.0 and two USB 3.0 connectors on the top panel with white illuminated power button and recessed reset switch. On the back of the case, there is a switch to toggle the rear I/O LEDs and illuminated NZXT logo on the power supply shroud.
Inside the case is space for mini-ITX, micro-ATX and ATX motherboards with grommeted pass through to the back of the motherboard tray and an un-grommeted pass through to the power supply basement. There are two 2.5 inch SSD sleds that mount to the top of the power supply cover and secure using thumbscrews plus five 3.5 in mechanical drives sleds at the front of the case behind the vertical shroud.
Cooling is provided by four pre-installed fans, 3 x NZXT branded 120mm fans at the front and a single 140mm NZXT branded fan at the rear. To my ear, they are near silent in operation when the panels are installed. You’d think airflow would be restricted given the solid front, top and side panels, but the case is designed to channel air through the right side of the front panel and out the left side of the top panel.
There is support for a 120, 140, 240, 280 and 360mm radiator with a single set of fans at the top or a 120, 140, 240, 280 or 360mm radiator in the front with push/pull fans after removing the 3.5-inch drive sleds. I have a Corsair H110i mounted in the top, however, mounting with the water tubes towards the front of the case means that you have to remove the top sled and only 4 of the 6 screws can be used. It’s not possible to install the H110i with the tubes at the rear of the case because of the rear 140mm case fan.
There is an additional problem with top mounting 280mm radiators as the mounting holes are centered and not offset to the left a little. If you have a sleeved 8-pin power connector, it’s likely to interfere with the radiator fans. I had to cut away the shrink wrap from my Corsair RM750X 8-pin connector to expose an extra inch of thinner cables inside to install the radiator so the 8-pin cable did not foul the fans.
The included PWM fan control hub is from my perspective of very limited use. Even connected to a 4-pin chassis fan header, I have no control of the fan speed and get no speed readout from the fans themselves as they are 3-pin fans. The manual suggests that I connect everything including my radiator fans to the hub and plug the PWM cable from the hub into my CPU fan header. This is not something I like to do, I prefer to have my CPU fans plugged into the CPU and CPU_OPT fan headers for independent control.
Another odd thing in the year 2015 when this case was released is that the fan hub is powered by a 4-pin Molex connector. Luckily the Corsair RM750X power supply I purchased has a modular cable for Molex included, not all power supplies include Molex power. Frankly, it’s another cable inside the case that I could have done without as there are half dozen spare SATA power connectors already in the case.
Overall, I like the case, from above, you can see there are some issues, however, there are workarounds to these issues. I would recommend this case to anyone wanting to build a system and be able to hide all those messy cables behind shrouded panels. Apart from the minor quibbles listed above, I love this case, it feels very tactile and solid and looks good to boot. What more could you ask for, some people might say 5.25 inch drive bay for a BluRay/DVD drive? but optical drives are really a thing of the past in 2017.