NZXT H710i - Review 2022 - Bennett Netaid

The NZXT H710i ($169.99) ATX PC case sits close to the top of NZXT's product lineup, and for good reason: It'due south big, it's bold, and it hides a bunch of cool, premium stuff under the hood and behind its panels. It delivers notable improvements over the company'south well-received H510i example, and it'due south worth looking at if you are a fan of the distinctive make clean-pattern, futuristic-looking chassis ethos that NZXT is known for. (But you lot should likewise be looking for lots of space for big motherboards and serious cooling; it's no compact box.) Given that this is a premium chassis, we'd like to see a few additions to the port loadout and some polish on a couple of items, but the H710i is solid for aesthetes, performance hounds, and serious tweakers looking to practise liquid cooling with a multi-fan radiator, or heavy-duty air cooling.

The Case Blueprint: Minimal to the Max

The NZXT H710i mirrors the fashion of many of the company's other cases. Aesthetics being a thing of personal gustation, information technology'due south hard to considerately guess a case based off of its appearance. Some folks volition recollect that the H710i comes off looking rather bland; others will appreciate the relative lack of bling. (For the latter, exactly that volition be the appeal.)

NZXT H710i Case Review (Front)

Nosotros received NZXT's all-blackness (inside and out) version of the example, which has a black cable-hiding and -routing bar running vertically inside. NZXT also offers a white-exterior version with a black interior and a white cable bar, and a blackness interior/exterior version with contrasting reddish parts (including the cable bar in red). Our examination model is the most minimalist-looking of the lot: The front, peak, and correct panel of the H710i are all ane solid color with few distinguishing marks. The NZXT logo on the front end of the case and the sparsely populated I/O console on the tiptop of the chassis are the merely defining characteristics hither.

Owing to the lack of holes for ventilation on the forepart face, it goes without saying that the H710i doesn't permit air intake as freely as some competing models. That's non to say information technology's blocked; NZXT placed a strip of perforated textile on both the left and right sides of the case. This trim runs across the top and down the front of both side panels. Depending on your organization pattern, this may permit plenty of arrival. Equally information technology lacks holes for ventilation on the front end and acme, even so, it goes without question that some other cases, such as the Be Quiet Pure Base of operations 500DX, let for significantly freer entering period.

The left console is full-on tempered glass. This shows off the case'southward interior, which, depending on the colour scheme of the H710i model you lot choose, may be a bit more striking. The scarlet-and-black model and the white-with-black-strip model take some welcome dissimilarity and character; our monotone tester is less visually interesting.

NZXT H710i Case Review (Side)

The front I/O panel (technically, on the summit of the instance) is surprisingly calorie-free, with few ports and the ability button. You lot get a single 3.5mm audio jack here, along with ii USB 3.1 Gen ane Type-A ports and one USB 3.1 Gen 2 Type-C port. You lot'll need an upwards-to-date motherboard with a Type-C header to apply the latter port, then cheque for that or plan to shop for an adapter or a PCI Express card with the header. (To connect it straight to a motherboard without the header, you'd need an adapter turning a USB iii.0 19-pivot header into a USB-C header, and that would limit the port to 5Gbps speeds instead of 10Gbps.)

NZXT H710i Case Review (Top IO Panel)

The interior well of the system is a scrap oversize, which means the case tin take a standard ATX motherboard, or even an Extended-ATX (E-ATX) lath. You might as well detect the vertical PCI Limited slots in front end of the usual PCIe backplane. Yous tin do a vertically mounted GPU in hither, though like most such cases, the H710i doesn't include the hardware or GPU riser cable to go far happen; you'll have to source that yourself.

Inside the chassis, meanwhile, is a well-subconscious premium feature: NZXT'south updated fan controller. The controller looks similar a perforated square and works with the company'due south CAM software for fan-bend tweaking and optimization. The case comes with iii of the company's 120mm Aer F120 case fans pre-installed up front and one 140mm Aer F140 on the rear panel. This set of gear likely pumps up the H710i'south $169.99 price, and then be sure y'all mean to use the CAM controller and the fans earlier diving in. If you'll just ditch or ignore them, you might want to expect at the cheaper ($139.99) H710 instead.

The CAM software is amend than your average deport for tweaking the fan and lighting internals of the chassis. Across the three fan channels, the hardware box also can control 2 RGB LED items fastened to the controller, as well as up to 4 HUE ii LED strips. Ii strips come congenital into the case for addressable ambient lighting. (I is up top, ane is behind the cablevision-hider bar, continued in serial.) These besides heave the price. Betwixt the four fans, the CAM controller, and the strips, much of the cause for H710i's toll premium isn't immediately evident from the outside.

The Building Experience

What the NZXT H710i lacks in obvious flash, information technology makes upwards for by providing a relatively easy edifice experience and some real intelligence. The drinking glass panel on the left side is like shooting fish in a barrel to remove by taking out one screw and giving the panel a light tug from the top. From here, you can angle in an ATX or E-ATX motherboard (or something smaller, though that volition look odd) and a graphics card up to sixteen inches long. Getting the motherboard into identify is hampered slightly past NZXT's signature cable-hiding bar, but this is a minor inconvenience at most. You can, and likely should, remove it earlier you outset, only that will require some screw-twisting from the dorsum panel and detaching the bar'due south LED strip.

NZXT H710i Case Review (Back Button)

Getting into the right side of the example is even easier than opening the left. No screws agree the correct-side console in identify; instead, a button on the back panel releases the panel when pressed. I practise think it would have been better if NZXT had used this feature on the left side of the case, likewise, though I tin see why, given that it's glass, yous want it to exist more secure. Most builders volition need to access the parts on the left side of the instance, such as the motherboard, GPU, and RAM (and sometimes storage) far more often than the contrary side. Either way, though, information technology'south squeamish to be able to open either side of the case this easily.

NZXT H710i Case Review (Inside Right)

In total, the H710i has room for up to 7 2.5-inch drives and two three.5-inch drives, only not all at the aforementioned time. At the bottom of a case is a difficult drive cage that can hold either two 3.v-inch drives or four 2.5-inch drives. Two more 2.five-inch drives can mount behind the motherboard tray.

The final two.v-inch bulldoze mounting location is on the side of the PSU compartment at the bottom of the case, but it's a last resort. Routing cables to whatsoever drives here is catchy. It can be done by removing the cable bar, running cables through a hole fix behind it, and and then replacing the bar after. Merely it's much easier to utilize any of the other mounting locations, if you can. That said, if you take a 2.v-inch SSD you desire to show off (an RGB SSD, anyone?), this is the place for it.

NZXT H710i Case Review (Side drive mount)

At the elevation of the case is room for up to three 120mm instance fans or a 360mm water-cooling radiator, just accessing these mounting spots will take some piece of work. To go to them, you start need to remove the front panel past pressing plastic clips that are located all around the panel, then pulling upward. After that, you practice the same thing to the top panel, but this is made more difficult past the presence of LED strips and the cablevision bar. It's certainly doable, only from the go-go, based on my experience, if yous plan to add together extra case fans or a liquid-cooler radiator up top, be set up for a bit more than work than usual. This is the cost y'all pay for such a featureless (and free-of-fasteners) front end and acme console.

NZXT H710i Case Review (Top)

In one case you get under the top panel, though, installing a radiator isn't hard. You get a bracket with four thumbscrews in identify; remove information technology, and into it yous can insert the radiator (again, upwardly to 360mm, so a monster will fit) from the elevation. The radiator would become above the track and its fans below, or you lot can flip it. The key affair, though, is that this pattern detail keeps the whole radiator-plus-fan sandwich isolated from blocking the edge of the motherboard. That is the real reward for getting the panels off.

Similar in most modern cases, the ability supply unit (PSU) gets mounted in the bottom of the chassis, but unlike in nigh, the PSU gets inserted through the back panel, not through the correct side. Yous remove a bracket hither that you then bolt onto the PSU'southward rear panel. Afterwards that, yous slide the PSU in through the dorsum and bolt the bracket back in identify.

This PSU-mounting solution may sound more than complicated than but inserting the PSU through the side of the case, but I actually notice this system can work better in practise. It may crave more than screwing and unscrewing, but it's easier than trying to marshal the PSU in place from the side while you fasten it into place with the other hand. It also helps you route your power cabling more than efficiently every bit you lot slide in the box gradually from the rear panel.

NZXT H710i Case Review (Finished Build 1)

To make cablevision direction easier, NZXT too added some plastic channels and Velcro strips to the expanse backside the motherboard mounting tray. These assistance with guiding cables to their proper location and keeps them tucked abroad, neatly in place. That ways less likelihood of the infamous "panel stuffing" session, trying to the get the correct panel mounted by crushed-down, bulked-up cables running everywhere. Kudos to NZXT for this PC-architect creature comfort. Just getting the main 24-pivot power cablevision nether control is reward plenty.

Verdict: A Nice Enough Case, Merely That Price...

All things considered, the H710i is a solid builder'south chassis, but whether information technology rates its lofty $169.99 price tag is another thing. The black model in particular is rather plain-looking, and the building experience I'd rate as essentially boilerplate, with a few perks such as the back-loading PSU and the cablevision channeling backside the motherboard tray. The front end I/O panel is thin for a case of its toll. The H710i's best feature is unquestionably the single side panel with the push-push button opening activeness, merely that's relatively small potatoes in the premium-chassis zone that this example inhabits.

NZXT H710i Case Review (Finished Build 2)

Only to name a few, the Thermaltake View 51 Snow ARGB Edition ($189.99) and the ADATA XPG Battlecruiser ($179.99) are both similarly priced, and have a unlike feature mix that may (or may not) fit you better. The Exist Repose Pure Base of operations 500DX previously mentioned, though more utilitarian, offers a amend building experience at a significantly lower price signal of just $109.99.

In that location'south nothing inherently wrong with the H710i if you like the expect. (And if you lot do, in the terminate that's 80 percent of a PC case buy.) Merely make certain you really need all of the extras that y'all are paying for: the CAM controller, the LED strips, the total complement of four fans, and the less-is-more await. Just and then is it a adept bargain. Otherwise, shop for a sale.