NZXT Lexa

[Rob Williams]

If you have never heard of NZXT, you don't know what great cases you are missing! We are taking a look at their Lexa case, which combines "Perfect Symmetry" with class and functionality. Let's check it out and see if we have a winner on our hands.

Sorry about the disorder of the pictures in the article, time was incredibly tight

[darken]

I want to put two BFG 7800 GTXOC 512MB GPU's with an AMD AthlonFX-60 CPU, Arctic-Cooling Freezer 64 Pro CPU heatsink & pipes array, & the requisite 2 320GB WD3200JD HDD's in Raid,0; 680-watt Silverstone PSU etc. etc.

1) Will the 2 massive GPU's fit? Hope so...

2) With such a block of a PSU will I be able to take the 80mm fan out of the top, & put it in the bottom 80mm grill that in stock configuration has no fan? Should I point that fan on the bottom in or out? In I guess, but I don't know

Please help I want to build this rig in time for Oblivion (elderscrolls.com) release - I want the game to take one look at my beasty & say OMG WTF BBQ time

TIA for any help my techie sez 80% chance it will hold both gpu's on the ASUS A8n32 SLI Deluxe x2 x16 PCIe MoBo

How quiet is this case with all those fans in it?

[Rob Williams]

To be honest, it's hard for me to tell because my Intel fan is extremely loud. For the half second I shoved my finger in my CPU fan it didn't seem to bad at all. Even if it's a tad loud, the airflow is awesome.

Thanks, gonna be miles better than my old pc anyway. :P

[Rob Williams]

Haha, yeah I don't believe it's so bad. I love the good airflow.. that's mainly what I personally care about.

I own one of these cases and I think its okay. Looks real nice but a little fragile as its made of aluminum and plastic. If you do attach a fan onto the bottom vent, to maintain proper airflow throughout the case, it's going to suck air in and it'll suck a lot of dust in too or just get blocked unless you clean the air filter every second day.

I have a seasonic psu and the top blowhole fan was a very tight fit. I had to remove the fan just to install the PSU then reinstall the fan. With the 120mm fans in the front and back, the temps are pretty good and silent. With the top fan connected, the case vibrates and becomes noticeably loud. I don't know if its just the fan as I don't own any silent 80mm fans to test it with.

In the review where you mentioned there were handles, I seriously hope you don't mean that black plastic arc at the rear of the case to maintain the symmetry. It's definitely NOT a handle. One because it actually detaches from the case effortlessly when the screws are removed meaning there's not much support and two, it is very likely to snap if you have your system inside it.

It might be okay as handles when empty, but you're going to have a broken case and computer if you use it as handles when full. The NZXT website and the instruction manual that came with the case stated that the bit at the rear was a cable seperator to stop all your cables getting tangled up. And it works to a certain extent.

I'm not sure how you managed to catch your cargo pants on the top of the case unless you were stepping over it as it curves in a fair bit. The power button outside the door is excellent as it saves you opening the door everytime you want to turn it on/off. I live in my student halls, so the room is naturally small and I've not had a problem with the location of the power button to date.

Inside is very spacious so dual GFX cards shouldn't be a problem, a removable motherboard tray would have been nice but there's enough space to work comfortably.

The sideways positioning of the HDD's is a little annoying too. It makes installation easy but having more than 4 HDD and cabling is going to be a problem as there isn't much room from the HDD and the side of the case.

Using standard SATA cables means you have to twist the cables to connect it to the mobo, and the standard cables aren't particularly flexiable. Also, I used to own a Hiper PSU before I got rid of it and when powering the HDD, there was no room from the cables sticking out the molex connector to the side of the case. I had to gently force the side panel back on. Not a great problem as the Hiper PSU isn't that good, no problems with my seasonic though.

The blue HDD activity light on the case is extremely bright and will annoy you if you sleep in the same room with it turned on or even when watching movies as it tends to flash regularly. Not connecting it is recommended.

Even with the few flaws mentioned, a very recommended case. It looks good, has good cooling, and loads of room to expand. Even comes with a carrying case so you can take it to LAN and a lock on the side panel to stop people helping themselves to your hardware!

just got this case the other day, unfortunately all of the case accessories were not packaged with it, which is a huge problem when you can't mount anything in the case due to not having clips or screws.