Xigmatek Zest

[Darksaber]

The Xigmatek Zest is one hefty chassis that throws RGBs at us in every possible way: by embedding them into two 200 mm fans, the company logo, and a third fan in the rear, just for good measure. It looks like a sleek and large case that promises to handle any hardware.

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[GlacierNine]

@Darksaber @W1zzard

Is it not a massive oversight in this review to not mention that there is literally zero air intake available for those fans? The only intake in the entire case is *behind* them?

 

[Vader]

Can't take TP Case reviews seriously until they start testing for temperature

 

[GlacierNine]

Can't take TP Case reviews seriously until they start testing for temperature

At this point I think I'd settle for Darksaber demonstrating a working knowledge of how fans work.

 

[NRANM]

At this point I think I'd settle for Darksaber demonstrating a working knowledge of how fans work.

I suppose.

Although, I would settle for renaming case reviews to "sponsored unboxings", or something along those lines. They would still be useless, but it's less work than doing actual reviews, and it would at least be honest.

 

[ZoneDymo]

plastic in the front allowing for zero airflow, but hey, highly recommended.... come on TPU, either review these cases properly or just dont do it at all, right now you are giving people poor advice.

 

[Darksword]

I guess there's no need for airflow when you have unnecessary RGB.

 

[Vario]

Bruh the whole point of the front fan is for the glowing color ring ...

 

[dj-electric]

Also, the graphics card looks like a GTX 280, not like a
"Long: ASUS Radeon RX580"

I agree that something has to be done in testing regarding temperature and noise. Its crucial.

 

[3125b]

I agree, airflow is gonna be minimal, as GN demonstrated especially 200mm fans dont deal with restricted intake well at all, and there is basically no intake here - and what little airflow is gonna be there dosent get to the GPU because of that ridiculous HDD cage.
Plus on top of that, since they had to spend all their budget on glass and RGB, the frame looks more like a 60$ case.
Thanks but no thanks.

 

[Turmania]

I think the trend for new and upcoming cases will be airflow once again as now we have gpu''s hitting 300W. CPU'S hitting 150W. And this USB shannigans must be dealt with it is so confusing with many types of a,b,c.....Meshify C, CM Nr600 these are the future.

 

[NRANM]

Meshify C, CM Nr600 these are the future.

That future may not happen fast enough (or at all) if websites like TPU tell users that ovens like these are good cases (even though they have no airflow whatsoever) simply because they are paid to do so by the case manufacturers.

 

[Arrakis9]

@Darksaber @W1zzard

Is it not a massive oversight in this review to not mention that there is literally zero air intake available for those fans? The only intake in the entire case is *behind* them?

At this point I think I'd settle for Darksaber demonstrating a working knowledge of how fans work.

I suppose.

Although, I would settle for renaming case reviews to "sponsored unboxings", or something along those lines. They would still be useless, but it's less work than doing actual reviews, and it would at least be honest.

plastic in the front allowing for zero airflow, but hey, highly recommended.... come on TPU, either review these cases properly or just dont do it at all, right now you are giving people poor advice.

I guess there's no need for airflow when you have unnecessary RGB.

I agree, airflow is gonna be minimal, as GN demonstrated especially 200mm fans dont deal with restricted intake well at all, and there is basically no intake here - and what little airflow is gonna be there dosent get to the GPU because of that ridiculous HDD cage.
Plus on top of that, since they had to spend all their budget on glass and RGB, the frame looks more like a 60$ case.
Thanks but no thanks.

If you use your eyes and actually look closely at the pictures you can see there is a 1-2mm gap between the glass and the plastic frame in a horseshoe shape. Although not much and definitely restritive, at least it's something. while i do appreciate how Steve has opened the communities eyes in terms of what to look for in a good performing case i do not like how toxic and pompous its made people become by parroting his thoughts and testing methodology. If you dont like the review you could give some constructive criticism and feedback on how to improve instead of bashing the review. IE, you don't like it, go some where else and let be.

 

[Axaion]

If you use your eyes and actually look closely at the pictures you can see there is a 1-2mm gap between the glass and the plastic frame in a horseshoe shape. Although not much and definitely restritive, at least it's something. while i do appreciate how Steve has opened the communities eyes in terms of what to look for in a good performing case i do not like how toxic and pompous its made people become by parroting his thoughts and testing methodology. If you dont like the review you could give some constructive criticism and feedback on how to improve instead of bashing the review. IE, you don't like it, go some where else and let be.

Yes, lets call peope toxic when its been asked for, for how long?, i dont know - i know ive asked once, same for 0.1% lows for GPU reviews, and DPC latency tests for mobo reviews.

At some point people give up trying to sugarcoat everything, and just say blurt out what they mean in a crude manner due to feeling like the input theyve given before has been brushed aside.

In the end its up to the reviewers what they want to do or not, but i totally agree these case reviews are nothing more than good unboxings with nice pictures.

 

[NRANM]

If you use your eyes and actually look closely at the pictures you can see there is a 1-2mm gap between the glass and the plastic frame in a horseshoe shape. Although not much and definitely restritive, at least it's something. while i do appreciate how Steve has opened the communities eyes in terms of what to look for in a good performing case i do not like how toxic and pompous its made people become by parroting his thoughts and testing methodology. If you dont like the review you could give some constructive criticism and feedback on how to improve instead of bashing the review. IE, you don't like it, go some where else and let be.

And if you use your eyes, you will see that people have been providing constructive criticism and feedback in other threads. There is only so many times users can be polite and constructive while being completely ignored, before they drop the formalities.

And no, that 1-2 mm gap means nothing. It's like saying that a 5-cent discount on a $100 purchase is better than nothing. Sure, theoretically it is but in practice does it change anything?

 

[Mussels]

Guys, two things

1: Yes, temp testing in cases sounds awesome even if its artificial testing (artificial heat source, temp probe internal and external or whatever)

2: Dont. Be. Assholes. Something you wanted in the review was missing, but there is no need to have name calling tantrums about it - ESPECIALLY on the review sections of the forum where you're gunna get more attention from random web viewers and make yourselves look bad.

 

[MEC-777]

This is all I could think of with that name...

 

[GlacierNine]

Guys, two things

1: Yes, temp testing in cases sounds awesome even if its artificial testing (artificial heat source, temp probe internal and external or whatever)

2: Dont. Be. Assholes. Something you wanted in the review was missing, but there is no need to have name calling tantrums about it - ESPECIALLY on the review sections of the forum where you're gunna get more attention from random web viewers and make yourselves look bad.

1 - why would you make it more complicated than it needs to be and then try and phrase that as if its simpler? Darksaber already builds a single predetermined set of hardware inside all of these cases. All he needs to do is turn the thing on, run P95+Furmark for 20 minutes, and log three temperatures over that 20 minutes - CPU temp, GPU temp and Room Ambient. Throw that into a chart and great, we're done here.

2 - Firstly, I think this thread is so far not remotely heated enough to demand any sort of mod warning. If anything I think I'd take how quick on the draw you're being here, as a sign that this sort of criticism is unwelcome enough TPU doesn't want to deal with it.

Secondly, how do you therefore propose to submit any feedback in a way that we get an answer? We've gotten answers via forum threads in the past on other things, what makes cases different? VSG, Cadaveca, Black Haru, Wizzard etc have all contributed to the forum dialogue on other issues. (And on other platforms - I've spoken to Black haru about TPU content on *reddit* of all places.)

In comparison the silence is deafening when it comes to case review criticisms - I have said something related to this in *every single one of the following threads* (With varying levels of politeness or sarcasm) for thermal and/or noise data, and **never received even so much as a reasonable explanation why TPU doesn't bother to test this**:

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So @Mussels , I would really like to know, is there a good reason why despite being asked by myself most loudly, and others frequently alongside, for over a year and a half, in direct response to the reviews, we have been ignored?

 

[Vader]

If you use your eyes and actually look closely at the pictures you can see there is a 1-2mm gap between the glass and the plastic frame in a horseshoe shape. Although not much and definitely restritive, at least it's something. while i do appreciate how Steve has opened the communities eyes in terms of what to look for in a good performing case i do not like how toxic and pompous its made people become by parroting his thoughts and testing methodology. If you dont like the review you could give some constructive criticism and feedback on how to improve instead of bashing the review. IE, you don't like it, go some where else and let be.

Wow, this is the first time i see a response of this kind to community requests, and what a toxic answer it is. What a shame, really.
In a community where there's heated discussion about 9700K or 3800X for gaming, about ryzen falling short of its boost speeds by 100mhz, about RAM overclocking, etc. That you simply dismiss something essential like case airflow and then blame GN for making this info available is simply unnaceptable.
At least stop calling these "reviews" when the community has clearly evolved past your outdated "journalism".

 

[eidairaman1]

A sea of tempered glass rgb cases, nothing interesting anymore.

 

[Mussels]

GlacierNine: What i suggested is reproducible and how various websites test CPU coolers - by having an easy to set heat number (literally, in watts) and then measure temps.

Measuring temps of X hardware means nothing because oh look a quad core intel? 40c! amazing!
same cooler on 12 core AMD aint gunna run as cold and people *really* suck at interpreting temp data making cases and cooling reviews really damn hard to do. Artificial heat sources with interior and exterior temps is simple clean and reproducible.

 

[GlacierNine]

GlacierNine: What i suggested is reproducible and how various websites test CPU coolers - by having an easy to set heat number (literally, in watts) and then measure temps.

Measuring temps of X hardware means nothing because oh look a quad core intel? 40c! amazing!
same cooler on 12 core AMD aint gunna run as cold and people *really* suck at interpreting temp data making cases and cooling reviews really damn hard to do. Artificial heat sources with interior and exterior temps is simple clean and reproducible.

I disagree - I only know of one website that tests CPU coolers this way, and it's Frostytech.

It makes more sense for CPU coolers but isn't infallible. Real world IHS variations like convexity aren't accounted for by such a rig, but often are accounted for in the manufacture of heatsink SKUs.

in a case it wouldn't make sense because you aren't testing the heatsink, you're testing the ability of the case to deal with air warmed up by multiple heatsinks with different limitations on size and format, and you need real-world hardware (a tower cooler, a blower or axial fan gpu, VRMs, the Chipset) to provide that heat because where its located in the chassis and at what intensity, then the airflow around/through those areas is more important. Trying to accurately simulate this would require an extremely elaborate rig including not only heat sources, but also physical standins for the essential components that can direct or impede airflow within the case (Motherboard, cables, GPU PCB + Heatsink, etc) and isn't worth the effort when simply using a single consistent set of real components and a reproducible workload will not only provide all of this to a reasonable degree of repeatability, but will also avoid circumstances where a particularly unique case might not accomodate a purposebuilt testbed that was built with certain assumptions in mind.

That said however, the bulk of my post was a completely different point, and that point was what I asked to be addressed. Can you please provide some feedback on my question @Mussels ?

 

[dmasmarty]

@Darksaber @W1zzard

Is it not a massive oversight in this review to not mention that there is literally zero air intake available for those fans? The only intake in the entire case is *behind* them?

I use this case in my setup, if you talk about airflow, around the glass panel in front there is around 2mm air intake for the front 2x200mm fan, it goes all around the glass panel. You can also put 3x120mm, 2x140mm or 2x200mm fan on top for exhaust or intake. Not to forget at the bottom side you can slot 3x120mm fan as well for exhaust or intake. At the back there is 1x120mm or 140mm slot. Bottom come with sliding dust filter and top magnetic. There is also airways on the middle side back panel that you can put another 3x120mm fan if you want to 'more intake/exhaust' flow by removing the HDD caddy.

This much holes around the cases you said zero air intake? Dont talk something that you do not know bro, make research first. 200mm fan run low rpm (silent) but push more air compare 120mm/140mm on the same speed. You can fit 4x200mm in here, not many cases give you this option considering the price.