A Closer Look - Inside

To gain access to the interior, simply remove the pair of thumb screws holding each side panel in place. The first thing you notice when opening the thing up is the green motherboard tray and the matching green hard-drive trays, ODD locks, and fans. Nox Xtreme has done a good job of adding just enough splashes of color by keeping the rest of the case's internals black. An opening in the motherboard tray allows for easy access to the backplates of CPU coolers, while smaller openings in the L-shaped trench along the motherboard tray should allow for some cable routing. Unfortunately, there is very little space between motherboard tray and side panel. The only room you will find is in that little trench and there it only offers around 6 mm worth of space. This means that you need to plan things out ahead of time in order to be able to close the side panel proplerly once done. The pre-installed cables from the factory come pinched in by little metal parts that are simply bent out of the motherboard tray. These work quite alright as long as you limit their use to the I/O or case cables.


The Nox Xtreme Coolbay VX can hold up to seven hard drives that are placed into individual plastic trays. You may remove the top cage of three drives to give room to large graphics cards. The remaining four bays should offer ample room for expansion. The optical drive bays in the top feature plastic nobs to pin down any installed device. These nobs, as we will see later, actually work quite well because they hold a metal screw.


In the rear, the PSU bay comes lined with foam to stop any vibration generated there. Above that are the aforementioned motherboard expansion slots, each protected by individual covers held in place by a thumb screw. In the very top, you can clearly see the 120 mm exhaust fan with seven goblin green blades to match the color accents inside the chassis.


You may install another 140 mm unit onto the floor of the case, but this will limit the overall length of the power supply that will fit within the Coolbay VX. If you look closely, you will also see that one may install another fan onto the bottom hard drive cage for a push/pull configuration with the pre-installed 120 mm unit at the front of the chassis. The top should have enough space between motherboard and fan mounts to install a radiator there without colliding with any of the components on the board. Last but not least, there are two sturdy dust filters covering both openings on the underside of the case.


Unfortunately, all cables within the case are of default color. It would have been cool if Nox Xtreme would have sleeved these black or even goblin green to match the interior of the Coolbay VX. The individual fan controllers are powered by the power supply through Molex connectors.