Assembly

Installing the mainboard is done by the traditional use of mainboard spacers and screws. As you can see an ATX board will fit just fine, but things are pretty tight all around. The Asus Radeon HD6850 does fit, but you will have to sacrifice a HDD bay in the process as we will se later on.


The installation of both 3.5 and 2.5 inch drives is fairly simple. While the former kind does not require any tools - just some muscle power, you will have to use traditional means to secure a 2.5 inch drive unto those trays. A 3.5 inch drive is held in place by rubber lined, metal pins, so there is no need to fear that any vibration will passed onto the chassis frame.


Once the drives have been placed on the trays, simply slide them into the case through the front of the chassis. This is pretty cool and easy, but with such a system in place, NZXT has not chosen to go the last mile and make some or all of these bays hot swappable - a feature sorely missed in the H2.


As I mentioned before, even fairly mainstream GPUs may cause problems with the hard drive bays. While this was an ongoing issue with cases in the past, as graphic cards became longer and longer, I am a bit disappointed that NZXT has not managed to have some mainstream cards fit the chassis.


Installing the optical drives is an easy task. Simply pull out the cover, slide the drive into place and swing the lock back so that the pins snap into the holes of the drive. This system does hold rather well, but still gives a tiny bit of play.


Inserting the PSU on the other hand does require the use of a screwdriver as the four supplied ones are traditional cases screws. The power supply holds in place well and you are free to install even the biggest units as long as you do not intend to use a bottom fan.


Once everything is installed, you can clearly see that the cable management is very good and keeps the mess out of the interior. Most of the cables are routed behind the mainboard tray. Please excuse my cable mess, NZXT supplies a few zip ties so you will be able keep this area clean as well. Nonetheless, I was still able to put the side panel on the case without any problems.

Finished Looks

Once everything was put back together, the NZXT H2 was turned on. On full force the fans are audible, but by no means annoying and reducing the setting to the lowest one also lowers the noise to what I consider extremely quiet - well done NZXT! A white LED lights up on the bottom right corner once the system is turned on.


A small white LED on the top right corner is used for the hard drive. It lights up whenever such drives are accessed. The optical drive is hidden well behind the door, so you can also use a beige or silver drive if you happen to have one lying around. In the rear, all connectivity is easily accessible. Only the USB 3.0 cable seems too long for the use in a mid-tower chassis.


Lastly, the embedded SATA bay works like a charm. Simply place the drive into it, push it unto the exposed connector. The drive starts spinning right away and thanks to the rubber lining on which the drive rests, no vibration is passed on to the chassis itself.