NZXT Didn't Want to Send the H510 Flow - Case Re-Re-Refresh

**NZXT H1 Review: A Case with Potential, but Not without Its Drawbacks**

In our review of the NZXT H1 case, we put it to the test against some of the best airflow-type cases on the market. While it has a sleek and modern design that caught our attention, its performance in this area falls short of expectations. The case's airflow is decent, but not exceptional, and its cooling capabilities are not impressive enough to justify its price point.

**Worsened GPU Thermals**

One of the most notable issues we encountered with the H1 was its tendency to cause worsened GPU thermals in our test. This is a significant concern for gamers who want to get the best performance out of their systems. The case's design and fan configuration seem to exacerbate this issue, leading to higher temperatures on the graphics card.

**Noise and Noise Normalized Thermals**

We also noticed that the fans in the H1 are surprisingly loud at 1200 RPM max speed. This is not ideal for those who value a quiet gaming experience. However, we did find that setting the fans to 63% speed resulted in an actual speed of 900-930 RPM, which is relatively high but still quieter than the stock settings.

**Comparison to Other Cases**

We tested the H1 against several other cases, including the Corsair 4000D, Phantek P400A, and Fractal Meshify 2 series. The 4000D airflow was surprisingly cheap at around $80, making it a more competitive option in this area. The P400A is also worth considering, as it offers similar features to the H1 but at a lower price point.

**Fractal Torrent Performance**

Interestingly, our testing showed that the Fractal Torrent performed better than the H1 in terms of airflow and cooling capabilities. However, we believe that adding one or two 140mm fans to the flow would greatly improve its performance. The H1's design may be compromised by its use of smaller fans.

**Fractals Meshify 2 Performance**

We also tested the Fractal Meshify 2 series, which is competitive in price and features with the H1. Its cooling capabilities are impressive, but we believe that it may not offer as much airflow as some other cases on the market.

**Cooler Master TD 500: A Case Worth Avoiding**

Unfortunately, the Cooler Master TD 500 case did not perform well enough to justify its high price point of around $120. While it is a good-looking case, its lack of airflow and cooling capabilities make it a poor value for money.

**Conclusion**

In conclusion, while the NZXT H1 has some attractive features, its performance in terms of airflow and cooling capabilities falls short of expectations. Its price point is also relatively high compared to other cases on the market. We would recommend considering alternative options, such as the Corsair 4000D or Fractal Meshify 2 series, which offer similar features at a lower cost.

**Behind-the-Scenes Content**

We recently published two behind-the-scenes videos on our Patreon channel, including one looking at power supplies and another looking at this case. Double Patrick was kind enough to share his initial impressions of the case before we conducted our review. We encourage our patrons to check out these videos for a unique perspective on the case.

**Recommendation**

If you're in the market for a new case, we recommend waiting until NZXT addresses its performance issues and brings the price point down. For now, we cannot recommend the H1 due to its high price point compared to other cases on the market. However, if you have a specific reason for wanting this case, it may still be worth considering.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: ennzxt sometimes is a really strange baffling company i remember having a conversation with a product manager once where we talked about what can ndxc work on for its cases what do we at gn think they could do better and i remember the one thing that nzxt's pm shot down basically immediately was the idea of an airflow oriented case mesh is how i brought it up when they said that's not going to happen i promise you and here we are with the ndxc h510 flow it's good to see companies willing to change their stance willing to try something new and explore something that's not only a trend but is a trend that has a purpose there's a function to it it's not like people are just slapping glass on things like however many years ago that started happening it's they're trying to improve the functional performance of the computer and make it easier to work with quieter with more open airflow that's a thing that is a byproduct and potentially easier to keep alive for longer at least the internal components so this is a good thing to see we're going to be reviewing the nzxt h510 flow today that's specifically different than the h510 let's get started before that this video is brought to you by arctic and the liquid freezer 2 line of liquid coolers which tested among the best in our thermal charts for cpu coolers the arctic liquid freezer series has had continual advancement since our original review with updates in the mounting kit including an amd offset bracket for better thermals and a longer warranty arctic also has its mx-5 thermal compound available on the market now if you need some thermal paste for your regular maintenance learn more at the links in the description below for all the cringy memes nzxt has posted on facebook and twitter over the last say four or five years wherein they make fun of themselves for not having airflow cases and sort of at the same time make fun of the people interacting with them for wanting airflow cases for all of that nzxc has now done an airflow case so it's we're getting mixed messages nzxt you're not really sure what you're trying to do at this point but uh then again at least it doesn't have a riser cable oh fire i get that there it is so we're a little late with this review we already talked about that why not a big deal but ndxc didn't notify us before the launch of the case we can get basically anything at this point it doesn't really hurt my feelings uh and we're not entitled to a case but the reason it sometimes concerns us when we don't even get told about something coming up if it's something we have specifically had some form of input on in the past again we spoke with nzxt's case designers over the last several years about h500 series cases s340 series cases things like that the reason it can be concerning as we've said before is always because you start to wonder okay if if if we're not getting sampled or even told about a product that clearly will be received pretty well it's airflow focused we like airflow focused things this is like a very well-known bias of ours we like stuff that doesn't suck and things that are airflow focused normally are pretty good so it was weird to not be notified and you start wondering why and you wonder is it because of the uh global recall of the nzxt h1 that caught on fire that we were relentless about or is it because there's too much pride from when nzxt said it would never go airflow and all the stupid twitter jokes it did and whatever the case is we're gonna review this product as if none of that happened we'll review it as the product sometimes the manufacturer's interactions with us are deeply intertwined with how we review the product the minis forum hx90 recently that's a great example where they basically lied to us and so that starts to matter nzxt didn't do that here we were just kept in the dark and our only concern stemming from that is always what implicit control does that create over newer youtubers or newer reviewers who don't have a platform who don't have the funding to just buy whatever they want manufacturers choices be damped that's what we're always worried about because it sort of sends a message to people who maybe aren't in the position we are fortunate enough in because of you all to be in today so anyway enough of that uh we have it now that's all good big thanks to brian from bps customs from sending his down here you should check out his channel linked in the description below and ndxc to its credit did eventually send us one as well so sort of shady media sampling business decisions aside where you intentionally obviously skip over the outlet that's going to move the most units i'm very confident in that with its review because uh if it's good and it's airflow focused we'll say that we'll we'll create sales all of that aside let's get started with it and see how it does so some history first the h500 series has gotten a little bit complicated and confusing as the name implies the flow is airflow focused and it is a variant of the h510 the h510 is a case that existed before so it's a revision a cursory examination reveals that despite the elite style two-part front panel because there's an h510 elite as well which is different than the h510 and the h510 flow the flow is nearly identical to the base model of the h510 not the elite that's because the flow doesn't have the glass front the vertical gpu mount of the h510 elite or the rgb leds in the front that they tell you are fans it also doesn't have the cam smart device v2 which is a good thing to get rid of and it ditches the rgb strip lighting of the h510i in every aspect except for the panels and filters at the front of the case the flow is an h510 which is in turn an h500 with a usb type-c port making this a case design that's been released and re-released for more than three years that's not a bad thing either so case tooling's expensive it can cost in the hundreds of thousands of dollars easily depending on the project and sort of amortizing that over time is what makes sense making revisions to external panels making small revisions to bits and pieces of the tooling that's what financially enables a company to make cases for relatively cheap that's why you have the p 400 a digital uh in the price range of say whatever it was 80 to under 100 at the time it launched it's because they were pulling a case that was many years old revising the plastic front panel basically changing the fan layout but all the metal tooling basically stayed the same some small revisions but this is a good thing overall because it allowed fantax in this example actually this this is ncac i'm not intentionally choosing fantax as an example but uh the p400a is good and one day we'll talk about why i'm mentioning that but the p400a is a great example of why uh reusing tooling that's old can be good and nzx is doing that here it's not necessarily a bad thing but any design can have improvements to it as we've talked about in our nine year history reviewing nzxt's products and we haven't published any case review that's totally without criticism because uh that's our job there aren't a lot of tweaks in this one but we liked the h500 when we reviewed it we gave that one of the best cases of the year awards when we were doing the roundup of that year standards are constantly shifting both for our audience and for ourselves but at 75 dollars the h510 refresh is still an all right deal in 2021 it's not the strongest thermal performer but ndxc will have an uphill battle convincing its customers to spend almost 50 more on a case with the same thing but with holes in it so at 110 bucks for this one it's already brutal out the gate because the industry's changed it's not like it was when the h500 or 510 came out because now you have companies like corsair with the 4000d pushing 80 bucks you have the leanne lee land called 215. the mesh of i2 compact there's another one that's pretty competitive there's a lot out there now where it's not good enough to just have holes in the case anymore it has to be price competitive too anyway enough of that let's go through the build notes the testing thermals all that stuff and see how it does it's been a few years since we've looked at an nzxt h5 blank case so let's just quickly recap the history of them because most of it's the same in the h510 flow they've basically reused a lot of the tooling over the years and have made minor adjustments over time the h500 launched at a 70 msrp which even in the relative calm of 2018 was a bargain price for a solidly built enclosure from a known brand like nzxd it followed the previous year's release of the h200 400 and h700i family and it mostly replaced the nzxe s340 which was held in very high regard but the standards have changed it set itself apart from those cases by addressing several of our complaints from its predecessors most importantly the h500 and h500i were split into separate skus giving customers the option of not installing cam and ruining their new computer with the software and also saving some money on the e-waste that's normally bundled in with the i-series by the way that e-waste didn't even do what it was advertised for so this was overall a good move for the h-500 non-i on the design side the cable bar was altered to give more space for routing bulky 24-pin power cables the tempered glass panel was cut down to a half panel that was easier to work with and potentially cheaper to produce than the full-size panels with drilled holes in cases like the h-700 the plastic cable channels worked well as did the removable fan tray with captive thumb screws at the front of the case and finally the negative pressure stock airflow pattern put the h500 in the middle of the pack for thermals that is which is actually better than most people would expect including us at the time from a case with a completely sealed front panel the reason it did well is explained in the review but it comes down to negative pressure forcing air in through the pcie slots and a couple of other unconventional places in the case with the number of budget airflow cases on the market these days we'd hold the h500 to a much higher and stricter standard thermally if it were released today but our reviews are done in the context of the period that the product comes out and that was the context in which we reviewed the h500 it was a well-priced case that solved most of our stated problems with a product that had launched less than a year prior vh700i and added some new features to boot then the h510 came along and swapped the tool-less ssd sleds for less complex screw-attached ones it combines the two front panel audio jacks into one 4-pole jack it traded one of the two front panel usb type-a ports for a type-c port and other than nzxt's asinine crusade against front i o it was the same decent case at nearly the same decent price and then came the h510 elite the elite abandoned the negative pressure stock layout that actually and accidentally worked and instead used two 140 millimeter intake fans behind a solid glass front panel plus a 120mm exhaust fan this led to terrible thermal performance immediately after launch nzxc said oops sorry and it would provide an extra 120mm exhaust fan for free after we finished our testing that was bumped up to a 140 ml exhaust fan which is how the case is currently sold today the elite launched at 170 an incredible bump from the at the time 80ish dollar h510 and pushing into what should have been the h700 market the h510 elite was and is an overpriced attempt to fit in with the rest of the market by jury-rigging the h-500 platform into a tempered glass cube with front mounted rgb leds that they call fans that brings us to today the h510 flow as previously stated this is the base model h510 with a new front panel right down to the number and arrangement of its stock fans the base model h510 uses a single unbroken piece of steel for the top and front panels so the flow's front panel is not cross compatible it does work in the elite though most of our positive notes about the h500 and h510 still apply with the notable exception of the price tag that 110 msrp is a hell of a price for a case you could make at home with a brand new 75 dollar as of this writing h510 and a 5 millimeter drill bit and a couple hours of effort but especially so since modders have already sold panels like this online most other companies improve more than one trivial thing if they're going to increase the price by 47 unless their name is nvidia or amd right now but especially if the one thing they're improving is actually removing material it makes sense that we would expect more of the h510 flow for the price jump kill management is as good as it ever was although we now notice that the top cable channel can get in the way of inserting the eps 12 volt connector through the motherboard tray as has been true of nearly every nzxt case we've tested since the switch 810 some thumb screws were too tight out of the box to be loosened by hand thus negating the thumb aspect of the thumb screw this can also cause shredding of the paint which just doesn't look great and also shredding of the metal if it's over tightened this can cause shards to fall near the components and that's obviously an undesirable thing to happen otherwise aside from using a jackhammer to insert a thumb screw the fit and finish was generally good there's a gap at the corner between the glass side panel and the steel front panel narrower at the top and wider at the bottom but the same gap is present in our h510 elite on the positive side in the years since our original h500 review we've come to appreciate it when cases leave enough space between the power supply and hard drive cage to hide cables under the power supply strap the cage in the h510 flow and the elite and the h500 can be moved forward or backwards or removed entirely the h510 flow has a two-part front panel like the h510 elite but instead of glass the removable section is a ventilated steel panel with a nylon filter clipped in behind it because the front panel itself is ventilated nzxe has removed the weird narrow vents and filters from the side panel on the bottom of the front panel the new filter is easier to access and to clean the front fan is placed deep in the case about six centimeters back from the front panel since the fans originally had to pull air in from a side vent instead that means that even when fans are mounted onto the front of the chassis they have more than three centimeters of clearance fans are typically 25 millimeters thick which should allow them to pull air in across the entire surface of the front panel the downside is that the excessive distance can hurt performance or create recirculating air patterns and we'll test for this time to ramp into testing so we already know that the h510 flow will or should perform thermally better than the h510 elite so the true points of comparison are actually not relating to the elite at all but rather the airflow cases that match or undercut the flow's price at 110 on the dot the meshfy 2 compact is the most direct and relevant and modern comparison while the corsair 4000d airflow and the fantax p400a digital are less expensive options the 4000d airflow in particular competes for the same market that the flow does with boxy right angle edges and a simple color scheme we'll also take a look at the h500s performance which again is basically an h510 just to see how the flow has improved we kept testing pretty simple for the flow so let's get into it we'll start with just a bunch of ndxc cases and then look at the comparisons baseline cpu temperature was 52 degrees celsius above ambient on average during torture testing which dropped to 46 degrees with the removal of the front panel the single front intake fan is positioned low in the case flush with the top of the gpu shroud and that's in an attempt to cover as much ground as possible with just two 120ml stock fans if you handed us this case and two fans this is the configuration we'd probably pick but the flow could definitely benefit from more fans here especially at the price the h500 original case ran at 61 degrees over ambi tier so this is a 10 degree improvement although it managed 57 with the unnecessary top filter removed the h500 also did disproportionately well with gpu thermals so we'll need that comparison for the full picture if anything this reinforces our comments about the h510 elite from when it launched its original configuration ran at 60 degrees over ambient here and is a poor showing comparatively the flow's 52 degree average makes it warmer than the mesh by 2 compact at 47 degrees and the p400a digital at 48 degrees like the flow the corsair 4000d also comes with only two 120mm stock fans but it was slightly cooler at 50 degrees this test has the flow warmer than many of the other airflow cases on the charge but it's right where we'd expect it to land with the stock fans it does have for example the original meshfyc has drifted more and more towards the warm end of the chart as newer budget cases are released because although the magific is fine it doesn't really come with an accompaniment of fans the biggest thing though again is the price and even though these are all close to each other the nzxt h510 flow remains expensive gpu temperature averaged 54 degrees celsius above ambient with the front panel removed that didn't really change but the improvement was right within our margin of error the single intake fan points directly under the gpu and the front panel doesn't hinder that active airflow much here the original h500 has a slight but unimportant advantage with a temperature of 52 to 53 degrees in this test the flow's layout is more versatile and it'll work with more builds but the gpu must rely on air from the front intake fans rather than pulling it through the back of the pcie slots as in the h500 setup comparatively the 4000d airflow and p400a digital are even better at 52 degrees and 49 degrees respectively while the master 52 compact is actually warmer for gpu thermals at 56 degrees the td 500 does well at 50 degrees but it costs 120 right now which is too much for that case again the flow is warmer than several of the mesh fronted cases we've tested but cases like the lancole 215 and the fractal torrent which is much more expensive by the way come with a greater number of stock fans so that benefits them with the gaming focus stress test running on loop gpu temperatures averaged 54 degrees exactly the same as the torture test it's also exactly the same as the h500 so the flow isn't magic and still doesn't solve ntx's problems given the fan configuration gpu thermals in this layout are isolated from the cpu and not strongly affected by the cpu load hence the boring performance only using the cpu to render the gn monkey head scene raised the average temperature to 37 degrees just below the h500s average of 39 degrees the 4000d airflow mesh52 compact and p400a digital were all functionally tied with the h510 flow with the relatively simple heat load to deal with the flow is in respectable company on this chart using the gpu to render instead resulted in an average db temperature of 25 degrees this time beating the h500s average of 27 degrees the meshfy 2 tied while the p400a was cooler at 23 degrees average the h500 usual negative pressure bonus doesn't matter much when there's such low heat load overall in the system the standardized fan test is a way for us to analyze the cooling potential of cases while removing the stock fans as a factor this is defined in a methodology video we previously published and was a community requested test this test as a reminder is flawed for a number of reasons but people always ask for it so we do it anyway there are some reasons it's useful and there are some that it's flawed the reasons it's flawed are defined in that video but the short of it is that the torrent for example comes with a lot of good and large fans but we take them out in an unrealistic way to do standardized testing here additionally the ndx the h500 original case might do well in negative pressure but worse than positive for gpu which would actually make it look worse in the standardized configuration that out of the way with the usual set of two 140mm noctua intake fans and one 120mm exhaust fan average cpu temperature dropped to 43 degrees celsius above ambient that's a genuinely impressive result and it's tied with the land called 215 which is a lot cheaper and the lancoil 2 mesh at the top of the chart if ndxd had packed one or two more fans into the flow it would be a stellar performer and it would be more competitive especially in terms of the out of the box thermals too bad they're charging 110 for what it is gpu thermals didn't improve with the new airflow pattern actually climbing slightly although some portion of that could be attributed to variants note also that the torrent and lancel 2 and 5 both strong stock performers also suffer from worsened gpu thermals in this test on to noise and noise normalized thermals ndxc stock fans are surprisingly loud at the 1200 rpm max speed we measured a noise level of 40.4 dba for the full system at 20 inches still the original h500 with the same case fans at the back of a sealed off case didn't fare much better at 39.6 dba dropping to our 36 dba noise threshold required setting the fans to 63 speed resulting in an actual speed of 900 to 930 rpm the cpu temperature under these conditions climbed to 57 degrees average which is actually a bad result compared to the other cases we've tested in this manner this can come down to fan quality and panel design as we've now leveled the playing field and eliminated brute forcing performance via high noise fans all the other airflow type cases performed better here and we would suggest adding one or two 140 ml fans to the flow more and larger fans means that the fans don't have to work as hard to keep the system cool keeping it quieter as a byproduct gpu temperature rose as well up to 56 degrees average this isn't an amazing result but it's at least a score that's on par with the fractal torrent in this particular test again the flow will benefit greatly from additional fan so the flow doesn't perform too poorly it's up and down in some places but overall it has a lot of potential nzxt should absolutely be including more fans uh ndxc is pushing too hard to collect on margin for this case we think compared to its competitors whether or not nzxt has the margin to bring the price down doesn't really matter to the consumer because in this specific instance there's a lot of competition there's the corsair 4000d there's 5000 as well but 4000d airflow is pretty cheap it's about 80 bucks something like that very competitive and it's cheaper than this so that's an upside it's got other features too that this is lacking the uh phantek p400a is worth looking at the fractal meshfy 2 series is competitive in price and features and cooling the cooler master td 500 is a case that actually did really well in our testing as well it's too expensive though it's 120-ish dollars which is more than this so we can't recommend that one on the price competition even though it's overall a good case that's kind of where this is too where it's fine as a case except the price torpedoes that and takes it down from fine to actually really bad value you should skip it for something cheaper so if this ends up for sale for say a hundred bucks is kind of high for the fans it comes with but we feel a little better about it where it really deserves to be is 80 to 90 dollars in uh perspective of the market it's competing with and ndxt i'm sure has pms or ceo or whoever watching this where the the reaction to that will be it's not that simple we have a lot of costs here's all of the cost uh there's shipping timelines that are an absolute nightmare right now we have cases sitting on a boat for three four weeks outside of the bay in los angeles it's not easy materials costs gone off tariffs whatever i know i import things too we get it but when i'm representing the consumer the only thing i actually care about is if the value makes sense and if someone else is selling something that's equivalent or better for cheaper then that's our recommendation so we think this case is okay if you really love the look of it or something it's fine uh which isn't a terrible review from us but we do think it's it makes more sense to buy something else if you don't have a specific reason that your your heart is set on this case and if it is we don't hate it so it's not like the h1 where we're telling you not to buy it because we don't trust it to not catch on fire anymore uh this seems fine but because of the price we're gonna have to kick it down a little bit to not worth it at least not right now so that's it for this one you go to store.gamersaccess.net or patreon.com gamersnexus helps out as always we actually just published two behind the scenes videos with double patrick's all the way across the lab in our recent patreon behind the scenes updates including one looking at power supplies and another one actually it was looking at this case patrick lathan was looking at this case before we did the review so you can see if his opinions change before and after we don't normally publish that we just wait until we have a well-defined opinion but check it out on patreon thanks for watching see you all next timenzxt sometimes is a really strange baffling company i remember having a conversation with a product manager once where we talked about what can ndxc work on for its cases what do we at gn think they could do better and i remember the one thing that nzxt's pm shot down basically immediately was the idea of an airflow oriented case mesh is how i brought it up when they said that's not going to happen i promise you and here we are with the ndxc h510 flow it's good to see companies willing to change their stance willing to try something new and explore something that's not only a trend but is a trend that has a purpose there's a function to it it's not like people are just slapping glass on things like however many years ago that started happening it's they're trying to improve the functional performance of the computer and make it easier to work with quieter with more open airflow that's a thing that is a byproduct and potentially easier to keep alive for longer at least the internal components so this is a good thing to see we're going to be reviewing the nzxt h510 flow today that's specifically different than the h510 let's get started before that this video is brought to you by arctic and the liquid freezer 2 line of liquid coolers which tested among the best in our thermal charts for cpu coolers the arctic liquid freezer series has had continual advancement since our original review with updates in the mounting kit including an amd offset bracket for better thermals and a longer warranty arctic also has its mx-5 thermal compound available on the market now if you need some thermal paste for your regular maintenance learn more at the links in the description below for all the cringy memes nzxt has posted on facebook and twitter over the last say four or five years wherein they make fun of themselves for not having airflow cases and sort of at the same time make fun of the people interacting with them for wanting airflow cases for all of that nzxc has now done an airflow case so it's we're getting mixed messages nzxt you're not really sure what you're trying to do at this point but uh then again at least it doesn't have a riser cable oh fire i get that there it is so we're a little late with this review we already talked about that why not a big deal but ndxc didn't notify us before the launch of the case we can get basically anything at this point it doesn't really hurt my feelings uh and we're not entitled to a case but the reason it sometimes concerns us when we don't even get told about something coming up if it's something we have specifically had some form of input on in the past again we spoke with nzxt's case designers over the last several years about h500 series cases s340 series cases things like that the reason it can be concerning as we've said before is always because you start to wonder okay if if if we're not getting sampled or even told about a product that clearly will be received pretty well it's airflow focused we like airflow focused things this is like a very well-known bias of ours we like stuff that doesn't suck and things that are airflow focused normally are pretty good so it was weird to not be notified and you start wondering why and you wonder is it because of the uh global recall of the nzxt h1 that caught on fire that we were relentless about or is it because there's too much pride from when nzxt said it would never go airflow and all the stupid twitter jokes it did and whatever the case is we're gonna review this product as if none of that happened we'll review it as the product sometimes the manufacturer's interactions with us are deeply intertwined with how we review the product the minis forum hx90 recently that's a great example where they basically lied to us and so that starts to matter nzxt didn't do that here we were just kept in the dark and our only concern stemming from that is always what implicit control does that create over newer youtubers or newer reviewers who don't have a platform who don't have the funding to just buy whatever they want manufacturers choices be damped that's what we're always worried about because it sort of sends a message to people who maybe aren't in the position we are fortunate enough in because of you all to be in today so anyway enough of that uh we have it now that's all good big thanks to brian from bps customs from sending his down here you should check out his channel linked in the description below and ndxc to its credit did eventually send us one as well so sort of shady media sampling business decisions aside where you intentionally obviously skip over the outlet that's going to move the most units i'm very confident in that with its review because uh if it's good and it's airflow focused we'll say that we'll we'll create sales all of that aside let's get started with it and see how it does so some history first the h500 series has gotten a little bit complicated and confusing as the name implies the flow is airflow focused and it is a variant of the h510 the h510 is a case that existed before so it's a revision a cursory examination reveals that despite the elite style two-part front panel because there's an h510 elite as well which is different than the h510 and the h510 flow the flow is nearly identical to the base model of the h510 not the elite that's because the flow doesn't have the glass front the vertical gpu mount of the h510 elite or the rgb leds in the front that they tell you are fans it also doesn't have the cam smart device v2 which is a good thing to get rid of and it ditches the rgb strip lighting of the h510i in every aspect except for the panels and filters at the front of the case the flow is an h510 which is in turn an h500 with a usb type-c port making this a case design that's been released and re-released for more than three years that's not a bad thing either so case tooling's expensive it can cost in the hundreds of thousands of dollars easily depending on the project and sort of amortizing that over time is what makes sense making revisions to external panels making small revisions to bits and pieces of the tooling that's what financially enables a company to make cases for relatively cheap that's why you have the p 400 a digital uh in the price range of say whatever it was 80 to under 100 at the time it launched it's because they were pulling a case that was many years old revising the plastic front panel basically changing the fan layout but all the metal tooling basically stayed the same some small revisions but this is a good thing overall because it allowed fantax in this example actually this this is ncac i'm not intentionally choosing fantax as an example but uh the p400a is good and one day we'll talk about why i'm mentioning that but the p400a is a great example of why uh reusing tooling that's old can be good and nzx is doing that here it's not necessarily a bad thing but any design can have improvements to it as we've talked about in our nine year history reviewing nzxt's products and we haven't published any case review that's totally without criticism because uh that's our job there aren't a lot of tweaks in this one but we liked the h500 when we reviewed it we gave that one of the best cases of the year awards when we were doing the roundup of that year standards are constantly shifting both for our audience and for ourselves but at 75 dollars the h510 refresh is still an all right deal in 2021 it's not the strongest thermal performer but ndxc will have an uphill battle convincing its customers to spend almost 50 more on a case with the same thing but with holes in it so at 110 bucks for this one it's already brutal out the gate because the industry's changed it's not like it was when the h500 or 510 came out because now you have companies like corsair with the 4000d pushing 80 bucks you have the leanne lee land called 215. the mesh of i2 compact there's another one that's pretty competitive there's a lot out there now where it's not good enough to just have holes in the case anymore it has to be price competitive too anyway enough of that let's go through the build notes the testing thermals all that stuff and see how it does it's been a few years since we've looked at an nzxt h5 blank case so let's just quickly recap the history of them because most of it's the same in the h510 flow they've basically reused a lot of the tooling over the years and have made minor adjustments over time the h500 launched at a 70 msrp which even in the relative calm of 2018 was a bargain price for a solidly built enclosure from a known brand like nzxd it followed the previous year's release of the h200 400 and h700i family and it mostly replaced the nzxe s340 which was held in very high regard but the standards have changed it set itself apart from those cases by addressing several of our complaints from its predecessors most importantly the h500 and h500i were split into separate skus giving customers the option of not installing cam and ruining their new computer with the software and also saving some money on the e-waste that's normally bundled in with the i-series by the way that e-waste didn't even do what it was advertised for so this was overall a good move for the h-500 non-i on the design side the cable bar was altered to give more space for routing bulky 24-pin power cables the tempered glass panel was cut down to a half panel that was easier to work with and potentially cheaper to produce than the full-size panels with drilled holes in cases like the h-700 the plastic cable channels worked well as did the removable fan tray with captive thumb screws at the front of the case and finally the negative pressure stock airflow pattern put the h500 in the middle of the pack for thermals that is which is actually better than most people would expect including us at the time from a case with a completely sealed front panel the reason it did well is explained in the review but it comes down to negative pressure forcing air in through the pcie slots and a couple of other unconventional places in the case with the number of budget airflow cases on the market these days we'd hold the h500 to a much higher and stricter standard thermally if it were released today but our reviews are done in the context of the period that the product comes out and that was the context in which we reviewed the h500 it was a well-priced case that solved most of our stated problems with a product that had launched less than a year prior vh700i and added some new features to boot then the h510 came along and swapped the tool-less ssd sleds for less complex screw-attached ones it combines the two front panel audio jacks into one 4-pole jack it traded one of the two front panel usb type-a ports for a type-c port and other than nzxt's asinine crusade against front i o it was the same decent case at nearly the same decent price and then came the h510 elite the elite abandoned the negative pressure stock layout that actually and accidentally worked and instead used two 140 millimeter intake fans behind a solid glass front panel plus a 120mm exhaust fan this led to terrible thermal performance immediately after launch nzxc said oops sorry and it would provide an extra 120mm exhaust fan for free after we finished our testing that was bumped up to a 140 ml exhaust fan which is how the case is currently sold today the elite launched at 170 an incredible bump from the at the time 80ish dollar h510 and pushing into what should have been the h700 market the h510 elite was and is an overpriced attempt to fit in with the rest of the market by jury-rigging the h-500 platform into a tempered glass cube with front mounted rgb leds that they call fans that brings us to today the h510 flow as previously stated this is the base model h510 with a new front panel right down to the number and arrangement of its stock fans the base model h510 uses a single unbroken piece of steel for the top and front panels so the flow's front panel is not cross compatible it does work in the elite though most of our positive notes about the h500 and h510 still apply with the notable exception of the price tag that 110 msrp is a hell of a price for a case you could make at home with a brand new 75 dollar as of this writing h510 and a 5 millimeter drill bit and a couple hours of effort but especially so since modders have already sold panels like this online most other companies improve more than one trivial thing if they're going to increase the price by 47 unless their name is nvidia or amd right now but especially if the one thing they're improving is actually removing material it makes sense that we would expect more of the h510 flow for the price jump kill management is as good as it ever was although we now notice that the top cable channel can get in the way of inserting the eps 12 volt connector through the motherboard tray as has been true of nearly every nzxt case we've tested since the switch 810 some thumb screws were too tight out of the box to be loosened by hand thus negating the thumb aspect of the thumb screw this can also cause shredding of the paint which just doesn't look great and also shredding of the metal if it's over tightened this can cause shards to fall near the components and that's obviously an undesirable thing to happen otherwise aside from using a jackhammer to insert a thumb screw the fit and finish was generally good there's a gap at the corner between the glass side panel and the steel front panel narrower at the top and wider at the bottom but the same gap is present in our h510 elite on the positive side in the years since our original h500 review we've come to appreciate it when cases leave enough space between the power supply and hard drive cage to hide cables under the power supply strap the cage in the h510 flow and the elite and the h500 can be moved forward or backwards or removed entirely the h510 flow has a two-part front panel like the h510 elite but instead of glass the removable section is a ventilated steel panel with a nylon filter clipped in behind it because the front panel itself is ventilated nzxe has removed the weird narrow vents and filters from the side panel on the bottom of the front panel the new filter is easier to access and to clean the front fan is placed deep in the case about six centimeters back from the front panel since the fans originally had to pull air in from a side vent instead that means that even when fans are mounted onto the front of the chassis they have more than three centimeters of clearance fans are typically 25 millimeters thick which should allow them to pull air in across the entire surface of the front panel the downside is that the excessive distance can hurt performance or create recirculating air patterns and we'll test for this time to ramp into testing so we already know that the h510 flow will or should perform thermally better than the h510 elite so the true points of comparison are actually not relating to the elite at all but rather the airflow cases that match or undercut the flow's price at 110 on the dot the meshfy 2 compact is the most direct and relevant and modern comparison while the corsair 4000d airflow and the fantax p400a digital are less expensive options the 4000d airflow in particular competes for the same market that the flow does with boxy right angle edges and a simple color scheme we'll also take a look at the h500s performance which again is basically an h510 just to see how the flow has improved we kept testing pretty simple for the flow so let's get into it we'll start with just a bunch of ndxc cases and then look at the comparisons baseline cpu temperature was 52 degrees celsius above ambient on average during torture testing which dropped to 46 degrees with the removal of the front panel the single front intake fan is positioned low in the case flush with the top of the gpu shroud and that's in an attempt to cover as much ground as possible with just two 120ml stock fans if you handed us this case and two fans this is the configuration we'd probably pick but the flow could definitely benefit from more fans here especially at the price the h500 original case ran at 61 degrees over ambi tier so this is a 10 degree improvement although it managed 57 with the unnecessary top filter removed the h500 also did disproportionately well with gpu thermals so we'll need that comparison for the full picture if anything this reinforces our comments about the h510 elite from when it launched its original configuration ran at 60 degrees over ambient here and is a poor showing comparatively the flow's 52 degree average makes it warmer than the mesh by 2 compact at 47 degrees and the p400a digital at 48 degrees like the flow the corsair 4000d also comes with only two 120mm stock fans but it was slightly cooler at 50 degrees this test has the flow warmer than many of the other airflow cases on the charge but it's right where we'd expect it to land with the stock fans it does have for example the original meshfyc has drifted more and more towards the warm end of the chart as newer budget cases are released because although the magific is fine it doesn't really come with an accompaniment of fans the biggest thing though again is the price and even though these are all close to each other the nzxt h510 flow remains expensive gpu temperature averaged 54 degrees celsius above ambient with the front panel removed that didn't really change but the improvement was right within our margin of error the single intake fan points directly under the gpu and the front panel doesn't hinder that active airflow much here the original h500 has a slight but unimportant advantage with a temperature of 52 to 53 degrees in this test the flow's layout is more versatile and it'll work with more builds but the gpu must rely on air from the front intake fans rather than pulling it through the back of the pcie slots as in the h500 setup comparatively the 4000d airflow and p400a digital are even better at 52 degrees and 49 degrees respectively while the master 52 compact is actually warmer for gpu thermals at 56 degrees the td 500 does well at 50 degrees but it costs 120 right now which is too much for that case again the flow is warmer than several of the mesh fronted cases we've tested but cases like the lancole 215 and the fractal torrent which is much more expensive by the way come with a greater number of stock fans so that benefits them with the gaming focus stress test running on loop gpu temperatures averaged 54 degrees exactly the same as the torture test it's also exactly the same as the h500 so the flow isn't magic and still doesn't solve ntx's problems given the fan configuration gpu thermals in this layout are isolated from the cpu and not strongly affected by the cpu load hence the boring performance only using the cpu to render the gn monkey head scene raised the average temperature to 37 degrees just below the h500s average of 39 degrees the 4000d airflow mesh52 compact and p400a digital were all functionally tied with the h510 flow with the relatively simple heat load to deal with the flow is in respectable company on this chart using the gpu to render instead resulted in an average db temperature of 25 degrees this time beating the h500s average of 27 degrees the meshfy 2 tied while the p400a was cooler at 23 degrees average the h500 usual negative pressure bonus doesn't matter much when there's such low heat load overall in the system the standardized fan test is a way for us to analyze the cooling potential of cases while removing the stock fans as a factor this is defined in a methodology video we previously published and was a community requested test this test as a reminder is flawed for a number of reasons but people always ask for it so we do it anyway there are some reasons it's useful and there are some that it's flawed the reasons it's flawed are defined in that video but the short of it is that the torrent for example comes with a lot of good and large fans but we take them out in an unrealistic way to do standardized testing here additionally the ndx the h500 original case might do well in negative pressure but worse than positive for gpu which would actually make it look worse in the standardized configuration that out of the way with the usual set of two 140mm noctua intake fans and one 120mm exhaust fan average cpu temperature dropped to 43 degrees celsius above ambient that's a genuinely impressive result and it's tied with the land called 215 which is a lot cheaper and the lancoil 2 mesh at the top of the chart if ndxd had packed one or two more fans into the flow it would be a stellar performer and it would be more competitive especially in terms of the out of the box thermals too bad they're charging 110 for what it is gpu thermals didn't improve with the new airflow pattern actually climbing slightly although some portion of that could be attributed to variants note also that the torrent and lancel 2 and 5 both strong stock performers also suffer from worsened gpu thermals in this test on to noise and noise normalized thermals ndxc stock fans are surprisingly loud at the 1200 rpm max speed we measured a noise level of 40.4 dba for the full system at 20 inches still the original h500 with the same case fans at the back of a sealed off case didn't fare much better at 39.6 dba dropping to our 36 dba noise threshold required setting the fans to 63 speed resulting in an actual speed of 900 to 930 rpm the cpu temperature under these conditions climbed to 57 degrees average which is actually a bad result compared to the other cases we've tested in this manner this can come down to fan quality and panel design as we've now leveled the playing field and eliminated brute forcing performance via high noise fans all the other airflow type cases performed better here and we would suggest adding one or two 140 ml fans to the flow more and larger fans means that the fans don't have to work as hard to keep the system cool keeping it quieter as a byproduct gpu temperature rose as well up to 56 degrees average this isn't an amazing result but it's at least a score that's on par with the fractal torrent in this particular test again the flow will benefit greatly from additional fan so the flow doesn't perform too poorly it's up and down in some places but overall it has a lot of potential nzxt should absolutely be including more fans uh ndxc is pushing too hard to collect on margin for this case we think compared to its competitors whether or not nzxt has the margin to bring the price down doesn't really matter to the consumer because in this specific instance there's a lot of competition there's the corsair 4000d there's 5000 as well but 4000d airflow is pretty cheap it's about 80 bucks something like that very competitive and it's cheaper than this so that's an upside it's got other features too that this is lacking the uh phantek p400a is worth looking at the fractal meshfy 2 series is competitive in price and features and cooling the cooler master td 500 is a case that actually did really well in our testing as well it's too expensive though it's 120-ish dollars which is more than this so we can't recommend that one on the price competition even though it's overall a good case that's kind of where this is too where it's fine as a case except the price torpedoes that and takes it down from fine to actually really bad value you should skip it for something cheaper so if this ends up for sale for say a hundred bucks is kind of high for the fans it comes with but we feel a little better about it where it really deserves to be is 80 to 90 dollars in uh perspective of the market it's competing with and ndxt i'm sure has pms or ceo or whoever watching this where the the reaction to that will be it's not that simple we have a lot of costs here's all of the cost uh there's shipping timelines that are an absolute nightmare right now we have cases sitting on a boat for three four weeks outside of the bay in los angeles it's not easy materials costs gone off tariffs whatever i know i import things too we get it but when i'm representing the consumer the only thing i actually care about is if the value makes sense and if someone else is selling something that's equivalent or better for cheaper then that's our recommendation so we think this case is okay if you really love the look of it or something it's fine uh which isn't a terrible review from us but we do think it's it makes more sense to buy something else if you don't have a specific reason that your your heart is set on this case and if it is we don't hate it so it's not like the h1 where we're telling you not to buy it because we don't trust it to not catch on fire anymore uh this seems fine but because of the price we're gonna have to kick it down a little bit to not worth it at least not right now so that's it for this one you go to store.gamersaccess.net or patreon.com gamersnexus helps out as always we actually just published two behind the scenes videos with double patrick's all the way across the lab in our recent patreon behind the scenes updates including one looking at power supplies and another one actually it was looking at this case patrick lathan was looking at this case before we did the review so you can see if his opinions change before and after we don't normally publish that we just wait until we have a well-defined opinion but check it out on patreon thanks for watching see you all next time\n"