Date: June 3rd, 2009
Article by: Chris Steele (Hardware Reviewer)
Edited By: Nathan Glentworth (Owner / Head Editor)
Product was submitted by: NZXT
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CONCLUSIONS AND AFTERTHOUGHTS
NZXT's entry into the SFF market can certainly be summed up as a decent first attempt. I give the company points for coming up with a unique design that deviates away from the standard cookie cutter type stuff currently available on the market. Overall highlights to look out for are the beautiful brushed aluminum bezel and side panels, embedded chrome lock, five 120mm stock fan mounts for good air circulation and support for full sized PSU's.
The NZXT ROGUE caters to different types of multimedia applications with the support of front mounted ports for USB, Audio and E-SATA. All the standard features one would want in a SFF based case are here including plenty of storage capacity for four hard drives and options for external 5.25” devices. As an added bonus NZXT caters to the gaming crowd with the inclusion of an add-on carrying bag that fits conveniently around the base of the NZXT ROGUE.
While I am a huge fan of removable motherboard trays, I think the execution here was poor. Consumers should be prepared to find alternative methods for mounting aftermarket CPU and GPU cooling solutions due to existing size limitations with this design. From a price comparison, the NZXT ROGUE is slightly higher that rival models such as Antec's Aria, Aspire's X-QPack and Thermaltake LANBOX which currently retail in the $85-120 USD range but I think there are more positive things going on with the NZXT ROGUE to justify the higher price point.
Pros:
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Excellent construction and aesthetically pleasing design
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Supports full size ATX PSU's
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Great stock cooling features (5 x 120mm fan mounts)
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Plenty of storage options
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Front dual USB, Audio and E-SATA ports
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Includes a LAN carrying harness
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Built-in chrome lock
Cons:
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Bundled with only three 120mm cooling fans
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Much larger footprint for a mATX based case
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Removable motherboard tray is useless for larger sized CPU and GPU cooling solutions.
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Limited tool-less options
If you have any questions about this review, please ask them HERE.
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