External Examination:

The outside of the NZXT Beta has a matte black finish which appears to be of a very high quality. The front bezel is plastic, but has some very nice features, as we’ll see soon. Up front we have illuminated power and reset buttons, with the reset button doubling as the hard drive activity light.



The right side of the case is unremarkable and just a plain panel with a bump out for helping to remove it. The left side of the case has vented mounts for two 120mm fans.



Around back we see some interesting things. First, this is a top mounted power supply setup. Below that we have a mount for an exhaust fan. In addition to black, vented expansion slot covers, they have thoughtfully included punch-outs for water cooling. Also, NZXT has included two over-sized thumb screws that add to the tool-less theme. Unfortunately, the other two panel screws are not thumbscrews.



The exhaust fan grill has been punched with holes to accept either an 80m or 120mm fan.



On the top of the case we see the headphone and microphone jacks, two USB ports, and an eSATA connector. After removing the plastic face plate, we see dust filters on the individual drive covers as well as on the lower portion where the hard drive cage is located. These are removable and washable.