NOX Coolbay HX Computer Case Review

Page 3 - Exterior

Since we already took a look at the case now we'll concentrate on its front panel.

NOX Coolbay HX front panel design is clean and rather familiar too - the whole front panel is essentially 5.25" device docks made from metal mesh. The interesting thing about it is where the button and extra connectors part of the panel is located - it's on top. That's not innovative and does carry along some advantages and disadvantages. On one hand if you keep the case under your desk access to buttons, USB connectors (whole 3), eSATA connector, microphone and headphones 3.5mm jacks is much more comfortable. And saying eSATA - that's the standard of the future for all sorts of devices that need high speed for data transfer - most oftenly external hard drives and flash memory drives, still quite a lot of motherboard manufacturers seem ignore it (and on a high-end motherboards even - like DFI LP DK 790FXB-M2RSH, which we reviewed recently). The seconf photo shows the PSU that came along with the case.

Above the front panel is located a small recessed area that was intentionally crafted to allow you to keep there small doohickeys like screws, thermal compound, screwdriver and such. We found it to be really useful indeed - proved perfect for all the small mounting elements, brackets and tools that are constantly mounted/unmounted during component testing. Of course it can be used in more trivial way too, like keeping hold of your keys, pens or cell phone... :)

On the top of the case we find a 200mm fan that pushes air out of the case, while being safely tucked behind the plastic ribs of the top panel. For that same fan we have a controller on the back. The controller has three settings - low, medium and high, while still keeping the fan relatively quiet even at "high". Also on the back we can find openings for water cooling hoses. It is considered a good idea to be able to mount the water cooling radiator on top of the case, while using for cooling some of the airflow from the 200mm fan, but in this particular case that might prove to be less effective especially in case you use more then one cooling block (i.e. separate ones for CPU and Video card(s)) - in this case the water cooling radiator would be better off with dedicated fans. Problem is that the case has no special place for mounting of the popular 2x120mm water cooling radiators - something present in high-class Cooler Master cases.