Well, this is the first time we saw a case that is officially called as beta, not being a demonstration of the case this is the real thing for most low to prize cases for most gamers who would like a cheap alternative to cases but still keeping the usability in a modern case. As you’d imagine for the price though, there aren’t too many luxuries on offer with the NZXT Beta. The case is made predominantly of black painted steel, with a stylised plastic front fascia to the front which doubles as intake ventilation for the solitary 120mm intake fan. The looks certainly stray towards the featureless black box side of design, but the front fascia does add a bit of interest, with the power and reset buttons neatly integrated just below the four 5.25in drive bays and the front panel located in the roof of the case.
While the right hand side panel is bare, the left panel has mounts and venting for two 120mm fans situated directly above where your core hardware will sit, with a third fan mount to the rear of the case accommodating either an 80mm or a 120mm fan. The case itself only ships with one 120mm fan though, fitted into the front of the case as an intake, which in comparison to the 120mm rear exhaust fan and 1x 140mm roof fan (wuth room for two more 120mm fans at the front) in the similarly priced Antec Three Hundred, seems mighty stingy and will doubtless result in some less than stellar thermal performance.
Considering the NZXT Beta ships with a solitary 120mm front mounted intake, which subsequently has to blow through the case’s perpendicularly mounted hard drive cage, it’s no surprise to find that it’s one of the hottest cases we’ve ever tested, finishing dead last under idle and CPU load and sitting just above the bottom of the table under GPU load conditions.
When idle there’s obviously very little air movement inside the case, and while the large ventilated area around the core hardware undoubtedly helps, passive airflow is no substitute for correctly directed cooling. A CPU temperature of 13°C might not seem too different, but remember this is when the system is entirely idle doing effectively nothing and is 5°C hotter than the best cases.
With decidedly flimsy build quality and sub standard out of the box cooling, there’s not too much to like here, but the Beta does have some redeeming features. It is at least straightforward to build a system into, and the painted finish of the interior is a bonus that we’re not used to seeing at this price.
It’s impossible to ignore the Beta’s faults though, especially in comparison to the ever present Antec Three Hundred which so heavily dominates this budget market. It not only offers vastly superior cooling to the Beta thanks to four speed adjustable fans, but its overall build quality is far superior (if lacking the Beta’s swish interior). At this price point you need to at least get the basics right and the Beta has focused too much on looking the part rather than actually being the part.