NZXT Beta EVO Case Review

Conclusions

NZXT Beta EVO is a mid-tower case targeted to the user that wants a good quality mid-tower case but doesn’t want to spend a lot of money. Here is a summary of what we found about this product.

Strong Points

• Meshed bay covers.
• Meshed slot covers.
• Dust filters on the front panel.
• Rear panel and interior are painted black.
• Hole in the motherboard tray for accessing the backplate of the CPU cooler.
• Holes for routing cables on the motherboard tray.
• eSATA port.
• Very light.
• Screwless mechanisms for fastening the disk drives
• No sharp edges where you could cut yourself while building your PC.

Weak Points

• The external 3.5” bay can’t be used as the front panel does not have a hole in front of it.
• Comes with only one fan.
• Could have come with thumbscrews for fastening daughterboards.
• Could have come with thumbscrews fastening the right panel.
• No noise absorbing mechanisms for the hard disk drives.

In summary, Beta EVO is as good as the original Beta, being a terrific product for the user that is on a budget but wants a case with several features usually only found on more expensive models. Costing USD 10 more than the original Beta, it comes with some additional features, in particular two places for installing 120- or 140 mm fans on the top panel. At USD 60 it faces the competition from M59, also from NZXT, which also has the place for installing two fans on the top panel and similar features, plus a transparent side window, seven hard drive bays and an adapter for you to install 2.5” devices like SSDs. So choosing between Beta EVO or M59 will depend whether you prefer a side window with a place for installing one 120 mm fan or a “normal” side panel with a place for installing two 120 mm fans.

If you decide buying Beta EVO we recommend you to buy at least one 120 mm fan for installing on its rear panel (it should be installed in exhaustion mode, i.e., with airflow going from inside the case to the outside). M59 comes already with this fan installed, making it to be actually cheaper than Beta EVO.

Beta EVO is not a bad product for its price range, but if we had to choose between Beta EVO and M59, we would pick M59, but that’s our personal preference.