NZXT Khaos Case Review

Introduction (Cont’d)

In Figure 5 you see the case top panel with its radiator-like shape, where you can find a 140 mm fan. This fan, like all the other fans that come with this case, use a small three-pin connector allowing you to monitor the fan speed if you connect it on the motherboard.

Figure 5: Top panel.

On the top panel you can also find a panel containing two USB ports, one FireWire (IEEE1394) port, one eSATA port, mic in and headphones jacks, plus the power and reset switches and HDD and power LEDs. The addition of FireWire and eSATA ports are mandatory for a case on this price range. The main problem with this panel is that the two USB ports are two close to each other, preventing you from using them at the same time if you have two “fat” devices – USB drives, for example. We also think that a case as expensive as this one should have four USB ports here and not only two.

Figure 6: Connectors, switches and LEDs available on the top panel.

Finally we have the rear panel in Figure 7. You can see on the top the handle used to move the case around, since it has a set of wheels. It has one rear 120 mm fan, seven expansion slots and two holes for water cooling systems. These holes are protected by a rubber mechanism, so you don’t need to break anything on your case to use them. This case uses thumbscrews to fasten the two side panels to the chassis.

Figure 7: Rear panel.

On this case the power supply is installed on the bottom of the case and the power supply compartment is twice as big as the one found on regular cases. This allows you to install two power supplies on this case, splitting power consumption between the two units. For example, you can use one power supply to feed the CPU, motherboard, drives and one video card, and the second power supply to feed the remaining video cards. Khaos comes with the proper adapter that allows the two power supplies to be turned on at the same time.

Even though there is no mention to redundant units, we believe that you can easily install redundant power supplies on this unit, which are two power supplies together and thus twice as big as regular units (click here to see a redundant power supply). When the main power supply fails the second one comes immediately into action, preventing your computer from shutting down due to a malfunction on the power supply, and you can replace only the faulty power supply, with your computer still turned on.

Figure 8: Adaptor to allow the installation of two power supplies.

Let’s see how Khaos looks like inside.