Zalman Z9 Plus Case Review

Inside the Z9 Plus

Both panels are attached to the chassis using black thumbscrews, which is nice to see on a case from this price range. The motherboard tray has a huge hole around the area where the CPU is installed, so you can replace the backplate of the CPU cooler without the need to remove your motherboard. You can route cables behind the motherboard tray, thanks to the presence of three holes on the motherboard tray and several metallic clips for you to fasten cable ties. Plus the motherboard tray doesn’t go all the way down to the bottom panel or all the way forward to the front panel, making it very easy to route the power supply cables and also the hard drive cables. The small meshed area that you see on the motherboard tray is a 2.5” hard drive/SSD bay, and we will talk about it in the next page.

Figure 9: Overall look

Figure 10: A view behind the motherboard tray

The Z9 Plus supports video cards up to 11.4” (290 mm) long.

Expansion cards are fastened using thumbscrews, which come inside a pouch. Unfortunately these thumbscrews are silver instead of black.

Figure 11: Overall look

In the Z9 Plus you can install the power supply with its bottom fan facing up or facing down, so you will have to decide if you want the power supply to be pulling coo
l air from outside the case (fan facing down) or hot air from inside the case (fan facing up). Unfortunately the case doesn’t come with an air filter for the power supply fan on its bottom panel.

You can install a 120 mm or 140 mm fan on the bottom panel of the Z9 Plus, see Figure 12. The case comes with an air filter for this fan, which can be removed from outside the case, as shown before.

Figure 12: Bottom panel