NZXT Panzerbox Aluminum Mid-Tower ATX Case Review

A Detailed Look – At the Inside

Here is an overall view of the interior of the Panzerbox after we remove the left-side panel. There are definitely some changes from the typical mid-tower reference design including the inverted power supply mount at the bottom of the case as well as the removable hard drive cage behind the 190mm fan in the front of the case.

The removable hard drive cage can hold two standard hard drives and uses vibration dampening material to reduce noise and vibration that is generated from the hard drives. I was disappointed to see that there wasn’t any support or brackets to mount solid state drives in the case, but I’m sure NZXT will remedy this in their next case revision.

The “crown jewel” of the Panzerbox has to be the removable motherboard tray. This tray can handle a wide variety of motherboard types include ATX, micro ATX, and mini ITX to name a few. There are mesh covers over the PCI slots that match the mesh used on the top and front panels of the Panzerbox. For additional cooling, NZXT added a simple 120mm exhaust to complete the case’s cooling system.

The Panzerbox has three 5.25″ optical bays that use screws to secure the bay devices instead of the more modern tool-less clipping system we’ve seen in many cases today. I don’t particularly mind using screws to mount my optical drives, but it is a bit more handy to not have to screw in four screws when all you would have to do is push a button to have them secured in tool-less securing solutions. Our readers can also see the massive 190mm fan at the bottom of the case that should cool off the hard drives in front of it nicely. Another small item I noticed is that this case doesn’t have a front panel that pops off, but rather embeds all the power and reset buttons into the chassis itself. This is extremely handy and takes out the ugly plastic bezels used on tons of other cases in its class.

The bottom of the case doesn’t have any vents, but it does have four large rubber feet to ensure the Panzerbox stays put during use. I think they could have added a little more mesh vents at the bottom to complete the overall look of the case, but I’m sure keeping it all aluminum adds more stability to the chassis too.

Here’s a close-up of the three optical drives that are used in the Panzerbox. Users will notice that NZXT included four thumbscrews to secure the optical drives to the optical drive cage, which is interesting and unique because I’m used to seeing the basic screws used instead of thumb screws. The plastic bracket seen above allows users to convert one 5.25″ bay into one 3.5″ device.

While users can install two hard drives into the lower HD cage in front of the massive front panel fan, NZXT also included room for two more fans right below the optical bay drives. This cage is also configured with rubber strips to reduce noise and vibration. But, the screw holes do not have any rubber grommets, which would have been helpful in keeping the hard drives quieter during operation.

The front panel headers are all labeled and should be easy to install on any motherboard. The headers connect devices like USB 2.0, HD audio, power button, reset button, and eSATA.