NZXT H510 Elite - Premium Mid-Tower ATX Case PC
NZXT H510 Elite - Premium Mid-Tower ATX Case PC
Features List
Showcase your RGB build with front and side tempered glass panels
Includes two Aer RGB 2 fans and one addressable RGB LED strip
Smart Device 2 with two HUE 2 RGB lighting and three fan channels
USB 3.1 Type A and USB 3.1 Gen 2-compatible USB-C connectors on the front panel
Patented cable routing kit with pre-installed channels and straps for intuitive and easy cable management
Removable radiator/fan mounting bracket simplifies the installation of either AIO and custom loop liquid coolers
An integrated GPU mount lets you display your GPU vertically (requires the purchase of a separate PCI riser card)
Specifications
ModelBrandNZXTSeriesH Series H510 EliteModelCA-H510E-W1
DetailsTypeATX Mid TowerColorMatte WhiteCase MaterialSGCC Steel / Tempered GlassWith Power SupplyNoPower Supply MountedBottomMotherboard CompatibilityMicro ATX / ATX / Mini-ITXSide Panel WindowYesLED2 x Integrated Aer RGB 2 140mm Fans
1 x Integrated addressable LED StripRemovable FilterYes
ExpansionInternal 3.5" Drive Bays2+1Internal 2.5" Drive Bays2+1Expansion Slots7+2 Vertical
Front Panel PortsFront Ports1 x USB 3.0 Type-A / 1 x USB 3.1 Gen 2 Type-C / 1 x Headset Audio Jack
Cooling SystemFan OptionsFront: 2 x 120 or 2 x 140mm fan (2 x AER RGB 2 140mm included)
Top: 1 x 120mm or 1 x 140mm fan
Rear: 1 x 120mm fan (1 x 120mm AER F120 Case Version Included)
Fan Specs: Aer RGB 2 (140mm)
Speed: 500-1,500 RPM
Airflow: 30.39 - 91.19 CFM
Noise: 22 - 33 dBA
Air Pressure: 0.17 - 1.52mm-H2O
Bearing: Fluid Dynamic Bearing
Fan Connector 4-Pin PWMRadiator OptionsFront: 2 x 140 or 2 x 120mm with Pull
Rear: 1 x 120mm
Dimensions & WeightMax GPU Length Allowance381 mmMax CPU Cooler Height Allowance165 mmDimensions (H x W x D)18.11" x 8.27" x 16.85" w/ feet
17.13" x 8.27" x 16.85" w/o feetWeight16.53 lbs.
Additional InfoFeaturesTwo tempered glass panels top off your build, perfectly showcasing your RGB build. We’ve included two Aer RGB 2 fans and an RGB LED strip to get you started.
The H510 Elite features a removable radiator mounting bracket, simple-to-use SSD trays, and a patented cable management system for a smarter, easier build experience. The new Smart Device 2 includes two HUE 2 RGB lighting channels, and three fan channels that support 0dB modes for voltage-regulated or PWM fans.
The USB 3.1 Gen 2-compatible USB-C connector on the front panel makes it easier than ever to connect smartphones, high-speed external storage, and the latest peripherals to your PC.
The clean, modern design, iconic cable management bar, and uninterrupted tempered-glass panels all showcase your stunning build.
Use the intuitive NZXT CAM application to monitor and control your build, choosing from presets or custom controls for your RGB lighting and fans to create your dream PC.
Additional InformationDate First AvailableAugust 01, 2019
W: 210mm H: 460mm D: 428mm (with feet)Material(s)SGCC Steel, Tempered GlassWeight7.5 kgClearanceCable Management: 19-23mm
GPU Clearance: Up to 368.6mm w/o front radiator installed, up to 313.6mm with front radiator installed
Vertical GPU Mount Clearance: 40.64mm
CPU Cooler: Up to 165mm
Front Radiator: 60mm
Rear Radiator: 60mm
Reservoir & Pump: Up to 180mm (Along cable bar), Up to 86mm (Along bottom panel)Motherboard SupportMini-ITX, MicroATX, ATXFront I/O Ports1x USB 3.1 Gen 2 Type-C
1x USB 3.1 Gen 1 Type-A
1x Headset Audio Jack
Front I/O internal header
1x USB 3.1 Gen 2 Internal Header
1x USB 3.1 Gen 1 Internal Header
1x USB 2.0 Internal Header
1x HD Audio Header
FiltersAll Air IntakesSmart Device V23x Fan channels with Max 10W per channel output*
2x RGB LED channels, each support up to 4x HUE 2 addressable LED strips or 5x Aer RGB 2 fans
Built-in noise detection module
*Note : If a splitter is used, fan control is regulated depending on the fan connected to the 4-pin port . Do not use low-noise adapters.RGB LED Lighting2x Integrated Aer RGB 2 140mm Fans
1x Integrated addressable LED StripVertical GPU Mount2 SlotsDrive Bays2.5": 2+1
3.5": 2+1Expansion Slots7Radiator SupportFront: 2x 140 or 2x 120mm with Pull
*Note: Need to remove RGB fans if you plan to mount the radiator to the front
Rear: 1x 120mmFan SupportFront: 2x 120/ 2x 140mm (2x AER RGB 2 140mm included)
Top: 1x 120mm/ 1x 140mm (1x AER F140 Case Version Included)
Rear: 1x 120mm (1x AER F120 Case Version Included)Fan SpecsAer RGB 2 (140mm)
Speed: 500-1,500 RPM
Airflow: 30.39 - 91.19 CFM
Noise: 22 - 33 dBA
Air Pressure: 0.17 – 1.52mm-H2O
Bearing: Fluid Dynamic Bearing
Fan Connector 4-Pin PWMWarranty2 YearsModel NumberCA-H510E-B1EAN5060301695287UPC815671015105
PROS
Elegant, minimalist design, with glass on two sides. Three included fans, two of them 140mm RGB ones. Included fan and RGB control module, which works with NZXT software.
CONS
Drive mounting requires screws. Light on USB ports (just two) but requires two USB headers. A bit pricey for the feature set.
BOTTOM LINE
NZXT's latest tempered-glass chassis, the H510 Elite, is a nifty ATX midtower with glass on two sides, stark aesthetics, and a tasteful helping of RGB. Just a couple of design quibbles keep it from stardom.
Aesthetics & Build Quality
At first glance, NZXT's H510 Elite might look sheer and bland, if you're used to sculpted chassis with lots of curves around the intakes and the base...
The exterior is mostly white, with dark-tint tempered-glass front and side panels that expose the duo-tone black-and-white interior to view. The vibe isn't what I would call flashy, but the overall design comes off looking clean and attractive. It's also nice to see a case that isn't covered head to toe in RGB LEDs. (It does have some lights, though; more on that later.)
The H510 Elite also feels well made. The frame and panels are SGCC steel, and the metal sides do not flex easily. The case is also rather light. Weighing in at 16.5 pounds, it's one of the lightest ATX chassis I've worked with recently. This may not sound important, but if you move your case around much, as I do during the review process, you take note of every extra pound.
One aspect of the exterior design that seems a tad too minimalist, though, is the composition of the I/O panel. The ports—just three of them—reside on the top of the case. You get only two USB ports here (one USB 3.1 Gen1 Type-A, and one USB 3.1 Gen2 Type-C), as well as a headset audio jack and a power button. I think in 2019 we can all agree that you can never have too many USB ports, and just two ports feels like one or two too few.
To use both ports, your motherboard will need a typical 20-pin USB 3.0 header (for the Type-A port) and the much-newer-style USB 3.1 Gen2 header (for the Type-C). Older motherboards won't have the latter and will require an adapter, which is not included. Bear that in mind if your board doesn't have the newfangled header.
Internal Features & Building Experience
The glass panel on the left side of the case fits snugly in place and is held on by a single screw. After removing the screw, you need to give the panel a little tug to break it free, and after that it will swing down and can be set aside. This mounting system for the tempered-glass panel works well. This is important, because with too many cases, it feels likely that the side panel will fall to the ground or whack one corner on your desk and break in the course of removing it. Here, you feel like you're always in control of it.
Taking off the side glass gives you access to the motherboard mounting tray. Everything else (drives, power supply) gets mounted from the other side of the case. The lack of clutter on this side of the case makes it easy to navigate your motherboard into place. (The chassis takes ATX, MicroATX, or Mini-ITX boards.) You can also mount your graphics card vertically in this chassis, showing it off face-on behind the glass, using the two-slot mount forward of the PCI Express backplane. (Like with most cases that feature a vertical mount, you'll have to supply your own riser cable to do this, though.)
Turning the case over and removing the right-side panel, you can immediately see two 2.5-inch mounting brackets located behind the motherboard mounting tray. A compartment at the bottom of the case has a drive cage that can hold two 3.5-inch hard drives. This lower compartment also houses the power supply unit (PSU).
Mounting the PSU is about as easy I've seen from a chassis with a PSU shroud, but mounting storage devices is a little more work than it needs to be. This case doesn't feature toolless mounting—a surprise for a premium-price case like this—and the storage devices each require four screws to be mounted properly. Furthermore, you need to remove the drive cage or 2.5-inch mounting bracket to add storage devices.
Two other key features on this side of the case are worth mentioning. Toward the middle are brackets designed to route pipes for liquid cooling systems. If you aren't using a water cooler, however, you can repurpose these brackets to help with cable management.
Also mounted on this side of the case is one of NZXT's Smart Device V2 controllers, which can control three fans and the case's RGB LEDs. The RGB channels on the Smart Device support LED strips, the lighting on RGB fans, or a mix of the two. (The RGB on the H510 Elite's two front fans, plus an included LED strip, keep it busy.) The Smart Device works with CAM, NZXT's own program for lighting control and customization.
With everything installed, the last thing that needs doing is to route the cables to the appropriate connectors. This is made easier by the myriad passthroughs around the motherboard; they permit cables to emerge right where they need to. Also, NZXT's signature vertical strip (here, it's white) inside the case cavity helps hide and restrain some of the cable excess.
With my relatively simple test build (an ATX motherboard, one graphics card, AMD stock air cooler), things felt a little cramped, cable-wise, on the right side of the case once everything was finished. I had to keep the side panel pressed tightly against the case to remount it. But, overall, the build experience was typical of this size and quality class of midtower case, and straightforward enough.
A PC Under Glass
Although the NZXT H510 Elite looks a tad bland when you unbox it, that all changes when you power up the case with a computer built inside. The case, as I received it, featured two 140mm NZXT Aer RGB 2 fans up front, plus an addressable LED strip that really makes the components inside shine. The front fans are mounted on a removable, slide-out bracket that can accept a 240mm/280mm radiator. NZXT noted just after the H510 Elite launch that it is adding a third fan to give the case a further thermal assist. (Early buyers who didn't get it can request the extra fan from NZXT's customer service team.)
The light strip, in particular, stands out here, as it shines down on your core components and gives the impression that your parts are on display behind a jewelry counter. And given that the drives (and most of their cable runs) are behind the right panel, the main system cavity is left looking clean and attractive.
On the whole, I couldn't find much to quibble with in building out this case. As mentioned earlier, the front I/O panel leaves a bit to be desired with its two-USB-port, two-header configuration, and it would have been helpful for the case to feature a toolless storage-mounting design. But these are relatively minor points.
That said, the H510 Elite faces stern competition from a whole host of other cases, including NZXT's own non-Elite H510 models, which are available at significantly lower price points. The NZXT H510i, for example, retails and is much the same chassis, but with a metal front panel instead of glass. The H510 Elite does look, to our eyes, much better than its less expensive counterpart, but an extra feels steep just to switch the front panel from metal to tempered glass.
That said, the bling's the thing, and with a metal panel, you don't get to see two big, bold ring fans up front. We suspect the market will help this case find its right price level. But even before it does, it's a solid chassis for a clean-looking build.
Cable Management
Cable Management is really nice in the The NZXT H510 Elite. NZXT really does a great job when organizing the cable management layout of their cases. Its a builders dream as there is plenty to work with. There is holes where you need them, channels for the cables where you need them with plenty of tie down locations. I really enjoy building in this series of cases from NZXT.
Cooling
The NZXT H510 Elite comes with two 140mm fans at the front of the case that get air from the back side of the case and from the front bottom of the case. Like I said previously though those fans would do better with more ventilation at the front of the case.
The rear of the case has a 120mm fan but this time around they skipped on putting a fan at the top of the case which hurts cooling performance.
I get that not all cases need to be ‘high airflow’ like many of the reviewers on YouTube would have you believe. I do however feel there should be some balance between looks and cooling potential. I also get that push back was needed as case manufactures were starting to flood the market with the buzz words of the day and completely ignoring airflow.
A case with a tempered glass front panel with no vents for air and 3 RGB fans smooshed up against the inside of the glass for maximum bling is a horrible idea.
I would have liked to have seen this case tilt a bit more to the airflow side of the argument as I feel a case at this price point could do a better job at balancing looks and function.
NZXT H510 Elite - Premium Mid-Tower ATX Case PC
CleaningThe NZXT H510 Elite should clean up easily as most of the case has dust filters. There is no dust filter at the top of the case however and with no included fan at the top, dust will be coming in from the top of the case.
The side vent, bottom front vent and PSU vent all have removable dust filters making them easy to clean up.
Front I/O
The front I/O of the NZXT H510 Elite is a highlight for me. I really like the clean minimalist look of the front I/O on this series. The front I/O includes a power button with an led ring around it, a single USB 3.0 port, a USB 3.1 Gen 2 type-C port and a combined audio/mic port.
Final Thoughts on the NZXT H510 Elite
The NZXT H510 Elite in my opinion is a nice looking case, it has a premium look and feel that comes with a premium price. CAD though I would want a bit more airflow and I would want the frame to be more rigid. I would also expect to see more radiator support at this price point. I am also not a fan of the cam software from NZXT. All in all though if you like the looks of this case and can work around the airflow issues or aren’t concerned with getting maximum airflow than this case maybe the one for you. Its also worth noting that adding a fan at the top of the case will drop your temps by 4-5 degrees.
The NZXT H510 Elite is NZXT’s premium spin on the H500 -- no, not the Cooler Master H500, not the H500P, not the H500M, and definitely not the 500D or A500, but the NZXT H500. NZXT’s H500 is a case that wasn’t top-of-the-line in thermal performance but that we liked anyway for its good build quality at a very reasonable price point and reasonable thermals. NZXT must be proud of the new H510 Elite, because they sent us two identical ones. The H510 Elite is being introduced alongside the H510, which is the same as the H500, but with a USB type-C port replacing one of the type-A ports on the front pane. It’s also similar to the H510i, which includes an NZXT “Smart Device.” The Elite has a tempered glass front panel, LEDs, and two RGB fans as front intake (3 fans total) as well as the USB-C port and Smart Device. We’ve expressed our opinion on these devices before, intended to automatically run fans at the optimal cool-and-quiet speed, but these new devices are version 2. We plan to do some more testing with them soon, but for the purposes of this review we bypassed the smart device completely and controlled fan speed via the motherboard as usual.
For the purposes of this review, we’re going to pretend no other cases named H500 exist. If we say H500, we mean the NZXT H500. Note also that we had written and filmed this about 3 weeks prior to publishing, but notified NZXT in between writing and now that we had found issues with thermals in the case. As such, NZXT has modified its listing and now offers an extra 120mm exhaust fan (free for those who already bought the case) with the enclosure. We didn’t rewrite our entire review around this change, but added in two charts to cover it where necessary.
NZXT H510 Elite Build
We’ll keep the build section brief, since the Elite is in many ways identical to the base H500 we reviewed more than a year ago. The design and construction of the case remain good. NZXT has found a mix of plastic snaps and captive thumbscrews that makes the case easy to open and take apart but still solid enough to be moved around; one exception to this was the front panel, which has two tiny Philips head screws locking it in place--they keep the panel firmly mounted, but it does mean a tool is required for taking off the front pane of tempered glass as opposed to the toolless disassembly of the other panels.
The case we used for review had one small manufacturing defect, where one of two thumbscrews holding the fan tray into the case had been overtorqued to the point that it deformed the chassis and made the screw tilt sideways. We’re in a unique position with this review since we were accidentally sent two identical cases, and checking the other revealed that both thumbscrews in that case had the same problem. NZXT has been overtightening its screws for years, at this point, Despite the defect, the fan tray is still a good feature and easy to work with. The metal of the PSU shroud is also bowed out slightly where the glass hooks under it, but that may be intentional.
Front I/O is simplified from the original H500. The original had an HDD activity light, a mic jack, a headphone jack, two USB type-A connectors split from a USB 3.0 header, and the power button/LED. The H510 Elite has a combined mic/headphone jack, one USB C 3.1 Gen 2 port, one USB A port, and the combined power button/power LED/HDD LED. We’ve complained a little about combining mic/headphone jacks in the past, but NZXT has included an adapter cable that splits into two normal jacks. The USB type A port on the Elite is 3.1 Gen 1, the same kind as on the H500, and it uses the same full-size USB 3 header on the motherboard end--it just leads to one type A port instead of two. We use USB 3.1 type A ports every day in this office, but we have yet to use a male/male USB C cable ever. The top of the Elite looks nice and clean, but cutting I/O options isn’t a premium feature. The FP connections have been consolidated into one plug, which makes sense now that motherboard manufacturers have almost completely standardized the front panel pinout. A splitter is included in case of non-standard pinouts.
We plan to test the Smart Device v2 in the future, but again, we skipped it for this review since our thermal tests rely on being able to control fan speeds. That means we also skipped all case and fan LEDs, since they’re controlled by the smart device which is in turn controlled by NZXT’s CAM software. There are arguments to be made for software versus mechanical control for LEDs, but the bottom line is that anyone who doesn’t want to deal with the smart device or CAM can just buy an H510 and set up their own LEDs (without the tempered glass front panel). Our only concrete complaint about the device so far (other than increasing the cost of the case) is that it’s mounted so that the latches on the LED plugs are underneath, against the motherboard tray, so that it’s difficult to disconnect any cables from it. The Smart Device uses a USB 2.0 header for communication with the motherboard.
The SSD trays work the same way they did in the H500, clipping into either the ventilated surface of the PSU shroud or hidden away behind the motherboard tray. The difference is that they’re a much cheaper design: the original SSD trays were an overbuilt design assembled from multiple parts with metal springs inside, whereas the new ones are just single pieces of plastic. Again, they’re functionally identical, just different. The HDD cage underneath the PSU shroud is movable and removable, unchanged from the H500 but still a feature worth praising. The H510 Elite has a small metal shield blocking the gap between the top of the HDD cage and the PSU shroud, perhaps to keep the intake fans from pulling hot air from inside the PSU shroud. Renders of the base model H510 (which doesn’t come configured with intake fans) don’t show this shield.
The Elite adds a vertical GPU mount to the side of the normal horizontal ones present in the H500 and the H510. Obviously the chassis wasn’t originally meant to support vertical GPU mounting, so the layout is a little tricky--installing a GPU in the normal horizontal slots requires removing the frame that holds the vertical slots and then replacing it afterwards. We didn’t test the vertical mount this time, but it’s as close to being flush with the glass side panel as any we’ve tested in the past, so we can tell you with certainty that installing an air-cooled GPU in this slot like the one NZXT shows on their product page is a bad idea. Don’t do it.
NZXT H510 Elite Thermals & Noise
Before we reviewed the original H500, NZXT went out of its way to tell us that the dual-fan, dual-exhaust configuration would work better than we expected, and NZXT was right. It wasn’t amazing, but it did the job at least as well as any other arrangement of the two stock fans we could come up with -- at least, when considering the GPU part of the equation. They’ve stuck to that stock fan arrangement with the H510, but the H510 Elite has a glass front panel and a different fan layout. We get the feeling the thought process for the Elite moved backwards, from “we need a premium version of this case” to “we need to put more tempered glass in” to “we need to put some RGB fans behind this tempered glass.” Therefore it has two 140mm Aer RGB 2 intake fans in the front and one 120mm Aer F120 exhaust fan in the rear, the usual case fan layout, but in a case with unusually limited front ventilation. We’ll discuss the thermal results in a moment, but the noise was also affected. We heard loud gusts of turbulence that had us double-checking our charts to make sure the fan speeds were locked, and this noise persisted even with the fans running below max speed. For noise normalized testing we had all the case fans set to 50% speed, which was slow enough that they quieted down. This may be an issue with the fan blade design or a combination of the case and the fans, but the turbulent behavior does create an unsteady noise, which most users find more annoying than a loud, predictable noise.
We didn’t go beyond the standard batch of tests for this one; for more fan configurations, check our original H500 review, since the chassis is effectively identical. We ran tests with the case noise normalized to 36dBA, without the front panel, and with our standardized fan layout. The standardized fan layout is three Noctua fans we’ve reserved for case testing, two 140mm front intake and one 120mm exhaust. Since the H510 Elite is already configured this way, the only difference from stock is the type of fan.
GN Case Testing Bench
The video card is configured to run at 55% fan speed at all times.
Prior to load testing, we collect idle temperature results for ten minutes to determine the unloaded cooling performance of a case's fans and air channels. Thermal benchmarking is conducted for 1400 seconds (23 minutes), a period we've determined sufficient for achieving equilibrium. The over-time data is aggregated and will occasionally be compiled into charts, if interesting or relevant. The equilibrium performance is averaged to create the below charts.
Load testing is conducted using Prime95 LFFTs and Kombustor “FurMark” stress testing simultaneously. Testing is completely automated using in-house scripting, and executes with perfect accuracy on every run.
Torture CPU
Before diving in, just a quick reminder that we published an update to our case testing methodology back in June. We are now testing noise-normalized for cases going forward, setting all cases to the same noise level with their stock fans (since that is what they ship with), and we also test with a standardized set of fans. This latter test, the standardized one, has several flaws that made us resist adopting the testing, but too many viewers requested it and so we added it. We just want to note that, again, it’s really not the best way to compare things, but it’s commonly requested.
We’ll start our thermals with just the NZXT H500 series in torture CPU tests, then move to comparative tests versus other cases.
Baseline for our CPU during the torture test was 59.1 degrees Celsius dT over ambient, which lowered to 55.9 degrees dT with standardized fans. A three-ish degree difference isn’t too bad considering that this test replaced the stock case fans 1:1 with higher quality Noctua fans; the fans NZXT is packing in with the case are good enough to keep, from these findings. Noise-normalizing the fans by limiting them to 50% speed bumped CPU dT up to 63.1 degrees over ambient, but still not so high that it was forced to throttle. Removing the front panel to allow the fans to actually pull some air dropped temperatures by a ridiculous amount, pushing the CPU down to 42.6 degrees over ambient, a precipitous 16.5-degree drop. We’ve never seen a fall this hard from removing the front panel. Even extremely well-ventilated cases will show improvement with the front panel removed, but we test it to see how close the stock case configuration matches an ideal scenario without filters or glass in the way. There are two ways to look at this result: the H500 and H510 (non-Elite) only have two rear fans and don’t allow the front panel to be removed at all, so removing the front panel of the H510 Elite and pointing out how much it limits the three good-quality stock fans feels like punishing the case for positive features NZXT has added. On the other hand, putting a couple good intake fans in a case that can’t benefit from them is a failed attempt at a value-add. NZXT added glass and realized it needed to fight its own decision, and rather than retool the case, this was the solution.
The previous H500 case was warmer when stock, at 61 degrees, so mission accomplished in improving that, even though it was at the cost of MSRP.
Comparatively, 59.1 degrees Celsius is relatively warm, at the upper-end of the cases we’ve tested that haven’t gone completely out of control thermally. It lands between the Dark Base Pro 900 and the Lian Li Alpha 550, both good cases in their own way but neither known for their cooling capability. Unfortunately, it’s not much better than the stock H500, which averaged 61 degrees dT.
A quick note on this, too: We produced this entire review with the case as it was sent, but after notifying NZXT pre-publication of issues with thermals, the company noted that it would offer a free 120mm extra exhaust fan. That’s good for users, but obviously means that we have to modify our review now since the product has changed. We don’t like companies to get into the habit of making changes after sending out review samples, but it’s still better than shipping a worse product. Anyway, we only have two charts with the updated config -- those will be the standalone H510 charts. The rest of the review will be unedited to reflect our original opinions and original data before NZXT’s change. The extra 120mm fan brings CPU temperature down to 56.5 degrees, which is similar to our 3-fan standardized config. It’s still tremendously suffocated by the rest of the configuration, as the original three-fan setup operated a 43 degree CPU temperature with no front panel, but it’s better by about 2.6 degrees Celsius. This doesn’t really change the review on the whole as it isn’t a massive shift, but it’s still important to note.
Noise-Normalized CPU Thermals
Our noise-normalized chart is still limited, but 63.1 degrees dT pushes the H510 Elite past the Bitfenix Enso, our previous hottest case. When leveled-out to 36dBA, we can better analyze how efficiently a case performs while all operate at a fixed noise level and without any modifications. This shows the value for the dollar when eliminating the ability for a case to brute-force its performance to the top. The turbulent noise forced us to push fan speeds down further for the H510 Elite than we otherwise would have. GPU thermals land the H510 Elite at 59.5 degrees over ambient, putting it about the same as the S2 Vision RGB and not too distant from the Meshify C. Not a terrible place to be on the GPU, and that follows-up the H500’s previously interesting and surprisingly complex GPU airflow pathways. CPU thermals have the 510 Elite in last place, which is obviously a sub-optimal placement for a product.
Standardized Fans
The next charts show standardized fan placement, also a new set of charts for us. Standardizing the fans kept the CPU thermals in the H510 Elite well below the Enso in temperatures, at 56 to 67 degrees over ambient, so the airflow isn’t inherently worse in the Elite--it’s just loud. That’s not surprising, really, seeing how the Enso is a scale model of the heat death of the universe. Even still, the H510 Elite is warmer than everything else, including the original H500. Part of the reason is that we mounted the standardized fans on the inside of the fan tray for the H500 to allow as much room as possible between the fans and the front panel, but we mounted them in front of the tray in the H510 Elite. That’s the way the stock fans are installed and the way the fan tray is designed to be used in the Elite, because otherwise the tray would be between the RGB fan LEDs and the glass front panel.
GPU thermals with standardized fans gets tricky. This is where we don’t particularly like this approach to testing, as discussed in previous content. The trouble is that the H500 -- the original -- and cases like it might perform better with the stock fan configuration than with our more powerful configuration. That’s because it’s not the fans that matter, ultimately, it’s the fan placement and the airpath. In the H500, front fans caused the GPU to suck in its own exhaust from the back of the case, as the pressure setup changed from negative to positive. For the H510 Elite, we don’t see that result because the case starts with a positive pressure configuration. The H510 Elite does well here when standardized, placing similarly to the fine mesh on the Cooler Master NR600. NZXT can make this case work -- it does much better in GPU thermals when standardized than its stock results would lead you to believe.
Torture GPU
Comparative thermals are next for GPUs. Like the CPU temperatures, 58.4 degrees is on the warm side of the comparative chart, right next to the original Define S2. The H510 Elite is near even the entirely closed-off 805 Infinity and the Cooler Master Q500L, which we fixed by drilling stepped holes into. Not good in this one.
Firestrike
FireStrike Extreme is next, basically a gaming workload representation for a realistic look at thermals. 60.2 degrees GPU dT average during the Firestrike Extreme stress test is warmer than the torture test results, and even higher relative to the other cases than the torture result was. It’s definitely hotter than the original NZXT H500, which averaged 54.5C dT in this test and benefited from the unique airflow patterns that we already detailed in our H500 review. The H510 Elite manages to be one of the worst cases we’ve tested for gaming thermals.
Blender CPU/GPU
Blender rendering on the CPU averaged 41.2 degrees over ambient, one of the hottest temps on the chart other than really abysmal performers like the Walmart case. We lock GPU fan speed to 25% speed for the CPU render instead of 55% as we do for the others, so that there’s a minimum of interference with CPU thermals in a realistic CPU-only workload like Blender. The H510 Elite allowed more heat to build up in the top of the case than the NZXT H500, which averaged 38.6C dT thanks to its two exhaust fans.
GPU accelerated rendering in Blender averaged 28.6 degrees GPU dT, which is actually a bit more competitive than the torture and 3DMark results, around the performance level of the Meshify S2. Without the extreme workload of those tests, the intake fans do a passable job at getting enough cool air in to the GPU, although it still runs warmer than the H500’s 26.7dT average.
Noise
We’ve mentioned noise levels several times already throughout the course of this review because of the gusty turbulent noises the fans made at high speeds. At max fan speeds, we measured the case running at 45.9dBA, one of the loudest cases we’ve tested after cases with more fans, like the S2 Vision RGB and Silverstone PM01. It’s possible that other users with other components and configurations might not experience the weird noises we did. Airflow is complex.
For the purposes of this review, we’re going to pretend no other cases named H500 exist. If we say H500, we mean the NZXT H500. Note also that we had written and filmed this about 3 weeks prior to publishing, but notified NZXT in between writing and now that we had found issues with thermals in the case. As such, NZXT has modified its listing and now offers an extra 120mm exhaust fan (free for those who already bought the case) with the enclosure. We didn’t rewrite our entire review around this change, but added in two charts to cover it where necessary.
NZXT H510 Elite Build
We’ll keep the build section brief, since the Elite is in many ways identical to the base H500 we reviewed more than a year ago. The design and construction of the case remain good. NZXT has found a mix of plastic snaps and captive thumbscrews that makes the case easy to open and take apart but still solid enough to be moved around; one exception to this was the front panel, which has two tiny Philips head screws locking it in place--they keep the panel firmly mounted, but it does mean a tool is required for taking off the front pane of tempered glass as opposed to the toolless disassembly of the other panels.
The case we used for review had one small manufacturing defect, where one of two thumbscrews holding the fan tray into the case had been overtorqued to the point that it deformed the chassis and made the screw tilt sideways. We’re in a unique position with this review since we were accidentally sent two identical cases, and checking the other revealed that both thumbscrews in that case had the same problem. NZXT has been overtightening its screws for years, at this point, Despite the defect, the fan tray is still a good feature and easy to work with. The metal of the PSU shroud is also bowed out slightly where the glass hooks under it, but that may be intentional.
Front I/O is simplified from the original H500. The original had an HDD activity light, a mic jack, a headphone jack, two USB type-A connectors split from a USB 3.0 header, and the power button/LED. The H510 Elite has a combined mic/headphone jack, one USB C 3.1 Gen 2 port, one USB A port, and the combined power button/power LED/HDD LED. We’ve complained a little about combining mic/headphone jacks in the past, but NZXT has included an adapter cable that splits into two normal jacks. The USB type A port on the Elite is 3.1 Gen 1, the same kind as on the H500, and it uses the same full-size USB 3 header on the motherboard end--it just leads to one type A port instead of two. We use USB 3.1 type A ports every day in this office, but we have yet to use a male/male USB C cable ever. The top of the Elite looks nice and clean, but cutting I/O options isn’t a premium feature. The FP connections have been consolidated into one plug, which makes sense now that motherboard manufacturers have almost completely standardized the front panel pinout. A splitter is included in case of non-standard pinouts.
We plan to test the Smart Device v2 in the future, but again, we skipped it for this review since our thermal tests rely on being able to control fan speeds. That means we also skipped all case and fan LEDs, since they’re controlled by the smart device which is in turn controlled by NZXT’s CAM software. There are arguments to be made for software versus mechanical control for LEDs, but the bottom line is that anyone who doesn’t want to deal with the smart device or CAM can just buy an H510 and set up their own LEDs (without the tempered glass front panel). Our only concrete complaint about the device so far (other than increasing the cost of the case) is that it’s mounted so that the latches on the LED plugs are underneath, against the motherboard tray, so that it’s difficult to disconnect any cables from it. The Smart Device uses a USB 2.0 header for communication with the motherboard.
The SSD trays work the same way they did in the H500, clipping into either the ventilated surface of the PSU shroud or hidden away behind the motherboard tray. The difference is that they’re a much cheaper design: the original SSD trays were an overbuilt design assembled from multiple parts with metal springs inside, whereas the new ones are just single pieces of plastic. Again, they’re functionally identical, just different. The HDD cage underneath the PSU shroud is movable and removable, unchanged from the H500 but still a feature worth praising. The H510 Elite has a small metal shield blocking the gap between the top of the HDD cage and the PSU shroud, perhaps to keep the intake fans from pulling hot air from inside the PSU shroud. Renders of the base model H510 (which doesn’t come configured with intake fans) don’t show this shield.
The Elite adds a vertical GPU mount to the side of the normal horizontal ones present in the H500 and the H510. Obviously the chassis wasn’t originally meant to support vertical GPU mounting, so the layout is a little tricky--installing a GPU in the normal horizontal slots requires removing the frame that holds the vertical slots and then replacing it afterwards. We didn’t test the vertical mount this time, but it’s as close to being flush with the glass side panel as any we’ve tested in the past, so we can tell you with certainty that installing an air-cooled GPU in this slot like the one NZXT shows on their product page is a bad idea. Don’t do it.
NZXT H510 Elite Thermals & Noise
Before we reviewed the original H500, NZXT went out of its way to tell us that the dual-fan, dual-exhaust configuration would work better than we expected, and NZXT was right. It wasn’t amazing, but it did the job at least as well as any other arrangement of the two stock fans we could come up with -- at least, when considering the GPU part of the equation. They’ve stuck to that stock fan arrangement with the H510, but the H510 Elite has a glass front panel and a different fan layout. We get the feeling the thought process for the Elite moved backwards, from “we need a premium version of this case” to “we need to put more tempered glass in” to “we need to put some RGB fans behind this tempered glass.” Therefore it has two 140mm Aer RGB 2 intake fans in the front and one 120mm Aer F120 exhaust fan in the rear, the usual case fan layout, but in a case with unusually limited front ventilation. We’ll discuss the thermal results in a moment, but the noise was also affected. We heard loud gusts of turbulence that had us double-checking our charts to make sure the fan speeds were locked, and this noise persisted even with the fans running below max speed. For noise normalized testing we had all the case fans set to 50% speed, which was slow enough that they quieted down. This may be an issue with the fan blade design or a combination of the case and the fans, but the turbulent behavior does create an unsteady noise, which most users find more annoying than a loud, predictable noise.
We didn’t go beyond the standard batch of tests for this one; for more fan configurations, check our original H500 review, since the chassis is effectively identical. We ran tests with the case noise normalized to 36dBA, without the front panel, and with our standardized fan layout. The standardized fan layout is three Noctua fans we’ve reserved for case testing, two 140mm front intake and one 120mm exhaust. Since the H510 Elite is already configured this way, the only difference from stock is the type of fan.
GN Case Testing Bench
Component
|
Courtesy Of
|
|
Video Card
|
MSI GTX 1080 Gaming X (OC
Mode)
|
MSI
|
CPU
|
Intel i7-6700K @ 4.4GHz
|
GamersNexus
|
CPU Cooler
|
MSI Core Frozr L
|
MSI
|
Motherboard
|
MSI Z170A Gaming M7
|
MSI
|
Memory
|
Corsair Vengeance LED 32GB
3200MHz
|
Corsair
|
SSD
|
Samsung 850 EVO 120GB
|
Samsung
|
PSU
|
Corsair RM650x
|
Corsair
|
Cables
|
CableMod Pro Mesh Cables
|
CableMod
|
Case
|
This is what we're testing!
|
-
|
Prior to load testing, we collect idle temperature results for ten minutes to determine the unloaded cooling performance of a case's fans and air channels. Thermal benchmarking is conducted for 1400 seconds (23 minutes), a period we've determined sufficient for achieving equilibrium. The over-time data is aggregated and will occasionally be compiled into charts, if interesting or relevant. The equilibrium performance is averaged to create the below charts.
Load testing is conducted using Prime95 LFFTs and Kombustor “FurMark” stress testing simultaneously. Testing is completely automated using in-house scripting, and executes with perfect accuracy on every run.
Torture CPU
Before diving in, just a quick reminder that we published an update to our case testing methodology back in June. We are now testing noise-normalized for cases going forward, setting all cases to the same noise level with their stock fans (since that is what they ship with), and we also test with a standardized set of fans. This latter test, the standardized one, has several flaws that made us resist adopting the testing, but too many viewers requested it and so we added it. We just want to note that, again, it’s really not the best way to compare things, but it’s commonly requested.
We’ll start our thermals with just the NZXT H500 series in torture CPU tests, then move to comparative tests versus other cases.
Baseline for our CPU during the torture test was 59.1 degrees Celsius dT over ambient, which lowered to 55.9 degrees dT with standardized fans. A three-ish degree difference isn’t too bad considering that this test replaced the stock case fans 1:1 with higher quality Noctua fans; the fans NZXT is packing in with the case are good enough to keep, from these findings. Noise-normalizing the fans by limiting them to 50% speed bumped CPU dT up to 63.1 degrees over ambient, but still not so high that it was forced to throttle. Removing the front panel to allow the fans to actually pull some air dropped temperatures by a ridiculous amount, pushing the CPU down to 42.6 degrees over ambient, a precipitous 16.5-degree drop. We’ve never seen a fall this hard from removing the front panel. Even extremely well-ventilated cases will show improvement with the front panel removed, but we test it to see how close the stock case configuration matches an ideal scenario without filters or glass in the way. There are two ways to look at this result: the H500 and H510 (non-Elite) only have two rear fans and don’t allow the front panel to be removed at all, so removing the front panel of the H510 Elite and pointing out how much it limits the three good-quality stock fans feels like punishing the case for positive features NZXT has added. On the other hand, putting a couple good intake fans in a case that can’t benefit from them is a failed attempt at a value-add. NZXT added glass and realized it needed to fight its own decision, and rather than retool the case, this was the solution.
The previous H500 case was warmer when stock, at 61 degrees, so mission accomplished in improving that, even though it was at the cost of MSRP.
Comparatively, 59.1 degrees Celsius is relatively warm, at the upper-end of the cases we’ve tested that haven’t gone completely out of control thermally. It lands between the Dark Base Pro 900 and the Lian Li Alpha 550, both good cases in their own way but neither known for their cooling capability. Unfortunately, it’s not much better than the stock H500, which averaged 61 degrees dT.
A quick note on this, too: We produced this entire review with the case as it was sent, but after notifying NZXT pre-publication of issues with thermals, the company noted that it would offer a free 120mm extra exhaust fan. That’s good for users, but obviously means that we have to modify our review now since the product has changed. We don’t like companies to get into the habit of making changes after sending out review samples, but it’s still better than shipping a worse product. Anyway, we only have two charts with the updated config -- those will be the standalone H510 charts. The rest of the review will be unedited to reflect our original opinions and original data before NZXT’s change. The extra 120mm fan brings CPU temperature down to 56.5 degrees, which is similar to our 3-fan standardized config. It’s still tremendously suffocated by the rest of the configuration, as the original three-fan setup operated a 43 degree CPU temperature with no front panel, but it’s better by about 2.6 degrees Celsius. This doesn’t really change the review on the whole as it isn’t a massive shift, but it’s still important to note.
Noise-Normalized CPU Thermals
The next charts show standardized fan placement, also a new set of charts for us. Standardizing the fans kept the CPU thermals in the H510 Elite well below the Enso in temperatures, at 56 to 67 degrees over ambient, so the airflow isn’t inherently worse in the Elite--it’s just loud. That’s not surprising, really, seeing how the Enso is a scale model of the heat death of the universe. Even still, the H510 Elite is warmer than everything else, including the original H500. Part of the reason is that we mounted the standardized fans on the inside of the fan tray for the H500 to allow as much room as possible between the fans and the front panel, but we mounted them in front of the tray in the H510 Elite. That’s the way the stock fans are installed and the way the fan tray is designed to be used in the Elite, because otherwise the tray would be between the RGB fan LEDs and the glass front panel.
GPU thermals with standardized fans gets tricky. This is where we don’t particularly like this approach to testing, as discussed in previous content. The trouble is that the H500 -- the original -- and cases like it might perform better with the stock fan configuration than with our more powerful configuration. That’s because it’s not the fans that matter, ultimately, it’s the fan placement and the airpath. In the H500, front fans caused the GPU to suck in its own exhaust from the back of the case, as the pressure setup changed from negative to positive. For the H510 Elite, we don’t see that result because the case starts with a positive pressure configuration. The H510 Elite does well here when standardized, placing similarly to the fine mesh on the Cooler Master NR600. NZXT can make this case work -- it does much better in GPU thermals when standardized than its stock results would lead you to believe.
Torture GPU
Next with GPU torture thermals only, GPU torture temperature averaged 58.4 degrees over
ambient, or 50.6C dT with the standardized Noctua fans. We still feel pretty good about NZXT’s stock fans, but the Noctua fans we use for testing definitely have the edge, and are less prone to causing whatever turbulence was making so much noise. Removing the front panel helped almost as dramatically as it did with the CPU thermals, dropping to 48.3 degrees from 58.4 degrees stock -- a reduction of about 10 degrees. There’s a filtered gap under the front panel that means the GPU theoretically has a little more access to cool air than the CPU, but the front panel is still a huge obstacle to airflow.
As mentioned in the earlier edit, this section is also added in after NZXT made its changes. GPU thermals changed to 54.4 degrees with the update, down from 58.4 originally. The change is about 4 degrees. That’s definitely better, but the case overall still has a lot of room for improvement.
ambient, or 50.6C dT with the standardized Noctua fans. We still feel pretty good about NZXT’s stock fans, but the Noctua fans we use for testing definitely have the edge, and are less prone to causing whatever turbulence was making so much noise. Removing the front panel helped almost as dramatically as it did with the CPU thermals, dropping to 48.3 degrees from 58.4 degrees stock -- a reduction of about 10 degrees. There’s a filtered gap under the front panel that means the GPU theoretically has a little more access to cool air than the CPU, but the front panel is still a huge obstacle to airflow.
As mentioned in the earlier edit, this section is also added in after NZXT made its changes. GPU thermals changed to 54.4 degrees with the update, down from 58.4 originally. The change is about 4 degrees. That’s definitely better, but the case overall still has a lot of room for improvement.
Comparative thermals are next for GPUs. Like the CPU temperatures, 58.4 degrees is on the warm side of the comparative chart, right next to the original Define S2. The H510 Elite is near even the entirely closed-off 805 Infinity and the Cooler Master Q500L, which we fixed by drilling stepped holes into. Not good in this one.
Firestrike
FireStrike Extreme is next, basically a gaming workload representation for a realistic look at thermals. 60.2 degrees GPU dT average during the Firestrike Extreme stress test is warmer than the torture test results, and even higher relative to the other cases than the torture result was. It’s definitely hotter than the original NZXT H500, which averaged 54.5C dT in this test and benefited from the unique airflow patterns that we already detailed in our H500 review. The H510 Elite manages to be one of the worst cases we’ve tested for gaming thermals.
Blender CPU/GPU
GPU accelerated rendering in Blender averaged 28.6 degrees GPU dT, which is actually a bit more competitive than the torture and 3DMark results, around the performance level of the Meshify S2. Without the extreme workload of those tests, the intake fans do a passable job at getting enough cool air in to the GPU, although it still runs warmer than the H500’s 26.7dT average.
Noise
NZXT H510 Elite - Premium Mid-Tower ATX Case PC
amazon affiliate link below
Post a Comment