Customer Reviews

NZXT M59 Classic Series ATX Mid Tower interior chassis M59-001BK (Black)

5 star:		(29)
4 star:		(22)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Going from a Lian-Li case to this, there was a dramatic drop in temperatures. I run a Phenom 9850 O.C. @ 2.8 which in my previous case was showing temps of 46-48 idle to 55-58 on a full load. With this case, same speed, idle as i type this is 35c and running prime on a full load only hits roughly 44-45 which is still below what it used to idle. Honestly, the ability for this case to move air is amazing.

Pros

-Airflow (seriously, its great)
-Ergonomics
-Cable management (as long as you are willing to take your time)
-Overall quality of the case
-Running crossfire, with dual card slot GPU's and its a good fit :)

Cons
-Does not come with the proper hardware to attach the front fan. For anyone planning to use a fan as intake in the front get yourself some zip ties and its much easier. Getting screws in there is extremely difficult, so take note of this.
-hard drive placement vs room left for cable management is extremely tight. As noted above, if you are not willing to take your time and tie down/properly arrange your cables you might get frustrated
-the top drive bay is a pain in the butt, specially if you mount the top 2 fans. Honestly, just leave it alone and go to the second one. It will save you a lot of frustration

Overall im very impressed with this case considering the price. Having had mainly antecs and lian-lis (which are way to much $$$), NZXT really makes you think about what you get for your money. Despite a few cons, you all know that all cases are not perfect and these issues are minor to anyone with experience building a system :) Very happy!

I finally replaced the horrible generic case in my secondary rig with this one, and am VERY happy with it. The M59 is on par with the Antec Three Hundred in my main rig, which I absolutely love. It looks good and feels good. It's made of durable steel, instead of the bendy aluminum found in most other cases. You know it won't break a sweat carrying your 5 hard drives and Crossfired HD4870s around. The M59 is truly a gaming case.

When you begin your installation, you will notice that there are no sharp edges. Every edge has been carefully and thoughtfully smoothed. This will allow you to work without worrying about accidentally cutting yourself.

Before you start doing anything else though, you should install the case fans. There are five spots where you are supposed to put fans. The side intake (120mm) and rear exhaust (120mm) fans are included. You need to provide three more fans in order to optimize the airflow (running your system with only 1 intake and 1 exhaust fan is just bad, unless you live in Antarctica). You can add 1 intake fan (120mm) in the front and 2 exhaust fans at the top (120mm or 140mm). If you don't have any extra fans laying around, I recommend that you get this CoolerMaster 120mm Case Fan 4-pack package. I installed those exact fans into this case, and they fit just fine.

This combination of 5 case fans creates PERFECT airflow. Here is my experience: With the old generic case (only two 80mm rear exhaust fans) my Asus Radeon HD 4850 was reaching temps of 95C under load and 60C idle. With the M59 case and all 5 fans installed, it rarely goes beyond 70C under full load (Crysis) and stays at 48-50C when idle. That's a huge improvement!

Unfortunately, the front intake fan will be quite difficult to install, as there is no access from the inside due to the hard drive cage blocking the screw holes (bad design decision). However, with the right tools, it IS possible (there are guides out there waiting to be googled ;) ). It's worth the trouble, since the front intake is a very important fan. It not only completes the overall ventilation system, but also acts as a hard drive cooler because it blows cold air directly at them. The difficulty in installing this particular fan is a significant drawback IMO, as it is possible to make it easier (the Antecs have removable fan trays, for example).

There are dust filters in the front and at the bottom where the PSU is installed (for those PSUs that have their intake fan located on the bottom). Though, peculiarly, NZXT decided not to place a dust filter on the side intake opening (though neither does the Antec 300).

Motherboard installation is a breeze. There is a large opening on the motherboard tray under the CPU socket. That allows you to install aftermarket CPU HSFs without removing the motherboard. This is not relevant to AMD users, but aftermarket heatsink&fan units for Intel sockets need to be secured on the back of the motherboard (which means that you normally need to completely remove the motherboard). The M59 eliminates that boring step. You must also use a hex screwdriver when securing the motherboard standoffs, since the tray holes are a bit tight (making it impossible to use only your bare fingers). Not a big deal, but thought I'd mention it, since I've always been able to secure them with my fingers in other cases.

Cable management is also great. There are openings in key spots allowing you to route cables behind the motherboard and drive bays (you can pretty much hide all your PSU cables). But you must also plan a little, so study both the openings and your specific hardware, in order to figure out which cable management strategy will work best for you. It will be time well spent, because you can end up with a clean chamber, free of any unnecessary cables.

There are a couple of other features not usually found in other cases. First, there is the eSATA port in the front (in addition to USB and HD audio connectors). That's much more useful than the usual 1394 firewire port. The other feature is a 2.5" drive adapter. Basically it allows you to fit a 2.5" drive into one of the 3.5" bays. You also get a bag of thumbscrews for 5.25" drives, and a bunch of rails for 3.5" drives (which means ALL drives can be installed without the use of screwdrivers).

I am truly impressed with this case. In addition to the aforementioned functionality advantages, the built quality is great. The blue LEDs on the front and in the side fan make the case look quite attractive when turned on (there is also a green LED circle round the reset button, which flashes on HD activity). The NZXT M59 will meet most gamers' needs, and is well worth the money Amazon is asking for it. I fully recommend it.

There are many reviews on this product, so I won't repeat information that's already widely available. In a nutshell, this is a good case for the price, but for a few extra dollars, CoolerMaster offers some better models. Cooling is excellent, as there are many fan ports, and two included fans. But be aware that these fan ports increase the noise levels outside the case, especially the two fan ports on the top. A major design flaw that I found was if a fan was installed in the empty fan port on the top of the case, closest to the front bezel, you can't install a DVD drive in the top bay. It appears that the case wasn't design for a fan and a DVD drive to occupy these areas of the case at the same time. What's stranger is that there's a DVD face plate built into the front bezel on the top bay, so effectively, you can't use this drive bay if you want two fans on the top of the case, which invalidates having the second fan port. Other than this minor issue, the case has great cable management, is easy to work with, and it built with quality parts. For a mid-sized tower, it's on the larger size. Would I purchase this case again? Probably not due to the problems with the front bezel design and the noise levels.

this is a great case. cable management is easy. can not fit dvd drive in top bay with dual fans installed. but it will fit a card reader or fan controller very easy. blue led light on top washes the front and gives that extra bling. no need for tools to build unless you change fans. all the hardware you need is included. ordered on tuesday and received on saturday. item was packed very well. would buy again. no regrets.

I purchased the NZXT M59 case and I'm very pleased - excellent air flow, good cable management, and solid construction. I have two (minor) complaints : 1) the case will not accommodate a Corsair H60 CPU cooler 2) the top external drive cannot be used when using both top mounting case fans. I thought I would pass along some (hopefully) useful information that I personally spent several hours try to obtain.

Here is my system information:
Case : NZXT M59
Motherboard: GIGABYTE GA-Z68X-UD3H-B3
CPU : Intel Core i5-2500
GPU : EVGA GeForce GTX 580
Case fans: 2 120mm NZXT fans (included with M59), 2 140mm rifle bearing NZXT fans ($7.99 ea @ Amazon)

Notes:
1) Front case fan : Contrary to other posts, I found installing the front fan very straight forward. Carefully pull off the front panel and use the longer fan screws provided with the NZXT case to mount the fan.

2) Corsair CPU cooler warning : I strongly recommend against trying to use a Corsair CPU cooler with this case. I bought the H60 and it simply doesn't fit the case. I found other posts that recommended cutting the case. I couldn't bring myself to "modding" my brand new case, so I opted to return the CPU cooler - turns out 4 case fans were plenty to keep my system cool.

3) PSU fan orientation : I mounted the Corsair cX600 PSU with the fan facing in. To my surprise there was very little agreement on whether the fan should face down, pulling cool air from outside the case, or up, venting warm air out of the case. I opted for mounting it up because my system sits on carpet and I didn't want to pull in carpet fibers and dust into the case. I would have mounted the fan facing down if my machine was on a hard surface.

4) Case fans : The NZXT is designed to vent from front to back and from bottom/side to top. I used 4 NZXT fans. The case came with 2 120mm NZXT fans, one mounted on the side (intake) and one mounted in the rear (exhaust). I purchased 2 140mm rifle bearing NZXT fans from Amazon and mounted them to vent air out the top of the case. I then moved the preinstalled 120mm NZXT fan from the rear to the front of the case, changing the direction of the fan to pull cool air into the case. To summarize the case fans: intake - 120mm NZXT fans mounted on the side and front, exhaust- 2 140mm rifle bearing NZXT fans mounted on the top.

5) Case fan warnings : 1) It is recommended to use rifle bearing fans when venting air from the top. Sleeve bearing fans are not designed for horizontal mounting and will become noisy and wear out early. 2) The M59 will accommodate 140mm or 120mm fans, however the 140mm fans can only be mounted on the top, they will not fit on the side, front, or rear.

6) Top fan mount/ top external drive bay contention. The top external drive bay interferes with the front top fan mount. As a result, I was unable to mount a DVD drive in the top bay. In my situation this was a minor inconvenience.

After purchasing this product and having it shipped (which was a nightmare, not amazon's fault) I opened the case to inspect all the parts and see if the product lived up to the reviews. After careful inspection I came across a cut in the usb cable that plugs into the mb. The cable was almost completely severed by what appeared to be pinching during installation. Amazon was amazing about sending me another before the defective product was even recieved to them. Besides the cable issue I would give this product five stars. It is a very well built case and the dual removable sides make it very easy to get into. Very good air flow, precise cable management, and the fact that it is absolutely stunning make this a product worth having.
Update: After having a new case shipped to me I inspected the same wires. There was a depression near the area of the last wire that was cut but everything seems to be working smoothly.

Great standard case. I couldn't find anything significant wrong other than if you're a first time computer builder, you may have difficulty since the manual is not very clear. As well, most of the main jumpers (Power, HDD, etc...) are not labeled clearly. I like this item overall, and installed it into my network. Nothing dramatically great, nothing dramatically inferior, so I give it an average star rating...

This case is excellent value for money - its build and finish exudes good-enough quality (with minor cost cutting apparent - esp. in the HDD trays, and with thinner metal being used in spots). For the dollars, you'll be hard pressed to find a better case.

This was my first build in a long while, for a budget HTPC, and I was surprised with how easily things went - though I'd have appreciated better directions. Everything fit perfectly and installation went relatively smoothly, with enough room to route the wires appropriately. Was also impressed by the ventilation/airflow - esp. with the number of fans that you can throw at the problem. However do note that the top optical drive bay is a very tight fit depending on whether you want to use both fans.

Happy building!
~Damodar

Over all this is a great case for the price, but keep in mind if you are building a high end computer that although the m59 has a lot of features, it is still a mid case, which causes a couple small issues: if you use the top exhaust fans it really cramps anything else near the top of the case. I only put in 120mm fans in the top (it can fit 140mm), but my cd drive would not fit in the top slot. Not a big deal, I just put it in the second slot, but it doesn't look as nice as if I was able to install it on top with the nifty optical drive face place. Likewise the rear top exhaust fan allows barely enough room for the back exhaust fan, so if you want to use something a tiny bit bigger than a regular fan (like the Corsair h5o that I have) then you have to be a little creative (I made it fit by mounting the h5o fan on the out side of the case, which works, but i had to take tin snips to a little part of the case.)

The only other negative thing worth mentioning is that although the cable management system works ok, if you have something with wide cables they don't fit very well.

The case has great airflow and looks really awesome, plus it does manage to fit high end equipment inside, even if just barely (oh, and although every thing is a tight fit, airflow remains pretty good). If you want a high end computer and you are on a budget, I think this case is great. I would buy it again.

I bought this case because I wanted to put my power supply at the bottom (it made my old case top heavy). I knew it accommodated 120mm fans, so I felt this case was a must have. When I got it home (my previous case is a Chieftec mid-tower case, the same as the black Antecs Best Buy used to sell years ago). As soon as I took it out of the box, I was certain I had made the right choice. This case is very well made, and is GREAT for cooling! The top will hold 2 120mm fans, the front will hold one slim 120mm fan, the side will hold 2 120mm fans and the back even allows for 1 120mm fan. Of course, you can put smaller fans in if you want to, but why? I run my fans (1 exhaust on top, 1 exhaust in back, 1 intake in front, 1 intake on the side blowing on the cards) all at 5 volts. It's quieter than my wife's $2500 desktop! It runs quietly, and has managed to keep my gaming PC perfectly cool. One of the other features I love is that the power button is impossible for my 1 year old to find!