Introduction

With many design cases hitting the market it becomes harder than ever for customers to see the forest through the trees. NZXT is adding another branch to their product tree today with the introduction of the Lexa Tower case; let’s hope it can stand up in this crowded market place.

NZXT is a company known for their case line-up which seems to have been inspired by the ’80 “Transformers” cartoon series, the Guardian and Nemesis are well constructed cases but their exterior does not appeal to everybody. Their reasoning for making these rather unordinary design choices was to avoid direct competition with large names like Cooler Master and Silverstone, which don’t carry product in this same “looks” range.

But now NZXT is after a larger piece of the pie, and their new case embodies this train of thought; The Lexa was supposedly named when somebody at the NXZT user forums saw a Lexus car commercial and posted the name “Lexa” in an ongoing naming contest. This entree apparently won; in order to position the Lexa between the BMW and Mercedes of the PC enclosure they had to change tactics. The Lexa is a step away from the “Transformer” like looks, and sports classier looks.


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Case Specifications

Accepts ATX, Micro-ATX, Baby AT motherboards

7 Expansion Slots

4* External 5.25” Drive Bays

2* External 3.5” Drive Bays

5* Internal 3.5” HDD Drive Bays

120mm Fan Front, 120mm Blue LED fan Rear, 120mm Blue LED fan Side, 80mm Fan Top

Dimensions: 220W X 522D x 569H mm

Made out of Aluminum

Empty weight (without PSU and system): 5.8kg

Let’s take a closer look at the outside ->

Design

The Lexa is an eye catcher in the looks department; the front panel is covered by a reflective metallic paint and has 2 LEDs built in for Power and HDD activity together with an LCD display for temperature display. Although it’s not as flashy as the Nemesis and Armor NZXT cases this design is more mainstream and will fit in nicely into a modern environment. The finishing is excellent on all parts, e.g.: the power button, in-take vents on the side, the USB ports and fan grills.


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The 5.25” bays are hidden behind a sturdy door with solid hinges (the door is kept shut by the use of magnets, a nifty system), the reset button is also found in here; the power button is located outside the door, so you can start your system without opening the door, which is practical.


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The case rests on 4 rubber feet which helps reduce vibration noise.


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Cooling

This comes loaded up with fans which will surely boost its cooling efficiency, in the front you have one 120mm fan, and this one can easily be replaced (if needed) when you remove the front cover. At the back there is another 120mm blue LED fan, the third large fan is found in the side panel, and also sports a blue LED. The last active cooling component is an 80mm outtake in the top panel.


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Since the case is sitting a few inches from the ground the Lexa makes good use of this space by providing an intake hole in the bottom. All the in-take holes feature dust filters which can be taken out and cleaned with a bit of screw and push work. Not quite plug and play but it’s not something you’ll do everyday so it doesn’t have to be.


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Let’s get a system installed in there shall we? ->

A look inside

Before you can of the side panel you need to remove 2 screws and pull on the handle; with the handle lock alone you can keep the side panel in place well enough, so the screws are not really needed anymore. For security reasons you can also lock the side panel by key.


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The Lexa was delivered without Power Supply and it’s the first thing you need to install as it’ll be a very tight fit with a motherboard already in place. The plastic decoration at the back needs to go before you can screw in the PSU; this plastic deco also hinders the easy closure of the side panel, it would have been better to have chosen a design which did not take priority over function.


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Plug and play installation of hard drives and CD/DVD devices is provided through the use of drive rails which simply click in place at both sides of the device. The hard drives easily slides into the bay, as does a CD/DVD device; for the installation of a floppy/multimedia card reader/etc… you’ll need to remove the front cover completely.


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Expansion cards also get a screw-less treatment, a simple twist and turn of the rail which covers the PCI slots will secure the devices locked within. We had no problems installation a Chaintech FX5900XT and 3com network cards; however some users reported that the system is not 100% compatible with their expansion cards. In such event you can still use the good old screws to secure the cards in place.

When you’ve got your system wrapped up and installed you can take it to LAN parties easily by using the included carrying strap which has a few pockets to put your keyboard and mouse in there.


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Powering Up

The lighting theme of the Lexa is blue without a doubt, the 2 LED fans, power on LED and LCD display radiates a cool blue in a dark room. To get the LCD to display relevant temperatures you need to attach the included probes to your system’s “hot spots”.


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A hard drive heats up most on the side, so that’s where we’ll stick our sensor, the system probe was taped to the Southbridge, the CPU probe was shoved between the fins of the heatsink.


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The LCD display can only be read when facing it from the front, at an angle the characters on the display seem to wash out, this is common with the LCD technology use for such displays.


The Performance and Noise Test

In order to evaluate the cooling performance of the Lexa we have installed a mainstream Athlon 64 system, for comparison we’ve included the recently reviewed Antec Sonata II.


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With the test system detailed below installed here's how the weigh in:
- NZXT Lexa (9.8kg)
- Antec Sonata II (13.5kg)

JMke's A64 Test Setup
CPU	A64 3200+ @ 2200Mhz 1.47v vcore
Mainboard	DFI nForce3 250Gb
Memory	1*256Mb OCZ PC3700
Other	Chaintech FX5900XT + NV Silencer Maxtor 120 GB PATA Hard Drive Thermalright XP-90 + Delta 92mm fan Antec SmartPower 450W PSU

The room temp was kept near 26°C as much as possible but small variations and fluctuations can cause the temperature results to differ as much as 1-2°C

The Antec Sonata II was tested with its 1x120mm fan at the back running at Low speed.

And here are the results:



With both cases running with one 120mm fan in the rear the results are almost identical, with the video card running a bit hotter in the Lexa, but the CPU is cooler in the Sonata II. The hard drive bays enjoy a bit more fresh air in the Lexa showing 3°C advantage.

When we activate the other fans gradually the Lexa’s cooling efficiency increase also, but how noisy does it get? To get an idea we placed a dBA meter at 20 and 60cm distance from the front panel and powered on the system. (We don’t have test results for the noise generated by the Sonata II case at 20cm)



The fans used by NZXT for the Lexa are quite silent, with only the rear fan running the system is a mere 3dBA above ambient noise at 60cm; this makes it a silent system, but not quite ultra silent. You can only hear the system running in a very silent room. While the Sonata II scores better in the noise department, it must be mentioned that is was build from the ground up with silence in mind. The NZXT is not marketed for being ultra quiet, but still manages to offer a great balance between performance and noise.

Onto our conclusion ->

NZXT has improved over their past designs with the Lexa, its classy looks and solid build quality proves that they are able to deliver an excellent case to the masses.

Most people decide which case to get after running through a series of criteria in this order:
1) Price
2) Functionality
3) Performance/Looks

Cheap, awful looking cases with sharp edges inside are being sold by the dozen at local hardware stores. People choose them because they are cheap, and not everybody has the budget to spend a large amount of money on a case. When you do have a bit more to spend, then functionality will most likely come next, a case with easy access, no sharp edges, removable motherboard tray, drive rails etc seems to be the next step up from the “noname” to cheaper functional cases like Aopen/Chieftec entree models.

The looks and performance of a case are only important for those who have a budget which can allow them to see higher up the ladder and get a better quality case. Depending on what the end user wants, looks will come first (nice integration with their house/apartment’s interior) or performance (overclocking their system to limit).

The Lexa can be bought at Newegg for a rather steep price of $179 (with 500W PSU!), this puts it out the grasp of most people, the price in Europe should be around €139 without PSU. At that price it has entered the Coolermaster and Silverstone ballpark, two of several companies who put out equally decent enclosures at comparable prices. Now why should somebody decide to go with the Lexa? Although it does offer better value because of the included fans, LCD temperature display and carrying strap at that price you expect a case to have great functionality and cooling; so you’ll end up deciding on looks, and that is where personal taste comes in. So next time you go shopping around for your “BMW” or “Mercedes” enclosure you might want to venture over the Lexa and who knows… you might like it.

PRO
Design Case
Excellent thermal performance
Plug and Play installation
LCD temperature display

CON
Price!
Side panel closing mechanism might need a bit of tweaking

We would like to thank NZXT for providing the Lexa for evaluation.

Update 12/01/2006: There seem to be some problems with the LCD screen on the Lexa. But support reacts quick and replacements parts are shipped.

Question/Comments: forum thread