We also took a look at the inside of the Zero2 case before we started the installation of our test system. A few items to note are the filters installed on the front 120mm fan and also the 80mm bottom fan opening, the easy access I/O section on the top of the case, the top mounted PSU area, the black bag containing the manual and additional hardware, the interior layout of the hard drive and optical drive bays, and also a quick look at the fan layout as pictured below.

Installation

Well let’s get our system installed and test the NZXT Zero2 case out. We will be testing this case as it was sent and also “fully loaded” with the additional 4 x 120mm side intake fans and 80mm top exhaust fan installed. We left the bottom 80mm fan out and just used the supplied filter to allow fresh air to be drawn from the bottom of the case in both scenarios.

Motherboard Standoffs

First we installed the standoffs for the motherboard. Unlike the Tempest and Whisper we noted that the Zero2 did not have the handy diagram on the motherboard tray showing the standoff location for each motherboard platform. We will be using a motherboard using the standard ATX layout so this proved not to be a big issue and next we move onto the power supply (PSU) installation.

Power Supply (PSU)

Unlike the Tempest and Whisper cases the Zero2 utilizes a top mounted PSU design. The advantage of a top mounted PSU is shorter connections to the motherboard but cooling issues in the card slot areas are inherent to this design. The actual installation was quite simple as pictured below and as with the other 2 NZXT cases we have reviewed the PSU can only be mounted with one orientation, ingoing PSU fan drawing off the case.

 

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