NZXT just launched a mini-ITX case for system builders who are interested in piecing together a small form factor (SFF) PC, and it even comes with a miniaturized 650W power supply with 80+ Gold certification to boot. It also bears a resemblance to Microsoft's Xbox Series X.
Whether that's by purposeful design or not, I have no idea. Not that it matters—turnabout is fair play, after all, and the Xbox Series X is the first game console to look like a PC tower.
The H1 is compact tower measuring 187 (W) x 387.7 (H) 187.6 (D) mm / 7.36 x 15.26 x 0.29 inches, and weighing 6.53 kg (14.4 pounds). According to NZXT, one design element that was purposeful was making the H1 easy to build in.
"Creating a small form factor case is something we have always wanted to improve upon because they are often challenging to build in and can hinder the performance of high-end hardware," says Johnny Hou, founder and CEO of NZXT. "That is why we simplified the building process and focused on performance when designing the NZXT H1. We set out to make this one of the easiest builds you can undertake while leaving no compromises when gaming."
The vertical SFF chassis can accommodate up to two 2.5-inch storage drives, and the drive trays are tool-less. NZXT also designed the case so that the motherboard I/O faces downward, which allows for routing the cables through the bottom and up into the separated right-side chamber.
NZXT's dual chamber approach also lends itself to better cooling, the company says. The H1 comes with a 140mm all-in-one liquid cooler, but there's no option to add more fans. That didn't seem to be an issue when our friends at Tom's Hardware reviewed the chassis, though your mileage may vary.
As to building an Xbox Series X killer inside this lookalike case, that will depend on what you shove inside, and how Microsoft's next-gen console pans out. Microsoft recently shared some details about the GPU inside the Xbox Series X, and going by TFLOPs (12) and architecture (RDNA 2) alone, it's pretty impressive.
That said, most full-size graphics cards should fit inside the H1. By leveraging a riser mount design, the case supports GPUs measuring up to 305 mm (12 inches) long, just be sure it doesn't exceed 2.5 slots. For reference, Nvidia's Founders Edition GeForce RTX 2080 Ti measures 266.74 mm (10.5 inches) long and takes up 2 slots.
The caveat to all this is the price—NZXT is asking $349.99 for the H1, which is available in black and white color options. It's expensive compared to other SFF cases, though the inclusion of a 650W PSU and 140mm CPU AIO cooler add a fair bit of value.
NZXT is also offering the H1 as an option for its prebuilt BLD PCs. Pricing for an H1 model starts at $1,999 and comes with a Core i9-9900K processor, Asus ROG Strix Z390-I motherboard, 16GB DDR4-3200 RAM, GeForce RTX 2070 Super graphics card, and 1TB Intel 660p SSD.
