NZXT Tempest

Verdict: [+] MIMICPlenty of cooling; lots of space for drives
[-] MOCKUgly; difficult to wire neatly; poor build quality

There's no avoiding the fact that the NZXT Tempest bears a striking resemblance to the Antec Nine Hundred. From the open-mesh drive bays to the chunky plastic protrusions and large roof fans, the two cases could almost have been twins separated at birth. Twins yes, but one is a prince and the other is a pauper. Although aesthetics are largely subjective, the superfluous plastic blocks and edges of the Tempest look wrong. Similar touches to the Nine Hundred - such as the protruding wings around the drive bays and chunky bulge for the fan on top - are solid and rugged, and in proportion to the rest of the case. The difference when you look at both cases alongside each other is almost as striking as that between the mismatched characters in 'Twins'. BODYWORK AND BUILD QUALITY
The main body of the Tempest, to which the ropey plastic bodywork is attached, is steel. This has been painted black on the outside but inside, the case is battleship grey. There's a pair of illuminated 120mm fans in the lower front portion of the case and another 120mm illuminated exhaust fan on the windowed side panel; this at least means that the Tempest looks good in a dark room. The cooling setup in the Tempest doesn't end with these three large fans, however, as there's another 120mm exhaust fan (not illuminated) at the rear of the case. There are also two 140mm fans in the rear of the roof panel that mimic the more striking 200mm roof exhaust fan of the Nine Hundred. The net result of this arrangement is a hell of a lot of air rushing through the system. The fans on the top and side of the case mean that critical components such as the CPU and graphics cards receive good airflow, and air won't be trapped between the expansion cards or in the top of the case. All of these fans are fairly quiet too, giving you a great air cooling system right out of the box. There are also small pre-cut pipeholes at the rear, so you could install an external radiator, although given that space inside is at a premium and the efficiency of the air cooling, you probably wouldn't find this necessary. The hard disk bays' location means that disks are stacked and mounted so that they don't completely block airflow from the front intake fans. There's room for eight hard disks in the Tempest, and they mount in line with the case, but on their sides. Hard disks are happy to run on their sides, and this orientation lets the air sucked in by the two front intake fans to flow into the main chamber without being impeded too much. There are three 5.25in bays for optical drives and fan controllers. SYSTEM INSTALLATION
Although there's plenty of space inside the Tempest, and the cooling potential is great, we ran into trouble when building our system. Despite our best efforts, we ended up with a rat's nest of cables. Two USB 2 ports, eSATA and headset connections are located at the top of the case, so their cables cascade down behind the drive bays. As your drive cables and front panel cables go to different areas of your motherboard, you'll find that one set of cables interferes with the other. There are also Molex wires hanging from each of the six fans that we found impossible to route tidily. There are cables shooting out of every corner of the Tempest and no cable management system to help. A further irritant is the mounting of the PSU in the floor of the Tempest (as with the Nine Hundred), making it tricky to neatly route cables to the motherboard power connectors and optical drives. The Tempest lacks a vent in the floor (as does the Nine Hundred), but the PSU mount is raised off the floor so that you can tuck spare cables underneath it. There's also nothing behind the PSU mount to preclude a long PSU. The general build quality of the Tempest doesn't inspire a great deal of confidence either. The screwless fittings for the optical drives, for example, don't feel particularly solid, and the external plastic panels and adornments are flimsy. CONCLUSION The similarities between the Tempest and the Antec Nine Hundred are fairly obvious - both have an open-mesh front with two intake fans, big fans on the roof and a suspiciously similar design. The Tempest only differs from Antec's design in regards to its hard disk bays, its use of two 140mm fans in the roof and its inferior build quality. If the Tempest were significantly cheaper than the Nine Hundred, it might be worth considering, but as it's been on sale for so long, the Nine Hundred is only £60.77 inc VAT on Lambda-Tek, making the £62.22 inc VAT for the Tempest look positively pricey. The Nine Hundred's superior build quality and looks means it's the better buy.
You can buy the NZXT Tempest from Adcance Tec for £62.22inc VAT
For more informatiopn on the NZXT Tempest, visit www.nzxt.com