Nzxt 510i case
A refreshingly simple yet intelligently engineered mid-tower case.
Nzxt has carved out a bit of a niche for itself with its range of thoughtfully engineered cases that focus on refinement and the user experience rather than all out ‘look-at-me’ bling. The H510i matte black case we have for review is one of the more refreshingly subtle cases we’ve seen in recent times, and that alone is a good thing.
A visual inspection of the H510i immediately shows it to be a well thought out and engineered case. It comes with one of the most impressive cable management systems we’ve ever seen. All of the front panel and power cables can be discreetly routed away behind the motherboard tray or behind a vertical insert. There’s complete watercooling support, though the H510i can only accept 240mm or 280mm radiators. If you need room for a triple rad, you’d need to move up to the H710i. Additionally, you can mount a GPU vertically with an optional PCIe riser card.
A pair of addressable RGB strips are alsio included. While this is perhaps almost contrary to the rest of the case’s subtle looks, when combined with the tempered glass side panel, it really allows you to show off a beautiful system. The PSU section is covered, and the end result is a very clean looking build with the absolute minimum of cables visible.
Assembling the system was simple with the cable management implementation really adding to the ease of the build. We used a very large MSI RTX 2080 Gaming which just fit length-wise with a front mounted 240mm radiator. This proves that the 510i is about as small as it’s possible to make an ATX case that can accept a complete water-cooled, high-end ATX system and full-sized GPU without compromise.
Nzxt includes a hardware fan and RGB controller with its ‘i’ series of cases. It can be controlled by the CAM software suite. While some users might baulk at the need to run yet another software package, the CAM software has a rather intuitive design and didn’t have anything really worth criticising during our testing. It can control two RGB lighting strips and up to three fans, supporting both voltage regulated and PWM fans. It comes with a full set of monitoring and even overclocking functionality. It’s clear the CAM software is designed to complement Nzxt’s unique motherboards as well.
It might be fairly compact for a mid-tower, but due to the use of steel and tempered glass, the H510i weighs in at a rather chunky 6.8Kg. The fully loaded system is surprisingly hefty indeed.
The 510i comes with a top mounted USB 3.0 port as well as a Type-C 3.1 port. While it’s nice to see a bit of forward thinking with the inclusion of Type-C, an extra pair of standard Type-A ports would be welcome for convenience.
At $180 the 510i isn’t the cheapest case you’ll come across, but for a user looking for something that doesn’t look like it belongs in a Transformers movie, then the H510i is definitely worth considering. It’s sleek, subtle and refined and we recommend it.