NXZT Lexa case Review :: The Interior

The interior of the case is where the most important area of the case is located, the motherboard tray. The Lexa does not have a detachable tray, which would allow for easy insertion/removal of a motherboard from the case. There are plenty of screw holes already drilled for the various ATX, mini-ATX or Baby AT form factors.

One excellent thing about this case was the length from the end of the openings for the expansion devices and the Hard Drive cage. The length fit a 8800GTX from ASUS or XFX with little difficulty, though I did have to put it in at an angle and it didn't go directly down as most video cards would do. The hard drive cage is facing towards the windowed side panel, meaning cables won't get in the way of the new video cards as some cases have problems with the 8800GTX, forcing the user to move a hard disk drive or fiddle with the cables so it doesn't interfere.

The expansion cards are held onto the motherboard and case by screws or a locking mechanism that holds the cards into place. I prefer screws, as you can easily remove devices, but there are positives of using the screwless mounting as well. The Lexa case does not have a removable motherboard tray, requiring you to mount the motherboard the normal way. Not a big deal, it just would have been cool to have a tray.

The Lexa case has three internal fans included with the case without additional purchase. The back panel fan is a 120mm silent fan that keeps the CPU and memory area cool. The top 80mm fan is on the top portion of the case, making sure the PSU is cooled. The Front fan is a 120mm fan that keeps the HDDs cool. The fourth fan is on the side panel.

One thing the NZXT Lexa did not come with was a PSU. The case is available with a 500W PSU as an option, but with the needs of today's modern systems with two video cards (SLI and Crossfire); a 500W PSU would only be adequate for the very mainstream segment of the market. I installed an Enermax 850W PSU in the case without difficulty, meaning the longer PSUs on the market fit in this case.

The interior drive bays include 5 3.5" drive bays for the hard disk drives, the two external 3.5" drive bays and the four external 5.25" drive bays. This allows for up to 11 drives to be installed in the case. There are no screws to put on the drives to install. You simply attach the drive rails to the drive, and slide it in the case. One extremely positive note is the bundling of the USB and Firewire cables with solid connectors, meaning that you don't have to connect them one wire at a time.