Areas of Improvement

With nearly every product on the market, there is always room for some improvement. Maybe we are too picky sometimes but since we test every enclosure to its limits in terms of ease of installation and overall design we usually come up with some issues. Unfortunately for the cases we test, this approach usually brings out some downfalls that may not be apparent at first glance.

While we have seen that the NZXT Alpha is a VERY good case, there were a few times when I found it was left wanting
certain things. Some of the things I found were due to manufacturing and quality control slip-ups while others were due to some minor design miscues. Usually, finding faults with a budget case isn't hard at all but my experience with the Alpha was overall very positive considering its price. Let's check out where NZXT could have done better.


Rubber feet are always a good thing when you need stability but they have to be installed properly or your entire case could be off-balance. The NZXT Alpha suffers from exactly this problem and tends to rock back and forth due to unlevel rubber feet. This may be a quality control issue with our sample but one other Alpha we are aware of has this exact same problem. This doesn't affect the overall performance of the case but it does get annoying when your brand new case starts rocking back and forth. Make no mistake about it though; rubber feet are great for vibration dampening and won't scratch your hardwood floors if you tend to move your case around alot. Their inclusion is great but their installation here is more annoying than convenient.


I also encountered a problem when installing my 7900GTX. No, it wasn't the length but rather the mounting holes on the backplate of the card did not line up with the expansion slot holes on the Alpha. The top hole lined up without a problem but the bottom screw wouldn't line up at all. Before you start thinking this is a problem with the back plate of the GPU, I can tell you right now that this 7900GTX has been installed into several other enclosures without this problem popping up. However, in my eyes this isn't a huge problem since a single screw will keep the GPU in place without a problem.


The only major problem i had with this case is the fact that with my Tuniq Tower installed, the side panel would refuse to close properly. This is due to the alignment of the side 120mm fan with the tall Tuniq cooler (which they call "tower" with good reason) since both the cooler and the side fan touched when I tried to close the side door. From what I see, this will be an issue with taller coolers like my Tuniq Tower and the Thermalright Ultra-120 series as well as some others. There are a number of ways to overcome this; you can completely remove the side fan or you could search high and low for a low profile 120mm fan.

One way or another this is the one problem I had with the Alpha that feels like a serious design blunder. Considering the number of people who are moving to larger aftermarket coolers on their 775, AM2 and AM2+ systems, I think the NZXT really needs to modify their side panel design to accommodate these trends. It should be noted that even without the side fan installed, the side panel does not close so it is completely flush with the front of the case.