NZXT H200 ITX Air Cooled Build | 3700X + RX5500XT + Noctua D15

Greatness awaits with our new NZXT H200 ITX Air Cooled Build!

NZXT’s H200 is by no means a new case, yet as most timeless pieces, it lives on today thanks to an extraordinarily clean design and proper build quality, but is that enough?

You would think that H200s Achilles heel, in today's small form factor market, is its size… and maybe even it’s layout, sort of?

At the time of its launch there were little to no SFF sharks making circles around it, today, things are different, very different, mainly due the vertical GPU trend and wide-adoption of sandwich layouts.

Imagine an H200, it brings an old, functional layout in an extraordinarily beautiful package, a sturdy steel and plastic build that serves the many for a decent price.

Now place beside it the Loque Ghost S1 with a large top hat, a case with an arguably new layout, all steel and aluminium, a premium enclosure that is 30% smaller than the NZXT.

This difference in size is significant to say the least, but it comes with a lot of perks, like storage drive space, the possibility of mounting 120mm AIO for the CPU and GPU, and 2 additional case fans. If you want to go for air cooling, as we did in this build, there is practically no limitation.

Yes there are cases out there under 20L able to satisfy some of the points above but none comes close to NZXT’s price point.

For comparison, the NCase M1, arguably the most versatile and most space efficient case out there, is three times more expensive.

Let's get into some specifics.

There is no direct air flow intake on the front or the side panels but the perforated vents on the sides in the front of the case do the job very nicely and coupled with the vents on back and top of the case are more than enough to handle business.

The PSU shroud is also perforated to aid with airflow but that feature is limited when using an ATX power supply.

Yes you can go for an ATX PSU, but the case also comes with a preinstalled SFX PSU bracket so you have the gift of choice.


The side panels are mounted with thumbscrews, which remain attached once unscrewed and thus, are extraordinarily practical and, oh joy oh joy, there is ample room and fittings for cable routing on the back.

We also like the characteristic bracket on the motherboard side which not only looks nice but is also very practical, it helps hide the cables coming to the front, and can be used to mount a reservoir if you want to go for a custom water cooling loop.

Onto the build.

The motherboard we went for is the X470 Strix from Asus which accommodates the AMD Ryzen 3700X, 2 16GB modules from Corsair and 512GB of Samsung EVO storage

For graphical processing, we wanted to test the ROG STRIX RX5500XT for a while, so this is what we used to complete the build.

The CPU is cooled by Noctua’s D15, a very capable and beautifully monstrous air cooler that makes the H200 look petite and vulnerable even at its 26 plus litres but also showcases the possibilities that this enclosure provides

Everything is powered by Fractal’s Ion 660 Platinum ATX PSU, a standard size PSU that yet again highlights the flexibility of this case


Additional Noctua fans occupy all available slots ensuring the best possible air flow and temperatures whilst keeping decibels down.

All in all we played with Lara comfortably at 1080P, averaging around 70 frames throughout the benchmark at her highest settings.

For science… ok ok, for fun and for GPU limit testing purposes we bumped things up to 4k which looked as splendid as you would imagine and if you are interested in eye-candy only you could go that route, but we think that an average of 30 frames per second is borderline unplayable.


Given the vastly superior cooling capability of the H200, it’s not surprising that the temperatures are significantly better than what you would get in say a DAN A4
The GPU sat at 45 degrees in 1080P play while the CPU never got over 55 degrees thanks to the almighty D15.

All in all, the H200 still fits beautifully in today's market, bridging the gap between true SFFs and small towers, an entry in the mITX universe.

If you prefer smaller cases that are beautiful enough to stay on your desk but you’re not quite ready for the challenges of a true SFF case, you will find this enclosure a great place to start without compromising on build quality while enjoying a timeless design at an affordable price point.

Till next time, stay safe frens!