Detailed Interior Features

The NZXT M59 motherboard tray is not removeable, but does provide a large cutout for access to a CPU cooler back plate as well as several well-placed holes for cable management. There are also many small loops for cable tie anchors.

The design of the hard drive mounts requires that the drives be inserted connectors-first. The clearance between the rear of the drives and the side panel is tight: normal SATA connectors will work but the case panel will exert some pressure on them. It would be a good idea to use right-angled SATA connectors here.

Two 120mm or 140mm fans can (theoretically) be installed at the top of the case. However, even the shortest optical drive in the top 5.25" bay will block the forward fan mount, and many aftermarket CPU coolers will block the rear fan mount. An extra 10mm added to the length and height of the case would make these mounts much more useful.

The motherboard mounts very close to the top of the case, and there are no cable routing holes there. Unless your power supply has a very long EPS 12V cable, you'll have to run it across the back of the motherboard. There's just enough room for a 10.5" long graphics card like this nVidia GTX280, and the 120mm side fan in the window will aid in cooling it. Since the case is a "7 slotter", there's not enough room for a double-width video card in the third PCIE-x16 slot, so tri-SLI or tri-Crossfire setups are out of the picture unless you're using single-wide cards. (Note: on this particular motherboard, there's not enough clearance under the back of the video card to feed the cable underneath it, thus the sloppy-looking routing.)

In the next section, I offer my final thoughts and conclusion on the NZXT M59 gaming case.

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