NZXT Manta Case Review

Overview

 

Now while we have seen numerous systems using NZXT Cases in the past, we’ve not actually reviewed one in a while, well that’s about to change! Also, most of the cases that we have seen have also been full ATX cases and that’s also about to change…

This is NZXT’s latest case, a case so small that it only accepts a Mini-ITX motherboard, this is the NZXT Manta. The case itself is available in a variety of colour combinations (black, black/red & black/white), the latter is the version we have here today, this particular example also features a side window. The case features a curved steel plated exterior and a steel chassis measuring in at (W: 245mm x H: 426mm x D: 450mm ) and weighs approximately 7.2kg. The Manta comes equipped with three pre-installed 120mm fans that are connected up to an impressive eight way fan controller. There’s also capacity for up to three 2.5″ drives and two 3.5″ drives but there are no 5.25″ drive bays. CPU clearance measures in at 160mm, GPU clearance measures in at 363mm and a Power Supply up to 363mm can be installed also. In addition to this there’s also support for both a 280mm radiator in the top and the front of the case.

 

 

Un-boxing the NZXT Manta is a little dull, as inside the first brown cardboard box I found another brown cardboard box!? On opening that box the Manta was found to be well packaged with the case sandwiched between two hard foam blocks and covered by a plastic bag. There’s no shortage of protection that’s for sure…

 

 

There not much in the box other than the Case and a small white NZXT box. Within the box we find an interestingly named booklet (How to Build a PC), impressive if it lives up to its name as the book is about 1mm thick and has just 8 pages! 😮 In addition to said Book we also find an NZXT sticker, a selection of screws all separated and labeled and some cable ties.

 

 

At the time of review, the NZXT Manta (with side window) is retailing on Overclockers UK for approximately £100 and comes with a 2 year warranty.

 

Specifications/Features

courtesy of NZXT

 

 

* Additional details available here

 

First Impressions

 

With such plain packaging first impressions of the NZXT Manta are a bit of a shock, this is one seriously good looking case. Probably one of the best in fact that I’ve seen in some time. This is down to it’s small size (all the best things come in small packages as we know!) and the fact that it’s pretty unique looking too! That’s mainly down to its curved panels, only the rear back plate is flat. Not only is it curved but it’s clean looking too with a sleek looking exterior with a great paint finish and with very few visible controls. Even the NZXT logo is hidden away on the front panel and barely visible, which I think is kind of cool…

 

 

The left side panel of this particular version of the NZXT Manta features a large (full size) side widow, but the case is available without – but only in black. The panel itself is made from steel and is therefore quite sturdy. The panel attaches to the main case by way of two captive (meaning they don’t fall off) thumb screws.

The right side panel is effectively the same without the large side window. Note also that both panels are concave and not flat in any way, not only does this add to the overall aesthetic but it also help to provide additional cable management space on this side of the Case.

 

 

There’s very little to see at the front of the NZXT Manta, as it’s simply a swathe of white covered steel, curved of course! But what I really do like is at the bottom of the panel there’s actually a really subtle NZXT logo, in White! Subtle, yet very cool IMHO!

The back of the Manta is a little more conventional, over on the left we have the main motherboard I/O cutout, above which we find a small LED bracket that can be switched on (button below left) to enable the I/O shield to be seen in dark conditions. To the right of this we have the pre-installed 120mm exhaust fan that as you can see can be positioned vertically allowing room for top mounted radiators and AIO coolers such as NZXT’s own Kraken X61. Below this we have two PCI slots for (presumably) your Graphics Card and below that we find the main Power Supply cutout supporting Power Supplies up to 363mm in length.

 

 

The top of the Manta is almost as subtle as the front, but here in the front we find the case’s main controls. This comprises of a power button on the left, a centrally mounted light that (rather cleverly) supports both Power and Disk activity LED’s. Over on the right we have two USB 3.0 ports and audio (Headphone & Microphone) ports. That centrally mounted LED is also pretty cool in the fact that it illuminates on the left and right side when powered on with the centre LED blinking (white) during disk activity; it works well!

The top panel can also removed, this can be done by gently lifting it upwards, but it seems to help to remove the front panel first (see below). This allows access to the top bracket of the Manta where you can install a AIO water cooler or a radiator up to 280mm in size, impressive for such a small case.

 

 

At the bottom of the NZXT Manta we can see that the Case itself sits up off of the surface courtesy of two large legs. Each leg also features two large rubber feet to keep noise/vibration to a minimum. Also at the back we have a removable dust filter for the Power Supply, that can be removed from the rear of the case for cleaning purposes.

 

 

Removing the left side panel by loosening those two captive thumb screws allows us to take a look at the interior space and there’s quite a bit on offer, always good to see. We can also see that the lower part of the case is dominated by the Power Supply shroud with its NZXT logo (that actually illuminates white!). You can also see the two tone design here with the black and white sections, with the latter section supporting two 2.5″ drives. Here we can also see the two front fans and the rear fan that are all 120mm in size.

Removing the right side panel allows us to look at the cabling and cable management space aboard the Manta, and at first there seems a fair amount of cables but not much space. But it’s a little deceiving as the space is effectively in the panel due to the curve, clever eh!? We can also see the fan controller over on the right (more on this later) and to the right of the fan controller is the illumination controller, again more on this later.

 

 

All of the supplied fans are 120mm units and have a maximum rotational speed of 1200RPM. The rear fan can be positioned vertically to help with either top radiator installation or AIO CPU Coolers. The front fan mounts can actually accept 140mm units, and I think it’s a shame that NZXT have chosen to use 120mm units instead. Also note that none of the fans feature any form of protective grill on the inside of the case.

 

 

The fan controller itself supports PWM control and can (rather impressively) control up to eight fans, although I’m unsure where they would all go! The smaller circuit board too the right of the fan controller controls the illumination. There are two zones; one at the back for the I/O panel and one on the PSU shroud for the NZXT logo. As you can see this links to a button at the rear of the case that allows you to cycle through the various illumination options (all off, all on, logo only, IO only). All illumination is white.

 

 

The front can be removed by pulling (gently) at the base. This allows access to the intake dust filter at the front for cleaning purpose, it also allows access to the fans should you wish to replace them with 140mm items. Something I wish NZXT had of done and am a little unsure why they didn’t!?

 

There’s no doubt at this point that NZXT have put together a really smart looking, well made and well thought out Mini-ITX case, although it’s worth noting that the case itself isn’t actually that small. At this point I’m extremely impressed with what I’ve seen so far, let’s hope that the love affair continues… 😉

 

Hardware Installation

 

Test Rig Setup

Case	NZXT Manta	Power Supply	Corsair Professional Series AX 760i
Motherboard	Gigabyte Z170N-Gaming 5	CPU	Intel Core i5-6600K
CPU Cooler	Noctua NH-U12S	RAM	G Skill Ripjaws 4 16GB
Graphics Card	EVGA GeForce GTX 980Ti Classified	SSD	Samsung SM951 512GB

 

 

The first task was to put together the motherboard assembly (MB, CPU, CPU Cooler & RAM) for this review. For this review as the Manta is a Mini-ITX Case I opted to use a Gigabyte Z170N-Gaming 5 Motherboard, an Intel Core i5-6600K CPU, a Noctua NH-U12S CPU Cooler and x2 4GB G.Skill Ripjaws 4 RAM modules. This Motherboard assembly can be seen above. As this was an ITX based build I also opted to use a M.2 SSD, especially as the Motherboard supported it, for this we used a Samsung SM951 512GB PCIE based drive (see image above right).

 

 

The next task was to fit the Corsair AX760i Power Supply, easy enough as the NZXT Manta supports Power Supplies up to 363mm in length. But as there’s a covering shroud it’s best to fit all of the required cables first. This meant connecting up the following (24-pin, CPU 8-pin, PCIE x2 8-pin & Molex), the Molex connection is required to power up the fan controller, although this would have been better if it was a SATA power connector as these are now more widely used. The Power supply was then simply secure in position by the regular four screws.

Next I installed the Motherboard assembly after first installing the I/O shield of course. As there’s plenty of space inside the Manta this was simple enough and the Motherboard was then secured by the four screws provided.

 

 

After some basic cabling up (USB, HD Audio, Front Panel connections) and the Molex for the fan controller, I set about plugging in the main Motherboard power cables. The 8-pin was easy enough but the 24-pin has to be bent back on itself to plug into the motherboard, this is made even more difficult by the proximity of the white bracket that now just seems in the way. Once it was in position (no easy task) I then feared for ever getting it back out as the cable no almost hides the clip that needs to be unclipped to removed it! Once that was done the test EVGA GTX 980Ti was installed and I was impressed how easily the Manta swallowed this 280mm long Graphics Card. Cabling up the GPU was easy enough with the best route for the cable being around the back and up through the front of the case; unusual but it looks neat enough! The cables that weren’t so easy and also the cables that look unsightly are the HD Audio cable and the USB 3.0 cable that trail across the motherboard. But this is as much down to the design of the motherboard as it is to the Manta Case.

Cable management space at the rear of the case is minimal, but there’s plenty of room within the curved panel itself so there’s more than there looks. It’s also difficult to get it looking tidy (although I admit to being a little lazy!) at the back, with most of the cables simply stuffed into the bottom left corner of the case. But, be careful here as the cables can get very close to the lower intake fan and there’s no fan guard which is a shame and a bit of an oversight.

 

 

Considering that this is a Mini-ITX case the installation into the NZXT Manta was far easier than I had anticipated, this is down to the fact that this ITX case is bigger than most, it’s also well designed with a good internal layout. To be honest at this point in the review there’s very little to dislike about the Manta, with only a niggle here and there to worry about…

 

Testing Methodology/Setup

 

As we are using a new (Gigabyte Z170N-Gaming 5) Motherboard for this Mini-ITX build we will be using Gigabyte’s System Information Viewer to help monitor temperature and voltage and we will use MSI Afterburner to evaluate the GPU temperatures. Of course Prime95 being a CPU stress test also helps to generate heat for us to check the case thermals. We also use UNiGiNE Heaven 4.0 for GPU temperature testing.

CPU performance testing is carried out using Prime95 (Small FFT) to stress the CPU. Each run is timed for 15 mins and the maximum temperature is recorded for all cores and then the average core heat is taken. Testing was carried out with an overclocked Intel Core i5-6600K at 4.4GHz courtesy of the Gigabyte UEFI.

GPU performance testing is carried out by running UNiGiNE Heaven 4.0 for 15 minutes and then by recording the maximum GPU temperature.

* All case fans (x3 in the case of the NZXT Manta) and the CPU Cooler (Noctua NH-U12S) are run at 100% throughout testing. To ascertain case noise levels, the GPU fans are set to their lowest setting and the CPU Cooler fan is unplugged, whilst the dBA is recorded from 1m away.

 

Hardware Performance

 

 

CPU RESULTS – NZXT Manta with Noctua NH-U12S and Intel Core i5-6600K @ 4.4GHz

Case	Ambient Temperature	Max CPU Temperature (core average)	Delta Temperature
Lian Li PC-X510	22.00	58.00	36.00
Cooler Master HAF XB	21.00	58.00	37.00
Cooler Master MasterCase Pro 5	22.00	60.00	38.00
NZXT Manta	24.00	62.00	38.00
be quiet! Silent Base 600	23.00	62.00	39.00
BitFenix Nova	22.00	65.00	43.00
Raijintek Styx	21.00	67.00	46.00

 

The CPU Cooling performance of the NZXT Manta is really very impressive with a maximum Core Temperature (whilst overclocked) of just 62 degrees (38 Delta) Celsius. This is mainly down to decent airflow in the top of the case and the proximity of the rear exhaust fan to the back of the Noctua CPU Cooler. Certainly there’s nothing to worry about here, let’s take a look at GPU cooling next…

 

GPU RESULTS – NZXT Manta with EVGA GeForce GTX 980Ti Classified

Case	Ambient Temperature	Max GPU Temperature	Delta Temperature
Lian Li PC-X510	23.00	77.00	54.00
Cooler Master MasterCase Pro 5	22.00	77.00	55.00
Cooler Master HAF XB	22.00	79.00	57.00
be quiet! Silent Base 600	22.00	81.00	59.00
Raijintek Styx	21.00	81.00	60.00
BitFenix Nova	23.00	84.00	61.00
NZXT Manta	23.00	84.00	61.00

 

As I guessed, and as is so often the case (no pun intended) with Mini-ITX Cases Graphics Card cooling was a little poor. Our test EVGA GTX 980Ti managed to get up to 84 degrees (61 Delta) Celsius in our Unigine Heaven 15 minute benchmark. Now while this temperature is still no cause for concern it does mean that due to the GPU’s TDP the card will be throttling back a little more than usual. It also means that fan speed and noise from the GPU is increased. We saw our GTX 980Ti dropping from around 1400MHz to around 1342MHz while fan speed was at 63%. Again nothing to really worry about but it’s worth bearing in mind that this Graphics Card in this Case will run slower than it would in say a Cooler Master MasterCase Pro 5. But would you notice the difference in game? Probably not! 😉

 

Acoustic Performance

Acoustically the NZXT Manta actually performed better than I would have thought. With its three fans running at 100%, noise output is approximately 39dBA. Not only that but the tone produced by the fans was also very acceptable, with no whine or unpleasant hum! Certainly while Gaming with the NZXT Manta it’s the Graphics Card that’s likely to make the most noise…

 

Final Thoughts

 

Every now and then a new Case comes along that resets your thoughts on what makes a good case and make no mistake the NZXT Manta is a good Case. But it’s simply more than just a good case, what makes it a great Case is that it is like no other, it’s unique. And it’s is this that makes it more than just a great case, this makes it desirable…

The NZXT Manta arrived at pcG in not just one plain brown cardboard box but two, giving very little away as to what lie hidden within. Once out of the box it was soon apparent that this little (well actually it’s not so little) Mini-ITX Case is really rather something special. What makes it special is not just its size but the fact that all of the panels (except the back panel) are curved! In fact the case itself is one of the most striking looking (unique) cases that I’ve seen in some time, and that’s good news! 🙂

The specifications and features of the Manta are impressive also, with the Case coming equipped with three 120mm fans and a eight channel fan controller. In addition to this the Manta has support for up to three 2.5″ drives/SSDs and two HDDs. Add to this the support for 160mm high CPU Coolers, 363mm long Graphics Cards and 363mm long Power Supplies and it would seem that NZXT have a sure fire winner on their hands. But it doesn’t even stop there; as the Manta also supports two 280mm radiators for water cooling support.

Installation of our test system into the NZXT Manta was also easier than I first thought, this was due to not only a well thought out interior but also a large amount of space within the case. This large amount of space is down to the Manta’s larger than average size for an ITX case measuring in at (W: 245 x H: 426 x D: 450mm). In fact the only issue during installation was the fact that the main 24-pin power cable has to be bent at ninety degrees to get it into position, and when in position it covers the clip that you need to access to get it out! Other than that installation was as easy as any that have gone before it!

Performance wise The NZXT Manta scores well in the CPU cooling department but not so well in the Graphics Cooling department. During testing we maxed out our overclocked (4.4GHz @ 1.3v) Intel 6600K CPU with a Core temperature of 62 degrees Celsius, pretty impressive for such a small case. Unfortunately our test EVGA GTX 980Ti managed to get up to 84 degrees, which is as high as we’ve seen. Now while this is well within the card’s comfort zone (fan speed only at 63%) it meant that the card would throttle from around 1400MHz to 1342MHz, meaning a slight drop in performance was incurred. Of course you could increase GPU fan speed to counteract this, but the GPU is already likely to be the nosiest component in a Gaming build such as this. Fitting another couple of fans to the top of the case would also help…

We measured approximately 39dBA with our test equipment with all three fans running at 100%, which isn’t too bad as far as I’m concerned. Certainly not a noise level to be concerned about if you’re playing with a Headset on. There’s also an argument that swapping the 120mm fans in the front for 140mm versions may also help. I’m also a little disappointed that NZXT didn’t see fit to do this in the first place!

Overall there’s an awful lot to like about the NZXT Manta and I’m happy to say that it’s a Case that will stick out in my mind for many months to come. Its combination of great looks and great build quality help to distance it from the competition. Add to this all of the options and features, such as the fan controller, illumination and the support for water cooling and radiators means that NZXT really have a winner on their hands here.

 

Verdict

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Many thanks to NZXT for providing this sample for review