The NZXT Manta mITX Case Review
by E. Fylladitakis on June 16, 2016 9:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Cases/Cooling/PSUs
- Mini ITX
- NZXT
- Case
The Interior of the NZXT Manta
NZXT used the same satin black paint as the exterior to spray the interior of the Manta as well. Everything in the case is black, including the stock cooling fans and their blades. An opening on the motherboard tray allows for the installation of aftermarket CPU coolers without having to remove the motherboard from the case. The opening looks small, but there should not be any compatibility problems with most Mini-ITX boards.
Openings for the routing of cables can be seen above and below the motherboard area. None of the openings have rubber grommets installed, which is strange for a case of this price range. The right side of the motherboard is essentially entirely open and covered by a metallic bridge installed above it. A non-removable metallic shield separates the system area from the PSU compartment.
Two metallic 2.5” drive trays can be found to the right side of the main system. Each tray is held by a thumbscrew and can be easily removed without the use of tools, but the device itself needs to be secured onto the tray using screws. The position of the trays also has the devices facing towards the front of the case, meaning that the stickers of some SSD drives will be upside down.
Two 120 mm intake fans can be found installed at the front of the case. 140 mm fans will also fit here, as will 240 mm and 280 mm long liquid cooling radiators. This is equally true for the top panel of the case, allowing the user to concurrently have two powerful liquid cooling systems installed. One 120 mm exhaust fan is installed at the rear of the case, the position of which can be vertically adjusted.
NZXT installed a simplistic but functional fan controller at the rear of the motherboard tray. The controller has seven headers, three of which are occupied by the stock cooling fans. It simply takes the PWM signal from one of the motherboard’s headers and uses it to control the speed of the fans connected to it.
One 3.5” drive can be installed on the back of the system area, behind the 2.5” drive trays. The 3.5” drive needs to be secured using screws and, to that end, the 2.5” drive trays need to come off. Another 3.5” device can be installed to the bottom of the case.
A small button at the rear of the case controls the lighting of the Manta. There are two lighted areas on the Manta. The first one is the white company logo on the front side of the PSU compartment and the second is the exterior of the motherboard’s I/O panel at the rear of the case. This is an interesting approach and can possibly be functional whenever someone wants to insert a cable in the dark. The switch has four settings: all on, logo on, rear panel on, all off. The system area is not in any way illuminated and LED fans or other light sources are virtually necessary to those who want to showcase their system.
For the means of this review, we installed a Corsair AX760i with the red cable set, for strong visual contrast. The AX760i easily fits inside the NZXT Manta, with enough room for managing the cables. The cables are also more than long enough for a typical system, as the Mini-ITX motherboard tray is significantly shorter than what the PSU has been designed for. There are numerous cable tie points that aid with the management of the cables and several openings that bring each cable near its intended connector. Our only concern lies with the metallic bridge to the right side of the motherboard, as it seems to be doing more harm than good, prohibiting the 24-pin cable from taking a proper turn and limiting access to the 2.5” device connectors. Although the clearance looks to be just OK from these pictures, it actually is massive when the extra couple of centimeters that the curved side panel adds are taken into account, which is how the 3.5” drive easily fits there are well.
The Mini-ITX system fits inside the system area of the Manta with ease, allowing the installation of large air coolers, liquid coolers and long/wide graphics cards. There is a long of space in front of the motherboard, allowing cards up to 420 mm long to the installed. However, note that the installation of a liquid cooling radiator at the front of the case will reduce this clearance. The CPU cooler’s maximum height is 160 mm, which is not great considering the massive width of the case. Several top tier air coolers will not fit into the Manta.
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Voldenuit - Friday, June 17, 2016 - link
"With a postmodern design sporting curved panels and smooth surfaces-""Wait, what makes it postmodern?"
"Well, it's all curved edges so it's pointless. It's Pointless, CORAL!"
ES_Revenge - Friday, June 17, 2016 - link
I was always waiting for NZXT to make cases for mATX and/or ITX. They did have the Vulcan (mATX) some years ago but that thing was one of the ugliest cases on the planet, so it didn't really count.NZXT has some very nice case designs (I bought an S340 and love it) so I was pretty excited to hear they might be making some new smaller-than-ATX cases. Thing about my S340 is, to me, it's HUGE! I've been making mATX or ITX machines since the PIII days so full ATX is rather large for me. Love the case but it's a *monster* compared to my other cases like Silverstone SG03 and SG06, and Bitfenix Pandora.
So NZXT comes out with an ITX case--sounds like it should be awesome, right? Looks cool enough but thennnn... WHY ON EARTH is it as big as my S340? Are they stupid? Out of their minds? High as kites?
Seriously this is the dumbest *mini ITX* case evar. How they could possibly fail so badly is beyond me. It's 10mm (7/16") shorter than an S340, basically the same depth, and (get this) it's actually *wider* than it!
What is amazing is how there's really not much you can put in here that you can't put in the S340...yet that has space for a mobo with SIX more slots! What did they use the space for? Looks like just air. I'm not sure what kind of crack these guys were on when they made this, but I assure you it's the bad kind.
Why the Manta isn't mATX is one thing to think about but when you realise it's as big as an S340, you have to wonder why it doesn't fit an ATX board.
Sounded exciting NZXT was making cases for smaller factors, but then it turns out all they did was make a full ATX case and then make higher feet or something, make the roof higher (you know for more air and less slots?!?) and that way it only fits ITX, and then they called it a day. It almost defies the laws of geometry this thing. How the heck did they make it so the PSU sits almost directly below the second slot (obviously needed for videocards) yet there's still only two slots to the S340's *seven*? In the end it's somehow the same height?
What a joke. Seriously NZXT? Just stick to making ATX cases if this is the tomfoolery you're going to engage in. Ugh.
Haravikk - Saturday, June 18, 2016 - link
I really can't bring myself to like anything about the design; the curves serve no purpose at all, so all they do is make an already rather large (for Mini-ITX) case even larger, and for me that's not at all what Mini-ITX is about.By all means, try to find a way to fit a full graphics card and decent CPU cooler into a Mini-ITX chassis, but do it in the smallest space possible.
That said, all-in-one liquid coolers are hardly expensive, and since going small generally means a price premium anyway, I'm far more interesting in small cases that don't waste space making room for big air coolers when a well positioned radiator mount will do the job. This usually makes room for a PSU "over" the motherboard which drastically reduces the case's size, so with the trade off being big air cooler vs much smaller case possibly requiring a liquid cooler, I'm very much focused on the latter.
Sn3akr - Sunday, June 19, 2016 - link
The size defies the idea of ITX builds in general, and its ugly too ;)mauler1973 - Sunday, June 19, 2016 - link
Why does the side if that thing look like a CRT monitor? I don't think I would use that thing if it cost $20. Way overpriced for a small case.bkydcmpr - Tuesday, June 28, 2016 - link
I'm wondering if all of those 1990s industrial designers ended up in the pc chassis business now, this is almost the only consumer electronic product still dominated by those pre-iphone time tawdry designs, oh and gaming laptops, probably from the same group of people.andjohn2000 - Sunday, July 3, 2016 - link
Looks uglyrvk19 - Wednesday, April 12, 2017 - link
i have this case .. and my gpu card gtx 670 with arctic twin turbo ii cooler won't fit in .. so do mind the customized gpu cards won't fit in .. other than that i like the case .. i took it because of it's different shape which i haven't seen anywhere so far and i won't be using more than one gpu card .. not a fan of SFF either .. so this case unfortunately falls under SFF and looks like a tower .. gpu card won't fit in if its loaded with a custom gpu cooler .. that sucked a bit ..