Review: NZXT Manta

by Parm Mann on 17 February 2016, 15:22

Tags: NZXT

Quick Link: HEXUS.net/qacyn5

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Specification and Test Methodology

NZXT Manta Specification

Motherboard Support mini-ITX
Dimensions W: 245 x H: 426 x D: 450mm
Weight 7.2kg
Clearance CPU Clearance: 160mm
GPU Clearance: 363mm
PSU Length: 363mm
Cooling System Front: 2 x 140/120mm (2 x 120mm included)
Top: 2 x 140/120mm
Rear: 1 x 120mm (Included)
Radiator Support Front: Up to 280mm
Top: Up to 280mm
Rear: 120mm
Drive Bays Internal 3.5”: 2
Internal 2.5”: 3
External Electronics I/O Panel LED On/Off, 1 x Audio/Mic, USB 3.0
Expansion Slots 2
Power Supply Support ATX

Comparison Chassis

Chassis Form Factor HEXUS Review Reviewed Price Product Page
Fractal Design Core 500 Mini-ITX October 2015 £50 Fractal-Design.com
Fractal Design Define Nano S Mini-ITX January 2016 £50 Fractal-Design.com
Fractal Design Node 202 HTPC July 2015 £115 Fractal-Design.com
NZXT Manta Mini-ITX February 2016 £110 NZXT.com
SilverStone Milo ML08 Mini-ITX January 2016 £70 SilverStoneTek.com

HEXUS Mini-ITX Test Bench

Hardware Components HEXUS Review Product Page
Processor Intel Pentium G3258 with reference cooler June 2014 Intel.com
Motherboard MSI Z97I Gaming AC - MSI.com
Memory 16GB Adata XPG (2x8GB) DDR3 @ 1,600MHz - Adata.com
Graphics Card MSI Radeon R9 270X Gaming 2G June 2014 MSI.com
Power Supply be quiet! Straight Power 10 (500W) - Bequiet.com
Storage Device 120GB Corsair Force Series 3 SSD June 2011 Corsair.com
Monitor Philips Brilliance 4K Ultra HD LED (288P6LJEB/00) - Philips.co.uk
Operating system Windows 8.1 (64-bit) October 2012 Microsoft.com

Test Methodology

Putting recent components to good use, our Z97 platform consists of an MSI Z97I Gaming AC motherboard, an Intel Pentium G3258 processor with reference cooler, 16GB of Adata XPG DDR3 memory and an MSI Radeon R9 270X Gaming 2G graphics card.

To find out how well the above chassis can cool this particular setup, we log CPU temperature while encoding a large 4K video clip. This task puts full load on all available CPU cores and in order to provide a stabilised reading we then calculate an average temperature across all cores from the last five minutes of encoding.

To get an idea of graphics-card cooling performance, we log GPU temperature while playing Aliens vs. Predator at a 1080p resolution with maximum quality settings. Last but not least, we also measure chassis noise by using a PCE-318 noise meter to take readings when idle and while gaming.

All chassis are tested only with the standard manufacturer-supplied fans (any/all of which are set to 'default' in the MSI BIOS or low-speed using a fan controller if present), and to take into account the fluctuating ambient temperature, our graphs depict both actual and delta temperature - the latter is the actual CPU/GPU temperature minus the ambient. For the record, the ambient temperature while testing NZXT's Manta was recorded as 19.2ºC.