NZXT is establishing itself as a brand with good and yet inexpensive cases. M59, for example, costs less than USD 60 and yet has several features traditionally found only on high-end models, like the interior painted black, 2.5” bays, eSATA port, meshed covers, place for installing fans on the top panel, screwless mechanisms for installing hard drives and more. Let’s see if M59 is a good pick.
The first thing we notice was that this is a very light case, weighting only 13.5 Lbs (6.2 Kg), which is practically half of the weight of mid-tower cases we usually review.
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Figure 1: NZXT M59 case.
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Figure 2: NZXT M59 case.
The left side panel is transparent using a dark plastic sheet, giving it a different looks from the traditional clear transparent sheet that is normally used. It comes with a 120-mm fan installed on this panel (42 CFM, 23 dB) that glows blue when turned on. This fan has both the standard peripheral power plug and the small three-pin power connector, so you can either connect it directly to the power supply or to the motherboard and thus monitor its speed thru your favorite monitoring program.
The front panel does not have a door. M59 has four external 5 ¼” bays, with the top bay coming with a black bezel for covering your optical drive, which is very useful if your optical drive isn’t black. The other three bays come with meshed covers to improve ventilation inside the case, featuring dust filters. M59 has a rim above the top 5 ¼” bay that glows blue when the computer is turned on. As you can see, this case does not have an external 3 ½” bay, so no floppy disk drive or memory card reader is supported, and the case doesn’t come with an adaptor for you to install this kind of peripheral on one of the 5 ¼” bays.
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Figure 3: Front panel.
This case comes with two USB ports, which are too close to each other and thus can prevent you from installing two “fat” USB devices at the same time, and one eSATA port, which is a really nice addition and a feature not usually found on cases from this price range.
There is a big mesh on the lower portion of the front panel featuring a dust filter behind it, but there is no fan there.
