NZXT H9 Case Review

Performance

Starting with our Prime 95/Furmark Torture test and taking a look at the CPU temperature, we can see that things get off to a little bit of a rocky start when looking at the idle temperature, as it gives us the worst result we’ve seen, though during load, the H9 Flow sits within the mix of other cases, but falls slightly short compared to both the H5 and H7 Flow.

The GPU temperature at idle is on the higher-end of the scale, being beaten only by the H5 Flow, while at load, it was at the upper-end of our chart, but still within a reasonable limit of under 50 degrees, which during a Furmark run, is still impressive.

The chipset temperature at idle was around the middle when compared with other cases, while again, the load temperature was near the top part of our chart. Based on experience, this could redeem itself in the acoustics which we’ll look at shortly.

Then when looking at the SSD, idle temperature showed nothing out of the ordinary, while again load temperature was in the upper quadrant of our results, though only with a degree or two separating most of the results anyway.

While a simulated load can show worst-case scenarios, when looking at gaming benchmarks, we find the CPU temperature, again, sitting towards the top of our chart, only seeing an open-air test bench and another NZXT case with worse results.

The GPU comes in the middle of the stack at 46.5 degrees, showing that the H9 Flow is more than enough to keep your GPU at bay during a pretty intensive gaming session, running a game like Metro Exodus Enhanced Edition.

Also during Metro Exodus, the chipset temperature came in as the hottest result we saw at 46.5 degrees putting it 4% hotter than the NZXT H7 and well ahead of all of the other cases we tested it against.

Lastly, our SSD temperature during Metro Exodus saw again, the NZXT H9 Flow coming in towards the top of our chart, matching that of the Corsair 4000D Airflow, though still within a reasonable range that you’d expected.

So, I’ll be honest, it’s not looking great for the H9 Flow, but typically with other NZXT cases in the past, we’ve seen somewhat similar results, but things are better in terms of noise, and that’s exactly the case here with the H9 Flow coming out as the quietest case we’ve tested at load. During idle it was on the lower-end of the scale, but at 37.7 decibels, it’s nothing you’d notice anyway, while 41.6 decibels is an amazing low reading during our Prime95/Furmark simulated load test, which is always regarded as worst case scenario anyway.