With a total of six 120mm fans in its standard setup, the NZXT Tempest makes claims of being the “Airflow King”. All fans are properly configured and half of them are equipped to showcase your system with blue LED lighting. The two front fans and the side have this lighting effect in place. All fans ran quietly and performed very well. On top of this, the two fans mounted to the top panel are also set up to run several of the common dual radiators without having to modify the case. We have the makings of NZXT living up to its claim.
Until we get to the task of mounting a high performance power supply. Then we run into a snag where the heat being produced by your components is forced through the PSU. Maybe I missed something, but I always thought one of the primary purposes of a bottom mounted power supply was to allow for better cooling of that component. Given the massive amount of airflow present in this case, this shouldn’t have been done in this manner.
Beyond this issue, however, the Tempest has a lot of great features that still make it worthy of a look. All areas in which air is expected to make entry into the enclosure are filtered in some manner. Add to this the ability to install large motherboards, larger video cards and eight hard drives and you can still make a very good case for buying this monster. As with most products, there is both good and bad, so you will need to weigh out your needs and see if this enclosure fits the bill. There is an awful lot that is good, and just one major issue that is really bad.
As far as pricing is concerned, the Tempest can be found online for about $110US. This falls right into the price range we would expect for a decent mid-tower and a good deal less than many others who make the claim of solid airflow and cooling.
So is the NZXT Tempest the Airflow King? Close but no cigar.
