Nexus Thrio 310 PC Case Review

Category: Cases & Hardware Enclosures

Created on Sunday, 08 July 2012 16:22

Written by William K.

Interior Features:

Pulling off the front panel reveals the three external 5.25” drive bays. The topmost bay is already punched out, but if you wish to use anymore you will have to punch out the covers. Again, this is extremely easy to do and not really a problem. You can also see the two mounting locations for the optional 120mm intake fans.

Opening up the Thrio 310 reveals a relatively spacious interior for a small mid-tower case. The interior is all black except for the bright orange tool less drive bays. All of the front panel cables are nicely sleeved and pre-run for your convenience. The motherboard standoffs for ATX motherboards are pre-installed. Again, the Thrio 310 can support either ATX or micro-ATX motherboards. There is a decently large CPU backplate cutout behind the motherboard and off to the right side are plenty of spaces for cable management. However, there are not any cable management holes across the top or bottom of the case making it difficult to route some of the power supply cables especially the 8-pin CPU cable. The case has enough room for longer graphics cards and my AMD HD 5850 fit snuggly in the case. However, anything longer than the 10” 5850 will possibly run into some clearance issues with the hard drive cage.

Here you can better see the CPU cutout and the cable management holes. You can also see the mounting area for the optional top 120mm exhaust fan. Again, there is very little room between the top of the motherboard and this fan mounting location so it might end up just being a grill to help with some passive airflow into and out of the case. At the rear of the case you can also see the included 120mm Nexus Silent Case Fan. Lastly are the seven (7) PCI expansion slots. These are the punch out type and are one of the only non-toolless parts of the Thrio 310.

The bottom of the case houses the standard ATX power supply. The power supply is meant to be mounted upside down to take advantage of the honeycomb ventilation at the bottom to provide the PSU with cold air. The ventilation is surrounded by four rubber pads for the PSU to rest on which helps cut down on vibration noise.

The last parts of the inside of the case are the tool less drive bays. All of the drive bays (5.25” and 3.25”) have to tool less locks that securely hold the drives in place. There are three (3) external 5.25” drive bays and eight (8) internal 3.25” drive bays. Lastly, off to the right of the image you can see the two cutouts for the optional 120mm intake fans.

On both side panels, Nexus has gone above and beyond the average case and far above the average budget case by including sound absorption foam. This aids in reducing the amount of noise that escapes from your case. This is a great premium feature to see on a budget case and really helps the Nexus Thrio 310 standout from the rest of the competition. Now, time to install my system in the Thrio 310 and see just what kind of a case it really is.