Installation:
As expected, installation was just like any other case with basically no problems. I would like to point out that because of the way the internal 3.5" drive bays point, installing a hard drive into some of them was obstructed by a group of SATA cables and the video card which was installed into my motherboard. Of course it was only two slots that had this obstruction and all motherboards are layed out differently. I would suggest that you pay attention to the order in which you install components, such as maybe the hard drives first, and motherboard components later.

One other thing I would have liked to have seen with this case would be a rubber mount to go between the power supply and the case. These are very popular when trying to silence the power supply, which can easily be one of the loudest parts of your system from it's fan and the vibration against the case. With NZXT's attention to keeping every aspect of this case as quiet as they could, I was really surprised to see the power supply bay was overlooked!

Testing:
I decided to take a slightly different approach to testing this case than some other reviews out there. I looked through the small collection of cases I had from past reviews but unfortunately none of them were similar in size, internal layout and cooling layout compared to the Hush.

My solution? I ran two tests to get a fair analysis of just how well this case silences.

First test: power up the cooling in the cases using a silent heat pipe style power supply to judge how quiet the stock coolers are from a few different cases. The Hush was tied for first place along with a Thermaltake case for being very quiet. Although, considering that the NZXT Hush case has two 120mm fans and the Thermaltake case only had one, you could say that the Hush took first place for their ability to have twice the cooling at an equal noise level of a case with typically less cooling.

The next test was to simulate the exact volume level of a computer running in each case. I decided to do this test slightly different as well. Since all cases had different internal layouts, different cooling layouts and different sizes/combinations of fans, the turbulence in the cases would add unnecessary noise in determining a fair result. My solution? I dug through my audio analysis files and took a pink noise sample and put it on my MP3 player. To the player I attached a set of speakers. Next, I averaged the volume while playing the sample to be equivalent to that of the average computer system inside a case (I took the door off my case and compared it).

The test: I put the speaker in several different locations inside the two computer cases. Since our site does not have the really expensive equipment or perfectly silent facilities to measure actual decibels, our judge was the human ear - the best measurement instrument of all.

The results: I should have just given up after a while, because in identical testing situations there was no way any of the other cases I was testing were even nearly as quiet as the Hush case was. I obviously expected a little bit of change, but I was weary as to just how much of a drop in noise level there would be. I can assure you that the NZXT Hush design with the acoustic foam does a LOT to reduce the noise! I was actually surprised and impressed at how much of a difference it really made.

Conclusion:
In the end, the NZXT Hush does just as advertised - hush's up your loud computer system. The build quality and attention to detail on this case is excellent. It's looks are very impressive with little area for improvement needed. Most of all, it does an excellent job of quieting down any computer system installed in it. If you're looking to build a silent computer system, then I highly recommend looking into the NZXT Hush case as the starting point in your system!

Pros:
Amazing looks and styling
Great attention to detail
Two included quiet 120mm cooling fans is more than most manufacturers give you
Foam helps reduce noise, and actually does work
Front door opens to the right (The way all cases should open because of typical case location on desks)

Cons:
Front USB/Firewire/Audio ports should be located better
Non-removable motherboard tray
No window