Design & Features

The Nemesis obviously has some design cues from the Guardian, although not in a bad way. The most standout feature is the large die cast aluminum plate affixed to the front of the Nemesis’s door. The finish is very shiny, and it does tend to pick up fingerprints. The bolts are also a nice touch, but are only decoration, so don’t try to remove them! The Nemesis name is also featured on the left side of the front panel, and functions as the HDD indicator. The large chrome switch on the far left of the door is a power button, which pushes the actual power button which is behind the door. All of the vents on the lower panel are fully functional, and will allow a lot of intake air from the 120mm fan positioned just behind it. This fan also has a filter to eliminate dust. The front bezel pulls off fairly easily, facilitating access to the drives.

Inside the door are the usual suspects – four 5.25” and two 3.5” bays. The power button is to the left of the 3.5” bays, and the reset is on the right. The two small dots visible on the left edge of the bezel are the magnets used to secure the door. These are very effective even with the added weight of the metal plate and much nicer than having plastic clips. There is not a lot of clearance behind the door, and unlike the Guardian, the Nemesis does not have a larger gap for the top slot to allow for large knobs or dials.

The ‘eye’ on the Nemesis is considerably understated considering what a big deal it was on the Guardian. Like its predecessor, the eye is positioned on the bottom of the door, but unlike the Guardian it can change to one of seven colors by pushing a small button on the back of the door.

In pictures, the Nemesis creates a weird optical illusion because the large 120mm fan on the side panel can trick you into thinking the case is smaller than it is. NZXT has chosen a cool looking abstract grille with the NZXT logo sitting over a mesh filter to cover this beast. My review sample had two small fractures coming from the corners of the fan around the screw holes…considering that the box was in excellent shape I’m not sure what caused that. The side fan is a different make than the intake and exhaust, and is a bit louder than the other two. From the pictures I saw at the NZXT website, I found it hard to discern just how the window was attached. Each of the four corner pieces is secured with three screws, which holds the window into place and also makes it easy to remove if necessary. Most side panels have some sort of clip or slot that must be aligned in order to install the panel, with the Nemesis this is not the situation at all. The leading edge has a kind of ‘C’ groove on it, and the whole panel just hinges open. This makes installation and removal of the side panels quick and easy, but the panels can and will fall right off if you don’t have a thumbscrew in place to secure it.

The multifunction LCD was probably the single biggest improvement NZXT has made with this new chassis. It provides date, time, and alarm functions along with monitoring three fans and three temperature probes. The large display is mounted on a flip up panel on the large plastic housing positioned on the Nemesis’s top panel. I had three small issues with this unit…the first is that NZXT does not supply any directions for how to operate the panel. The second is that when you flip the panel up it makes a rather loud ratcheting noise, which could be very annoying for some folks out there. The front port devices are mounted on a rotating assembly on the front, and are easy to access and just as easy to hide. The third problem is that this panel does not offer any fan speed control as some reviews previous to this one have mentioned. The LCD only monitors fan speed and will set off an alarm if the detected temperatures go beyond specific user defined points. In order to access this, you press the top button S1 and hold it until the year starts blinking. From there, pressing the S1 button will move you through the various steps, and pressing S2 or S3 will adjust the values. I tested this as well by adjusting the temperature setting to one degree over what the device was monitoring while the fan was displaying its lowest speed…and the alarm eventually went off with no change in fan speed.

Looking around the inside of the Nemesis Elite was one of the biggest treats of this review. NZXT really went overboard making sure that installation and maintenance of a high performance system would be as easy, painless, and cool looking as possible. As the Nemesis Elite features all aluminum construction, a large crossbeam and a corner support were installed to make sure the case will stand up to some abuse. The aluminum interior had a nice finish and had enough rolled and filed edges to make sure that if you manage to cut yourself, you were really trying. The hard drive cage also faces out to the left panel, making drive access quick and simple.

One item that deserves special attention on the Nemesis is the rail system. The rails come in a small box that can be mounted in the hard drive cage if desired. The interesting part is about the rails themselves - they are adjustable!

The small pegs can be popped out and moved to other slots, or one can use a special screw to mount the rails if that particular drive requires. Now, removing some of these pegs certainly requires mechanical advantage or arm muscles like Lou Ferrigno, but considering the capability the effort is certainly worth it. This is the first rail system I’ve seen that allowed adjustment, and also the first that could work well with my problematic Mitsumi 7 in 1 card reader that has so far defied every other rail system to come through my office.

Next: Installation & Testing