Review | Xigmatek Zest Tempered Glass RGB Case

RGB lighting and tempered glass cases seems to be the most popular combinations a case manufacturer could think up these days. Now enter the Xigmatek Zest: A tempered glass case with RGB in tow. This is not your normal combination of the popular case trends though, since it features dual 200mm fans.

The Xigmatek Zest features a price point of about 7,999 Pesos. With it comes the already stated dual 200mm RGB fans, another 120mm RGB fan at the back and the capability to control the lighting via a remote. The Zest also comes with support for dual 360mm radiators. Suffice to say, this is one of Xigmatek’s premium offerings.

Technical Specifications

Case
Form Factor	Full-tower
Motherboard Support	E-ATX, ATX, mATX, Mini-ITX
PSU Support	ATX
Expansion Slots ‎	8, 2 (Vertical)
5.25″ Drive Bays	NA
3.5″ Drive Bays	4 (Dedicated)
2.5″ Drive Bays	2 (Dedicated)
CPU Clearance	180mm
GPU Clearance	430mm
PSU Clearance	220mm
Connectivity
USB	2x USB3.0, 2x USB2.0
Audio‎	1x Audio-in, 1x Audio-out
Cooling
Front	3x 120mm, 3x 140mm, 2x 200mm (Included)
Top	3x 120mm, 3x 140mm, 2x 200mm
Rear	1x 120mm (Included), 1x140mm, 120mm
Bottom	NA
Dimensions
Length	525mm
Width	230mm
Height	500mm
Weight	NA

Packaging and Accessories

The Xigmatek Zest comes inside your typical chassis packaging. The product should come with the following items inside:

• User Manual
• Cable Ties
• Stand Offs
• Expansion Slot Screws
• Storage Drive Screws
• Motherboard Screws
• Motherboard Stand-offs
• Remote

Design, Layout and Build Quality: External

Like many before it, the Xigmatek Zest is a combination of glass, steel and plastic. What’s different though is the angular edges of its front panel and its towering stature. This is a heavy case, with steel panels at about 0.8-1mm in thickness.

Xigmatek took the opportunity to add ventilation holes at the steel panel side of the chassis. It is a cost effective solution while adding some form of function at the same time.

Connectivity options are flush with the Zest. We have a reset button here, dual audio ports, dual USB 2.0 and 3.0 ports and an optional USB Type-C port. The power button on the other hand is located at the front panel area next to the Xigmatek logo.

The bottom part of the case features an extended dust cover. Base is stable and vibration is dampened courtesy of the adequate rubber footings.

The back is not as simple as you would expect. We have the adjustable 120mm and 140mm fan or radiator mount here and a slot for vertically mounted expansion cards. The PSU mount is removable too for convenience.

Design, Layout and Build Quality: Internal

The Xigmatek Zest supports E-ATX motherboards and below. Due to the removable front mounted drive bay, the motherboard tray area could be roomy enough to accommodate even the longest graphics cards available. If standard expansion card mounting is not your thing, then the included vertical mount should do the trick. No grommets nor PCIe extenders included though which is a shame.

The other side of the case sports the motherboard tray drive bays. There’s also a normal 3.5″ drive bay at the bottom with ample front clearance for a thick radiator. All fan cables are powered and connected via the controller for the RGB lighting.

As for the exhaust, we have one 120mm RGB fan. Max support here is 140mm. Top side though could accommodate 120mm, 240mm and 360mm radiators. That also translates to 3x 120mm, 3x 140mm or 2x 200mm fans.

Front panel supports the same cooling configuration as the top although I must say airflow is severely lacking still due to the small intake located below. Fan proximity to the front panel’s tempered glass doesn’t help either.

Headers and or cables are the usual pairs but we have a guest here in the form of a SATA power connector used to power up the RGB capable controller.

Clearance and Installation

The Xigmatek Zest is an easy case to work with – like most cases nowadays. It’s roomy, has a good amount of clearance, yet the absence of grommets do require you to be a bit more creative with cable management.

While there are convenient perforations for the zip-ties, Zigmatek never bothered with pre-routing as far as the default cable set is concerned. It’s a total mess if cable management is not your strong suit. The HDD bay’s tool-free brackets are the worst I’ve seen too due to their tackiness.

Test Setup and Methodology

Coolers are far from the hardest components to test, but it doesn’t mean they are easy enough to deal with since there are multiple factors to take into account while benchmarking. Factors includes the ambient noise, ambient temperature, the enclosure, and the test system’s overall configuration.

Test System Specifications
CPU	Intel Core-i5 6600K
Motherboard	ASUS Z170-A
Cooler	Noctua NH-L9i
Memory	ADATA Premier DDR4
GPU	ASUS ROG Strix GTX 1060 OC
Storage	Crucial BX200 480GB
Case	Thermaltake Core P3
PSU	CORSAIR RM850X
Display	DELL U2715H
OS	Microsoft Windows 10 Pro

The AIDA64 Extreme Edition System Stability Test is used to stress our Intel Core i5 6600K. The CPU, FPU, Cache and Memory are selected at the options. AIDA64 has been chosen due to its inclusion of AVX, AVX2 and FMA – 3 important instructions that will help us push our CPU to its limits.

• Ambient Temperature – 27°C (±1°C)
• Ambient Sound Level – 34dBA (±1dBA)
• Stock Profile – 3.9GHz (1.088v)
• Overclocked Profile – 4.4GHz (1.248v)

Temperature

Temperatures are tested with attainable CPU clock speed configurations that should resemble common systems. To measure the cooler’s capabilities, the CPU temperature is logged with HWiNFO64 and is cross referenced with AIDA64.

The Xigmatek Zest showed us a decent stock cooling performance. The same could be said with our CPU at 4.4GHz but I’d be honest I expected a bit more from the dual 200mm fans.

Noise Level

Noise levels are tested on a variety of fan duty cycle settings available thru our motherboard. To measure the levels, a sound level meter is secured on a tripod with a foot of distance away from the cooler.

Noise levels of the Xigmatek Zest is good enough in spite of its extra perforations. Certainly way better than running your system on an open air chassis when it comes to acoustics.

Software, Lighting and Special Features

Xigmatek doesn’t offer any kind of software with regards to the Zest and to be fair, it doesn’t need any.

Lighting is excellent and we’ve got a functioning remote just for that one. It comes with fan speed control too which is excellent. It actually helped us a ton during our testing since the fans are not compatible with our motherboard’s headers.

Final Thoughts

The Xigmatek Zest is yet another RGB enabled tempered glass case with a few quirks of its own. That includes E-ATX support, vertically mounted expansion card support and the included 200mm fans. It kinda went side ways with the implementation though due to the restrictions of their form over function front panel design. I’m not talking about the front panel connectivity though. That one is superb with a lot of USB options.

Practicality and functionality wise, you are looking at a case that could house up to 360mm radiators both front and at the top. It comes with its own fan and RGB controller too which is handy should you favor such an implementation over the usual motherboard based one. Be aware of its limitations though since it doesn’t support your usual headers.

If you absolutely need an E-ATX case, RGB, tempered glass and support for a wide range of cooling solutions, then this is a tower case you need to consider.