The Nexus Prominent 5 PC case is a full tower case that features tool free installation and uses near silent fans for a stylish yet quiet computer case.
Ease of Use, Performance: 5/5
Look & Feel: 4/5
Features 4/5
How much I enjoy 5/5
Total: 4.5/5 Stars
The Nexus Prominent 5 is a full tower case that accepts the ATX and M-ATX motherboards with tool free installation for drives and the slot hardware but does require a screwdriver for the motherboard standouts. The Prominent 5 comes in a new variety with USB 3 front panel connections but I received the previous release with the 2.0 USB connections from EndPCNoise.com.
EndPCNoise.com sells a wide variety of computer hardware like cases and cooling fans with silent computer systems being their main specialty. EndPCNoise.com sells computers cases, case fans, CPU coolers, and a wide variety of accessories and especially case noise suppression add-ons like acoustic foam.
The Nexus Prominent 5 has space for an ATX or micro ATX motherboard with slots for 5 hard drives and five 5.25 inch optical drives along with the front slots for them. The lower half of the front is dominated by the intake for the front 120mm fan but the entire case has a common flat black look for a classic but rather plain style.
The Prominent 5 can hold larger video cards and accommodates two graphics cards in SLI with oversized Arctic Cooling Accelero XTREME Plus coolers. The Nexus case has seven motherboard PCI card slots on the rear with tool less latches that hold the cards in place by a simple click.
The Prominent 5 has plenty of room for working on the system and even with the oversized coolers of my two graphics cards there is room in the case for working on your system. The coolers in my system come to the edge of the drive cage but there is room to get them in without problems and the case does accept large CPU coolers as well.
Using tool free latches for holding the PCI cards the Prominent 5 case makes rearranging components or adding new ones easy but the case does have spare screws along the 5.25 cage slot if you need them. The 3.5 inch hard drive holders insert to the side so they are easy to remove without having to take off the front cover while the cables are managed toward the right side cover.
The Nexus Prominent 5 case has acoustic foam to dampen noise with both side panels using a different variety of foam but silent fans also help a lot. You can install three other fans using empty spaces but I found only one extra fan was needed to keep the system plenty cool even while running dual graphics cards.
The extra cooling helped to keep internal temperatures well within tolerance while running Prime95 and Furmark to stress the system and find out maximum temperatures the computer would create. I never got anywhere near maximum temperatures for the CPU or the video cards so the case does a good job at both keeping cool and quiet.
The bottom of the case also has room for a fan along with vents for cooling in the space between the drive cage and the bottom mounted power supply. The Prominent 5 has the usual front panel audio connections with four USB 2.0 connects, an eSATA and Firewire connection under a small flip up door. The power button with its Blue LED to show when your PC is on is located just in front of the door for the front panel connections.
The Prominent 5 has a simple looking design but the case inside does have some very good features along with the easy to use tool free drive and expansion card features. The case does work well and is much quieter than the other computers in my office; the power supply is the noisiest thing in the case with the video card fan being the second.
The two fans that come with the case are much quieter than the ones I have seen in other cases so the fans along with the acoustic foam are the main features that keep the case silent. I could not get readings above 60 decibels from the rather noisy fans on the CPU, graphics card and the power supply while the case is closed up.
To give some perspective average conversations are about 60 to 70 decibels from about 3 to 5 feet away so the case with the noise level meter inches from the never get louder than someone talking four feet away. The case is quiet and with this case the only one running in my office it makes the perfect quiet case for movie viewing or playing games so you hear the action and not the computer.
I have been using the case for over a month and have had no complaints even when doing some adjusting like adding a second graphics card and a sound card. The case offers plenty of features and costs about $65 for the USB 2.0 version with shipping adding about $24.
I highly recommend the Nexus Prominent 5 for a quiet computer case that has lots of great features at a very reasonable price which can be found at online sites like EndPCNoise.com and the Nexustek.nl.
Prominent 5 @ EndPCNoise.com
Prominent 5 USB 3.0 @ Nexus
