I built one of the AMD Ryzen 7 1700 systems in a NZXT S340 last week. Black with blue accents, of course.
Today I built another AMD Ryzen 7 1700 system in the NZXT S340 Elite, Black with blue accents as well. After having done both, I wanted to provide a few insights into the differences.
First off, if I had the chance to go back two weeks, I would have purchased both Elite versions.
NZXT S340 v. NZXT S340 Elite
What are we talking about here:
Exterior Differences
The main difference is that the side of the NZXT S340 Elite is tempered glass. On the non-elite S340 it seems to be plastic. Since the glass covers Elite's entire side panel there are two implications. First, you can easily get fingerprint smudges. Second, there are four screws on the face of the chassis, not two at the rear.
If you are going to stack them next to one another, or atop one another, the non-elite is superior.
The front of the NZXT S340 vanilla has blue accent on the top/ interior. The Elite does not. I tried swapping them but surprisingly enough, the blues are different! (Seriously)
Both have feet that stand higher than you may otherwise think. That gives room for airflow to the PSU and to the front fans. Overall, this is a plus.
The top of the Elite is much more involved. It has a HDMI port (cable can pass through the chassis to the front/ top of the case). It also has two USB 2.0 ports in addition to the two USB 3.0 ports on the non-Elite model.
There is a VR puck which is basically something to wind cables around. I do not see using this for VR at least for now.
Interior Differences
The Elite is hands-down better than the non-Elite from an interior perspective, but they are minor things.
Visually - the interiors are fairly similar except the blue accent runs to the entire bottom section where the SSDs attach. That is to show off via the large glass side.
Cable lengths - on the NZXT S340 the front panel audio barely made it to the motherboard's bottom corner position. On the Elite with the same motherboard, no issues.
Interior (rear) tie downs - this was the big one to me. Instead of giving you zip ties and saying "have at it" the Elite has little latching cable management rings. The non-Elite is still easy to work with and the cable management is likely why the case is so popular.
Storage - this is the big one. The NZXT S340 Elite has three 2.5" SSD mounting points instead of two on the non-elite. One is strangely placed at the front of the case. I assume it is to "show off" a SSD. For me, I put the NVMe U.2 drives in the top spots so they would get more airflow and the Samsung 960GB on the front/ bottom spot.
There are 2+1 internal 3.5" bays. They are tough to service. Just put your 3.5" drives in a NAS. What I did find this useful for is to hold extra PSU cables that are not being used.
The Perspective
$30 is a LOT when it comes to a very low end build. On a higher-end build, it is dwarfed by other costs. One of the most surprising facets is that both cases come with non-PWM fans that are attached via Y cable to a Molex 4-pin pass-through.
In the one that I will be using as a workstation, I ended up buying two 140mm fans for the front, a 140mm fan for the top, and a 120mm fan for the rear. Those four fans cost more than the NZXT S340 Elite.
Overall, I liked the non-Elite version enough to buy the Elite version which will be my next workstation case. Given $1000+ price tags for these systems, adding $30 for the Elite version is worth it if you are OK with the glass size and the implications thereof.
Today I built another AMD Ryzen 7 1700 system in the NZXT S340 Elite, Black with blue accents as well. After having done both, I wanted to provide a few insights into the differences.
First off, if I had the chance to go back two weeks, I would have purchased both Elite versions.
NZXT S340 v. NZXT S340 Elite
What are we talking about here:
- The non-elite 1st one I purchased Amazon.com: NZXT S340 Mid Tower Computer Case, Matte Black/Blue (CA-S340MB-GB): Computers & Accessories
- The elite 2nd one I purchased Amazon.com: NZXT S340VR-Elite Matte Black/Blue (CA-S340W-B5): Computers & Accessories
Exterior Differences
The main difference is that the side of the NZXT S340 Elite is tempered glass. On the non-elite S340 it seems to be plastic. Since the glass covers Elite's entire side panel there are two implications. First, you can easily get fingerprint smudges. Second, there are four screws on the face of the chassis, not two at the rear.
If you are going to stack them next to one another, or atop one another, the non-elite is superior.
The front of the NZXT S340 vanilla has blue accent on the top/ interior. The Elite does not. I tried swapping them but surprisingly enough, the blues are different! (Seriously)
Both have feet that stand higher than you may otherwise think. That gives room for airflow to the PSU and to the front fans. Overall, this is a plus.
The top of the Elite is much more involved. It has a HDMI port (cable can pass through the chassis to the front/ top of the case). It also has two USB 2.0 ports in addition to the two USB 3.0 ports on the non-Elite model.
There is a VR puck which is basically something to wind cables around. I do not see using this for VR at least for now.
Interior Differences
The Elite is hands-down better than the non-Elite from an interior perspective, but they are minor things.
Visually - the interiors are fairly similar except the blue accent runs to the entire bottom section where the SSDs attach. That is to show off via the large glass side.
Cable lengths - on the NZXT S340 the front panel audio barely made it to the motherboard's bottom corner position. On the Elite with the same motherboard, no issues.
Interior (rear) tie downs - this was the big one to me. Instead of giving you zip ties and saying "have at it" the Elite has little latching cable management rings. The non-Elite is still easy to work with and the cable management is likely why the case is so popular.
Storage - this is the big one. The NZXT S340 Elite has three 2.5" SSD mounting points instead of two on the non-elite. One is strangely placed at the front of the case. I assume it is to "show off" a SSD. For me, I put the NVMe U.2 drives in the top spots so they would get more airflow and the Samsung 960GB on the front/ bottom spot.
There are 2+1 internal 3.5" bays. They are tough to service. Just put your 3.5" drives in a NAS. What I did find this useful for is to hold extra PSU cables that are not being used.
The Perspective
$30 is a LOT when it comes to a very low end build. On a higher-end build, it is dwarfed by other costs. One of the most surprising facets is that both cases come with non-PWM fans that are attached via Y cable to a Molex 4-pin pass-through.
In the one that I will be using as a workstation, I ended up buying two 140mm fans for the front, a 140mm fan for the top, and a 120mm fan for the rear. Those four fans cost more than the NZXT S340 Elite.
Overall, I liked the non-Elite version enough to buy the Elite version which will be my next workstation case. Given $1000+ price tags for these systems, adding $30 for the Elite version is worth it if you are OK with the glass size and the implications thereof.
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