The people have spoken! With coolermaster on the cusp of releasing the NR200P MAX variant, we thought now would be the perfect time to revisit arguably the best value ITX case on the market, and walkthrough the inversion mod that to me really makes this case shine.
So first off, let’s hop into the mod, and then later we can compare the finish product, to what the MAX variant has to offer, and the pros and cons that come with it
Difficult?
Actually a lot easier than I was expecting. As long as you are comfortable with a small amount of power tool use, this should be a walk in the park. However, know that this kind of mod isn’t as easy as unscrewing something to revert it back. It’s semi-permanent, and would involve additional riveting or self drilling metal screws to revert the invert. O.o
***This inversion mod will work well in an air cooled setup as well. BUT, if you do decide to mount an AIO up top, note that this will require your GPU to be mounted vertically, using the included Gen 3 PCIE riser cable. Now, if you happen to have a Gen 4 PCIE gpu, and a Gen 4 PCIE motherboard, MAKE SURE you change your bios settings to set your PCIE device to Gen 3 BEFORE you use the included Gen 3 riser cable, or you will get no video output xD which has happened to me more times than I would like to admit. If you happen to have a cpu with onboard graphics tho, this isn’t as much of an issue.
The meat of the mod here, is to flip the front plate of the case. This puts your case usb’s, reset switch and power button to point up in our new orientation, when we flip the case upside down. This is possible because the top, bottom of the case are interchangeable, thanks to the design of the case.
To do this mod, there are 3 small rivets that hold the motherboard/psu bracket onto the front panel, along with a small section of metal to either file down, or bend out of the way.
I drilled the 3 rivets out, unscrewed all 4 corners where the front plate attaches to the internal frame, and flipped that puppy around.
Now this is where I cut a small corner in my mod xD Other guides will tell you to file the motherboard bracket down to fit into the left side of the front plate, because of this little lip in the metal. I however, did not have immediate access to a metal file, and since I was doing this in my dining room, I didn’t really want a bunch of metal shavings going everywhere anyways xD Sooo, I just used a pair of pliers to bend the lip back on the front plate, and then added a small self tapping metal screw for a little added rigidity. xD So I reinstalled the front plate, reattaching it to all 4 corners of the frame, and it was good to go.
Last thing for this mod is remove the small black clips that hold the side plates in, and put them in the slots on the top of the case. For some reason coolermaster included extra slots for these!
Now, if you go to install a 240 AIO onto this top plastic plate, you'll notice that the holes don’t exactly line up. This is because coolermaster designed it to mount two 120mm fans with a small gap between them. But, if you remove these rubber rings, made to hold the stock fans, the larger hole gives us the wiggle room we need to mount our radiator. Once you install all 8 screws, it holds nice and tight despite the larger holes.
This layout really shows the lack of cable management space in this case, basically no room to hide, other than behind the front plate, as long as you don’t have any 2.5” ssd’s there.
So, I’m not saying that this is the ‘ideal layout for anyone with an nr200’. But for my components specifically, along with my desire to be able to have the vertically mounted gpu and the glass side panel so I can see the pretty.. I think this makes the most sense.
Now like I mentioned earlier, Coolermaster recently announced what they're calling the MAX variant of the nr200p. The main changes we’ll be seeing in the max variant includes a built in 280mm aio (yes, it’s top mounted), an 850w 80 plus gold psu, and therefore a heftier price than the OG version. Oh, but did I mention that it’ll come with a gen 4 riser cable? THANK YOU. Speculation is putting it around the $350 price range, but after freight costs and import tariffs I'd expect to be north of the 400 dollar line. This half-prebuilt kind of case can simplify things for beginners looking to get into the itx market, however it’s not gonna be your first pick if you’d prefer another cooler than the included 280. Like an air cooler. That’s not really an option with the MAX. Anyways, Thanks for watching our video! Let us know if you’re going to mod an nr200p, or maybe wait a little bit to see how to MAX variant compares?
Негізгі бет NR200P Inverted Mod VS NR200P MAX - Budget Friendly ITX Part 2
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