NZXT Rouge SFF Case Evaluation

NZXT has been in our headlines recently with two cases, a superb fan controller and two power supplies. Well they are back again, this time we have the Rouge, a Small Form Factor case with a unique stab at portability. We are going to take a long hard look at the Rouge and see if these features make it worthy of your hard earned money.

Product: NZXT Rouge     
Author: Sean Kalinich
Reviewed on: September 21st 2008
Product cost: $149.99 (at Newegg.com)
Manufacturer: NZXT
Spelling and Grammatical editor: Planetx64 Staff

{mospagebreak title=Packaging and Accessories}
Packaging and Accessories:
The rouge arrived in a fairly large box for what is supposed to be a small case. There are graphics on the two sides that show impressive images of the Rouge in black brushed aluminum along with the tag line Ultimate SFF Chassis. On another side there is the rather pompous line “enormous power within”.
Once you open up the box after admiring the pictures and perhaps laughing at the enormous power line. You will find the Rouge is carefully packed inside foam walls. This is a nice touch and means that you are very likely to get your Rouge without any damage from shipping.

NZXT does drop some nice accessories in the box with the Rouge. There is a nylon carrying “strap” that you can use to tote the Rouge around to LAN parties with you, but best of all the screws and other hardware all come in labeled plastic baggies. This is a very, very, nice touch and speaks to the quality NZXT put into this case. NZXT has also included a PSU mount that will allow for larger PSUs to fit into the Rouge another nice touch.

{mospagebreak title=Construction}
Construction:
The Rouge is an aluminum case that has a rather odd shape to it.  As you can see it is squat but not block like many SFF cases. The front has a bowed door that can be locked to block access to your drives as well as your power and reset buttons (very handy to have for LAN parties and for use as a small system like a firewall) along both edges of the front door are plastic inserts that light up when the power is on. Front panel support is along the left edge of the door and includes two USB ports, Mic and headphones jacks and an e-SATA port. The lock for the front door is a barrel lock but is not really meant as high security, since it only locks down the upper left corner of the door. It is good enough to keep the curious out.

Opening the door present you with a rather plain front, NZXT has gone for ultra minimalist here. There are no labels for power or reset and the brushed silver of the model I was evaluating just looked bleak and almost cheap. The lock opening and the magnet that hold the front door closed stand out quite a bit with this finish,  this is one case that should probably only ship in black.
Moving around to the sides (either one) you see one extremely nice feature of the Rouge. There are two ports for 120mm fans these are setup to in a push pull configuration to allow for some serious air flow. NZXT has also included two filters for the intake side to cut down on the amount of dust and dirt that can enter your system. The ridged along the side add to the visual appeal (again if the finish was black and not silver). These side panels also come off for easier installation. And since the screws that hold them in place are small (listen up Antec) NZXT includes a small jeweler’s screw driver.

Moving around to the back we find that NZXT has put some thought into the ease of build for the Rouge, from the Slide out mainboard tray, to the PSU mounting bracket, to the use of thumbscrews it all points to some serious thought. Many SFF cases are horrible to work with requiring the builder to have tiny hands and be a contortionist to get hardware installed. A fifth 120mm lighted fan provides rear exhaust for the Rouge.
The top, well the top is a good design but fails to impress due to the silver coloring again…
After we remove the single thumbscrew holding the top on we get to peek inside.

The inside of the Rouge is all black, this should allow for lighted fans to stand out quite well, and also helps make your installed hardware standout. There is room inside for two 5-1/4” drives or for a drive bay mounted reservoir for a water cooling system (yes there is enough room for one). There is also one 3-1/2” bay for a multi-card reader or a floppy drive if you want. For hard drives there are four vertical mounting points giving you quite a bit of flexibility for drives and storage. The Rouge also features a removable mainboard tray; this makes mainboard mounting a snap. For your PSU, NZXT includes an extension bracket for use with larger PSUs or if you want more room for cabling.
All of this when put together makes for one serious Small Form Factor case!

{mospagebreak title=Aesthetics}
Aesthetics:
I mentioned this before but it bears repeating; the Rouge should only be offered in black.
The silver of the case tends to make it look a little cheap and even dull. I asked my usual questions about looks and coolness and then added in the question about how people would feel if the case were black.
Everyone stated that it would be much better if it were black. As I did not have a black version of the Rouge I used the images found here.
I hope NZXT is listening and perhaps removes the silver option from future sales.

As with most of my subjective testing I asked a small sampling of people to rate the NZXT Rouge for Looks and Coolness, the results are below:
For the NZXT Rouge in Silver

Words used to describe the Silver Rouge

For the Black Rouge

Word used to describe the Black Rouge:

{mospagebreak title=Installation}
Installation:
System:
AMD AM2 FX-62
2GB (4x512MB) Corsair XPS2 8500
Western Digital 74GB 10k RPM Raptor
GIGABYTE GA-MA78GM-S2H
Sony DVD-ROM
OCZ ModStream 520 Watt PSU

The Rouge was surprisingly easy to work with. Both the side covers come off allowing for easy installation of DVD/CD-ROMs or Hard Drives. The slide out mainboard tray lets you get your mainboard all setup outside the case. The PSU goes in last and you still have great access to all parts of the mainboard for connecting cables and power.
During my re-build into the rouge I did not even have to remove my Ruby Orb cooler from the CPU. There was still enough clearance for it to slide right in. For larger air coolers you will need to install them after the tray is in and for extreme cases (like the V8 Cooler) you might need to install your mainboard with the tray still in the case.
There is quite a bit of room inside the rouge you could potentially have a 4870 or similar sized card in this case as long as you have it on a MicroATX board.
AS this system is primarily meant as a UTM (Unified Threat Management) server it needs to be small quite and cool. The Rouge fills all of these requirements and then some.  The locking front door even adds and extra level of protection from accidental tampering.

{mospagebreak title=Value}
Value:
The rouge will set you back about $150.00. This is a little pricey for a small form factor case but considering that you are only sacrificing the ability to have a full sized mainboard you are getting quite a bit.
With the way the rouge is setup for air cooling, the room for larger GPUs and more HDDs, not to mention the carrying strap you can set yourself up with a very powerful and portable Lan Party box.

{mospagebreak title=Conclusion}
Conclusion:
I personally liked the Rouge, it is a very well put together case, although you are forced to use a MicroATX board you still have many options for making a very powerful system.
NZXT put some good thought into making the Rouge easy to work with. By being able to remove both side panels and the mainboard tray you will have plenty of room for even the largest hands.
The space for four 120mm fans setup in a push pull configuration guarantees that there will be good airflow for you system. The locking front door will keep people out of it. And the included carrying harness will let you lug it around wherever you need to go.
The Rouge will easily find itself at the top of any high-performance SFF PC builders list of parts.