Today
for review we will look at another NZXT PC case. The Hades is a
budget priced mid tower case that does not skimp of features. It
includes many capabilities found in NZXT’s premium tower cases such
as cable management, built in temperature sensors and fan control.
Despite
the hellish name NZXT made the Hades one cool case with four included
fans and room for a fifth. A fan controller is built in as well to
control the dual 200 mm built in fans. If you wish to use
water-cooling then the Hades can work with that system as well.
NXZT has
been one of Dragonsteelmods favorite case manufacturers for good
reason; they consistently create well-designed unique looking PC
cases. Today we will see if the Hades continues this trend. Let’s
get started…..
Reviewed
by: Tomas Ratas
Sponsor: NZXT
Tech
Specs,Features or the Basic Info:
9 Bay
Black Midtower
Introducing
the Hades, a chassis that provides an array of advanced features for
the most demanding PC enthusiast. Airflow is optimized with 5 fans
(dual 200mm intake, 200 mm front fan, dual top 140mm fans, side 200mm
fan, and rear 120mm exhaust). NZXT includes all the fans with the
exception of the top 140mm and also provides a dual fan 8W per
channel controller giving enthusiasts freedom to manage intake and
exhaust airflow. A three temperature display on the front panel
allows the user to see the temperature inside the chassis even when
the door is closed. Additionally, the meshed 5.25″ bays, door,
and bottom panel allows for air to naturally flow into the system
with ease.
Hades
also boasts premium expandability with up to nine 5.25″ bay
setup or five 5.25″ and four 3.5.” It also features VGA
clearance room for 300mm cards like the new ATI 5970. The punched
side panel and motherboard tray with rubber grommets on the
motherboard routing holes enables advanced wire management and quick
CPU bracket removal. Additional advanced features include a solid
state bracket allowing for two SSD drives, pre-drilled water cooling
holes on the backplate, mounting holes for a dual radiator at the
top, and a removable filter at the bottom PSU.
Features:
Expansion
galore: Nine 5.25″
bay setup or Five 5.25″ and Four 3.5″
Latest
Hardware Support: VGA clearance room for 300mm cards like the ATI
5970
CPU
Heatsink clearance: 131.5mm w/ 200mm fan, 165mm w/o side fan
installed.
Dual
200mm intake Large air system: 200mm front fan, dual top 140mm fan,
Side 200mm fan, rear 120mm exhaust. NZXT includes the chassis with
all fans except for one top 140mm fan
Control
the flow: Gaming,
overclocking, or office work the dual 8W per channel fan control
allows control over the dual 200mm fans that spin up to 150 CFM each
Monitor
your system: A three
C/F temperature display at front panel allows the user to see
temperatures inside the chassis even with the door closed. A slant on
the door allows for easier viewing from above.
Punched
side panel: Besides
aesthetics, the side mesh and extrusion allows for even greater and
ease of wire management on the right side panel
Meshed
front: 5.25″ meshed bays, meshed door, and meshed bottom panel
allows for air to flow into the system with ease.
Wire
Routing: Motherboard
punched holes allows for quick CPU bracket removable and optimal wire
routing.
-NZXT
Solid State bracket allows for two SSD drives to be installed
-Pre-drilled
water cooling holes on the backplate
-Front
mounted 2 USB, Audio, and E-SATA ports
-Mounting
holes for dual radiator at the top
-Removable
filter at the bottom PSU
MODEL:
Hades Series
CASE
TYPE: Mid Tower Steel
FRONT
PANEL MATERIAL: PLASTIC
DIMENSIONS
(W x H x D): 200 X 430 X 501 mm / 7.87″ x 16.9″ x 19.7″
COOLING
SYSTEM:
FRONT:
1 X 200mm red LED (included)
REAR:
1 X 120mm (included)
SIDE:
1 x 200mm (included)
TOP:
2 X 120/140mm (1 include 140mm)
DRIVE
BAYS: 9 DRIVE BAYS
9
EXTERNAL 5.25″ DRIVE BAYS
4
INTERNAL 3.5″ DRIVE MOUNTS
Screwless
Rail Design
MATERIAL(S):
Steel with black finish
EXPANSION
SLOTS: 7
WEIGHT:
6.95 kg
MOTHERBOARD
SUPPORT: ATX, MICRO-ATX, BABY AT
CPU
COOLER CLEARANCE: 124.9mm (with fan) / 154.9mm (without fan)
Price: $99.99
(From Amazon at time of review)
{mospagebreak
title=
A Better Look at Things
– Part 1}
A
Better Look at Things Part 1:
The NZXT
Hades comes packaged in a black cardboard box with the case pictured
on the front with a futuristic city backdrop. The back of the package
has a list of features along with two more images of the Hades. On
the side of the box is a detailed list of case specs.
Inside
the box the Hades is found between two Styrofoam inserts wrapped in a
large plastic bag. Besides the case we find an accessory box with
the requisite screws, three
sets of 3.5” hard drives adapters along with ties, tape for
attaching the temperature sensors and a Molex to 3-pin adapter.
The
Hades is a mid-tower steel case; it measures 20.0
X 43.0 X 50.1 cm and weighs 6.95 kg without a power supply. The case
is designed to accommodate ATX, MICRO-ATX, and BABY AT motherboards.
The
Hades is a jet-black case with painted steel sides with a plastic and
mesh door and front panel. This door opens from left to right and
angles out to a point. The bottom half has an open triangle, which
allows the lower half of the case to vent out without restriction.
On the center of this door is a red LED light indicating power with
the temperature sensor display on the top.
Behind
the door we find four external 5.25” bays, a silver power button
and two fan speed control knobs.
The
right side panel of the case has thin vent panel while the left panel
has the same vent along with a large octagonal vent for the 200 mm
cooling fan found behind this panel.
On top
of the Hades we see two 140 mm fan vents with one fan pre-installed.
In addition there are mounting
holes for a dual radiator. Towards
the front of this top section are two USB ports, one eSATA and
microphone in and headphone out connections.
{mospagebreak
title=
A Better Look at Things
– Part 2}
A
Better Look at Things Part 2:
Looking
at the back of the case we discover that the Hades is a bottom
mounted PSU case. There is a 120mm fan vent adjacent to the opening
for the motherboard I/O plate. NZXT uses the vented expansion slot
covers, which provides additional ventilation for the case. There
are seven expansion slot openings. If you prefer water cooling for
your system there are two water cooling holes found here.
Flipping
the Hades over we find four rubber feet and a filtered vent for the
PSU fan. NZXT certainly provides plenty of ventilation for the
Hades.
Both
side panels are held in place with black thumbscrews.
Behind
the left panel is a 200m cooling fan that uses a 3 pin power adapter.
Inside
the Hades is a motherboard tray that can fit up to an ATX size
motherboard. NZXT numbers the standoff holes and provides a key to
which holes are to be used for the different motherboard sizes.
To the
right of the tray are nine 5.25” drive bays. Immediately you’ll
notice the lack of a separate hard drive cage. NZXT provides three
adapters to fit 3.5” drives into these bays. Also included is a
2.5” adapter that fits two of the smaller hard drive types. This
is handy for those wishing to use SSD for their builds.
There
are four rubber standoffs to rest the PSU upon to provide an air
cushion and space for the bottom PSU. Besides the standard
motherboard and front connector wires there are fan control,
temperature probes and audio connectors wires.
The four
external 5.25 bays also have vented covers require the front door
panel to be detached for removal. The lower part of the bays has a
200mm red LED fan that gives the Hades its devilish appearance.
There
are three rubber coated wire management holes on the motherboard
tray.
Removing
the right panel we notice this side is primarily designed for wire
management. We also find the screwless clips for the 5.25” trays
that are also found on the other side of the Hades.
{mospagebreak
title=Installation, Testing and Comparison}
Installation,
Testing and Comparison:
For
testing I installed the following system into the Hades:
Intel
Q9300
Gigabyte
GA-g41M-Combo
Kingston
Hyper X 4 GB DDR
Kingston
SDDNow V+ 128 GB
Samsung
320 GB
eVGA GeForce 7600GT
Ultra
X-Finity 800 Watt PSU
LG
20X DVD +/- RW
Immediately
I had an issue using a non-modular
power supply which took up a lot of room at the bottom of the Hades.
Since I used a MicroATX board this was not as big a problem if I had
a used a full size ATX. Depending on the components used a midsize
case can feel somewhat cramped but with the placement of a bottom
resting PSU in the Hades this makes the tight spacing feel worse.
One
solution would be to not use the bottom drive racks and stuff the
wires out of site in that space.
NZXT
includes washers for mounting the motherboard to the tray. This is
handy in preventing unnecessary shorting issues. Motherboard and I/O
plate installation went easily especially using the standoff guide.
Another
problem with bottom PSU designed cases is that the power connectors
do not usually have enough length to reach their resting locations on
the motherboard. This was the case with my setup. As I mentioned in
previous reviews of bottom resting PSU cases, case manufacturers
should provide extension cables for the 24-Pin
and 4 pin power connectors.
After
installing the motherboard the rest of the process was simple. The
screwless rail design made installing the DVD burner easy. The 3.5”
hard drive needed the hard drive adapters to place the drive into the
Hades. One nice aspect of these adapters is the inclusion of rubber
grommets to help dampen the drive vibrations.
Although
the Hades includes wire management features it is hard to take
advantage of this when using a non-modular PSU with extraneous
cables. As you can see tight spacing is a recurrent problem for the
Hades.
Another
issue I had with the Hades was the motherboard wires were incorrectly
labeled as the Power wire was reversed with the Reset wire leading to
several minutes of frustration until I examined the wire colors and
matched them from the from front panel.
During
my initial build I accidently pulled the USB and audio inputs on the
top of the case out causing some more concern as the top case inputs
did not initially work until I remedied the error.
My case
build was pretty vanilla as I used the stock Intel cooler and a lower
profile NVIDIA GPU with an older 7600GT. I could foresee how using a
newer large GPU could cause some space issues. Some larger CPU
coolers such as a Ninja may present space problems as well.
The side
panels went on easily; even the right side of the Hades with some
wires protruding off allowed the side to slide back on without much
difficulty. NZXT includes a molex to 3 pin adapter for the left side
panel fan but the Ultra X-Finity had a spare connector off the PSU so
I did not need one for my build.
Acoustically
the NZXT was audible with the fans set at the lowest and slightly
louder at full speed. Unless the case is right next to the user’s
head the sound emitting from the Hades should not be an issue.
The
front of the case emitted a red glow from the fan LED, power light
and temperature sensors. Unlike blue LEDs, the red was not very
bright. In fact the temperature sensor reading numbers were fairly
small and faint.
The
temperature readings seemed to be decent approximations of the hard
drive, ambient case and CPU temps.
Appearance
wise the Hades is a nice looking case but other than the unique shape
of the front it is otherwise pretty plain looking.
{mospagebreak
title=Summary and Comments}
Summary
and Comments:
Although
the Hades is a nice case, it is does have certain flaws that are hard to
overlook. The tight spacing inside the case is the first and
foremost issue. NZXT created the Hades as an enthusiast case but it
would be tough to comfortably fit a large CPU cooler and a GPU
monster from NVIDIA or ATI.
Also the
inclusion of only three 3.5” adapters may bother some folks who use
more than three hard drives since the drive bays are designed to
accommodate only 5.25” drives. The red LEDs are not very bright and
to some that may be a bothersome issue.
This is
not to say that the Hades is a bad case, it just does not match up to
previous NZXT cases that I have reviewed in the past.
DragonSteelMods
gives the Hades MidTower PC Case a 3.5 out of 5 score.
Pros:
+Wire
Management
+Built
in fan controller
+Built
in temperature monitor
+Solid
construction
Cons:
-Tight
set up for ATX systems with newer GPUs
-Red LED
not very bright
review# 683
Disclosure:
This product was given to DragonSteelMods for review by the company for
review purposes only, and is not considered by us as payment for the
review, we do not, never have, and never will, accept payment from
companies to review their products.
To learn more about our review policy, testing methods and ratings please see this page.