continuationNZXT Hades
Weighing in at only 16 lbs. with the installation kit, the Hades is a true lightweight from NZXT. One might expect such a diet to include the use of aluminum, but we instead find painted steel and plastic throughout.
Even at only 16 lbs., much of the Hades’ weight comes from its plastic drive door, a reinforced member containing the power switch and LED, plus a three-component temperature display. Opening that door reveals four 5.25” external bays, the reset button, and two knobs for controlling front and side 200mm fans.
NZXT reflects the style of its side panels, while the added space on the right panel provides extra room for stuffing cables behind the motherboard tray. Two rubber grommets for external liquid-cooling components can also be seen from this angle.
A quick look at the top reveals sets of mounting holes that support up to two 140mm or 120mm fans. A third set of less-apparent holes can be used to install a 2x120mm radiator inside, offset 1.25” from the motherboard (click the photo to enlarge).
Mesh covers over inlets reduce dust and NZXT even makes the one over the power supply removable for easy cleaning.
Top-panel connections include headset jacks, eSATA connectivity, and two USB ports. The lack of any FireWire port is suitable for low-cost builds, though the case’s $100 price might not be.
NZXT adds a hole to the motherboard plate for easy access to CPU-cooler support plates. Another nice touch is the slot-shaped grommets that surround each cable pass-through hole.
Plastic clips that hold external drives in place feel as cheap as they look, but metal pins within still make this a very secure mounting method.
Two of the front-panel display’s three temperature probes split from a four-wire ribbon, while the other is completely separated. These are labeled as System, CPU, and HDD.
A plastic tray capable of holding two 2.5” drives comes pre-installed on a set of 3.5” drive brackets. Additional brackets are found in NZXT’s installation kit.
Building In Hades
The NZXT Hades includes several thumb screws and three additional sets of 3.5” hard drive brackets, in addition to the preinstalled single set of drive brackets. Shoulder screws prevent over-tightening in the rubber grommets, which reduce noise transmission from hard drives to the drive cage.
Though our particular sample arrived slightly twisted, we found that the NZXT Hades' frame was thin to the extent that the weight of a few parts was enough to make it sit flat. Our full-sized components installed easily, though there was a small amount of overlap between the hard drive and video card.
Graphics cards up to 16.65” long can be installed through the drive cage all the way to the front-panel brace, but doing so reduces the number of bays that can hold drives. Only 10.5” exists between the back of a 3.5” hard drive and the case’s slot panel.
The narrow case width and the fact that the side fan is positioned high inside the case prevents the side fan from being used with most tower-style CPU coolers. We had to remove the side fan completely to install our test system components.
Between the side fan and exterior mesh, we found another dust-filtering screen.
With the side fan removed and its mesh cover securely attached with tape, we were ready to test the system.
source:tomshardware continued
