Sartre said that hell is other people. We don’t know about that, but we know what Hades is—a steel mid-tower chassis that’s full of surprises, nearly all of them pleasant.
At 7.9 inches wide by 16.9 inches high by 19.7 inches deep, the Hades is skinnier than the Zalman Z7 Plus, though otherwise similar in size. It’s all black, inside and out, and the motherboard tray includes a CPU backplate cutout as well as rubber-rimmed cable-routing cutouts. The front and side fans are 20cm monsters, and the top of the chassis has mounting holes for two 14cm or 12cm fans, as well as for a dual-fan radiator, if your tastes swing to water-cooling.
Between the four fans and the front-panel temp readouts, the Hades' internals won't get infernally hot.
The Hades’ nine 5.25-inch drive bays include five toolless optical-drive retention mechanisms, and in lieu of dedicated hard drive cages, the Hades comes with four sets of mounting brackets, so you can install one 3.5-inch hard drive per optical drive bay. The floppy drive bay at the bottom of the case also includes an adapter that can hold two 2.5-inch SSDs (or notebook hard drives, if you prefer). Because of the Hades’ flexibility with regards to hard drive installation, it can handle foot-long videocards like the ATI Radeon HD 5970.
The Hades’ front door has a magnetic latch and includes a small LCD with three temperature readouts in Celsius or Fahrenheit—one for each of the three thermal probes included with the case (for hard drive, CPU, and motherboard). This is not a standard feature on any case we’ve tested, much less one that retails for $100. The LCD readout, though, is pretty dim, and hard to see in most normal use scenarios. And while we’re huge fans of, well, huge fans, we don’t see the need for front-panel doors, even ones as appealingly Vaderesque as the Hades’. That’s just personal preference, though.
The Hades’ biggest downside is its cramped quarters. To route the 8-pin motherboard power cable behind the motherboard tray, we had to move the top 14cm exhaust fan forward to the other top mount; the side-panel fan and sub-eight-inch width of the case limit CPU cooler height to less than six inches; and we would prefer an easier hard drive mounting system.
But the Hades is a lot of case for $100, and it’s nice to have options for large videocards, SSD mounting, and water-cooling in the same mid-tower case. And hey, the temperature readout doesn’t hurt.
LCD temperature readouts; four fans; rubber-rimmed cable-routing cutouts; painted interior.
Cramped quarters; hard drive mounting system is difficult.
bish7751
November 16, 2010 at 3:04pm
Hi, I am thinking about buying this case and removing the 200mm side fan. Just wondering whether if I do this I will be left with a hole in the side of the case or whether the "mesh" in front of the fan can be left in place to leave the side of the case "closed". Also, I currently have an NZXT alpha and one of my reasons for switching to this case is to accommodate larger graphics cards. Could anybody that has fitted an ATI 5970, or a card of a similar size please inform me as to how much space is left in front of the card in this case if a card like this is fitted? Also, one final question, some cards I have seen such as the ATI 6870 have power connecters on the side of the card rather than the front, is it easy to connect these cards in this case or do the side of the drive bays get in the way?
Thanks for your help!
cpuking2010
September 21, 2010 at 11:36pm
And I love it.. theres a reason why it's called a mid-tower.. I mean it says it in the title on amazon.com. And everyone including amazon and the NZXT site tells you exactly how big the case is, "
•
CPU Heatsink clearance: 131.5mm w/ 200mm fan, 165mm w/o side fan installed." -NZXT
If you feel ripped off maybe next time do some more research on products you buy online.
I for one am extemeley happy and guess what my door stays open enough to access the optical drive without having to open it each time. Not trying to be a troll but i don't see how anyone could whine about such a fantastic case for under $70.
My only complaint is the 20cm side fan in mine was broken from the factory, but after an email to NZXT there shipping me a replacement free of charge. sure it's hard to find a heatsink that fits with the side fan but who cares you could always step it up to the H50 and get some H20 coolage in your case.. overall i agree 100% with this review and i give it my Kick ass product stamp.
BuLLg0d
May 10, 2010 at 9:15pm
No one tells you how slim this case is. If you have a high heatsink or an enclosed liquid cooling option you are going to have to remove the 200mm side fan. I have the Asestek 510c enclosed liquid cooler on my core i7 980X Extreme Edition cpu on a Gigabyte mobo and between the 120mm radiator attached to the rear fan and tha arc of the coolers tubing, the fan had to go. It just would not fit. I configured my pc on line and ordered on line after reading reviews of this case and no where did I see that I would lose the 200mm side fan. Cyberpower was great with the build though, they rerouted the side fans controller to the upper exhaust fan so I still have control of two fans within the system.
The front Door does not come off. The power button is hidden at the crest of the "V" on the door. The silver button on the panel inside the door is the reset button. Also on the door is the hdd activity light and the tri temperature readout so no, the door has to stay on. It won't completely stay open either, it tends to like to be halfway open or closed completely so if you are accessing your optical drives all the time you will hate the case.
It is stuffy inside too but well designed. You can put a lot of stuff inside but it will definately be cramped. With wiring management I still find it hard to move around in the case to add components because the spare psu cables have nowehere to go so they take up precious lower hdd mounting space. A modular psu would work very well in this case.
As mentioned above, I have a hex core intel, asestek 510c water cooling unit, 6 gb of memory, a SATA III hdd, a Blu Ray drive, a dvd/rw drive and a 12 in one media card reader along with a huge 900 watt psu and a radeon 5870. it all fits in there and cpu temperatures while in heavy gaming vary at the CPU between 46 and 49 degrees celcius, the hdd stays at a chilling 29-32 degrees celcius, and the ambient case temperature runs around 39 degrees celcius. The cpu averages around 38 degrees celcius when web surfing and other "simple" applications . I think of this case as a Porsche, Everything fits in tight but it performs well. It's no Corsair 800d (You could fit two and a half Hades cases in one of those) but it sure does cool well, even without the 200 mm side fan. I'm heading to Frys tomorrow to get a second 120mm exhaust fan for the empty slot at the top of the case..overkill really, but the mount is there and no one said more air is a bad thing. Don't forget, NZXT has white fans so if you want to buy that single 120 mm fan that does not come with the case, Frys carries them and you can buy them directly from NZXT's website.
I'd give this case an 8 out of 10. I got what I expected but was a little dissapointed as well . Great case though for the price. LOVE the temperature readouts and the manual fan control knobs. Again, if you hate doors this is not the case for you. If you have a high heatsink or some sort of enclosed unit liquid cpu cooler your going to have to remove the side fan completely. The dust cover can still sit and cover the side panel holes though.Also, even though the case is on risers, it's still "low" so anything in front of the door higher than say, a half an inch will have to go. DO NOT place this case on carpet, it will totally block the lower intake/dustcover on the bottom of the case and impair if not totally hault, an airflow channel. Being a mid tower, mines on my desktop so no worries for me.
I know this is lengthy, but I also know there are people looking to hear more about this case. Every review I have found has been about the case as is, empty. No ones reviewing it in different configurations. If you have any questions you are welcome to email me at uncommoninfected@gmail.com .
mhadina
July 30, 2010 at 1:03pm
"I would lose the 200mm side fan..."
You can do a modding and put a fan form outside - it would do the job and inside you ll get more room or put a few smaller and lower fans instead a big one.
"spare psu cables have nowehere to go ."
Why wouldn't you try to throw spare cables through wire management opening in the lower part and behind a rear side of the case behind MBO?
Thanks for a review
keithfreitag
April 11, 2010 at 10:59am
MaxPC,
Can the door be removed on the NZXT? I'm considering it but only if the door could be removed without destroying the case.
Steve Jobs is the Devil and gonna introduce a revolutionary and smaller iPad, it's called uGullible!
Keith
MY RIG
- Asus P7P55
- Intel Core i7-860
- 6GB Corsair XMS 3 DDR3 (dual channel mode)
- BFG 880GTS 640MB PCIe
- Creative X-Fi Elite Pro
- BLANK
devastator_2000
April 03, 2010 at 2:43pm
I think this case looks really nice and has a lot of nice features, but the front door turns me off. If you dont use your computer much, the I guess the front door is not a big deal. But I am always useing my computer, so the door just stays open all the time, just waiting for something to hit it.
jrocknyc
April 05, 2010 at 10:10am
i use my computer 10-15 hours a day, but the door on my NZXT case (the one that looks like a Cylon baby) only gets opened once every... year? (All it blocks is the dvd burner, and who uses dvds or dvdrs anymore?)
Peanut Fox
May 04, 2010 at 11:19pm
Exactly. Beside, who wants to see miss matched DVD ROM drives anyway?
nadako
April 02, 2010 at 10:35am
This looks really nice and i love the cable management idea and the temp read out. very nice for a $100 case.
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