Following the introduction of its Gamma and Tempest EVO chassis back in October and November, respectively, NZXT has today rolled out its latest offering in the form of a mid-tower enthusiast chassis dubbed Hades.
Like most products that emerge from the Californian manufacturer, Hades is an acquired taste. Targeting the gaming crowd, it foregos sophistication in favour of high-end features at a mainstream price of $89.99 (roughly £60).
Despite the relatively-low price tag, users are treated to a mid-tower monstrosity that promises just about everything. Hades' airflow system consists of five meaty fans - including a 200mm red LED front intake, a 120mm rear exhaust, a 200mm side fan and dual 140mm exhausts up top. What's useful is that everything bar a single 140mm exhaust is bundled as standard.
Keeping to its promise of "advanced features for the most demanding PC enthusiast", NZXT bundles in a dual-fan controller to manage airflow and noise, and there's a three-way temperature display housed in the plastic front panel of the chassis. Useful for the overclocking crowd.
Measuring 200mm x 430mm x 501mm and weighing 6.95kg, it's one of the chunkiest mid-tower solutions around. The added dimensions are put to good use, though, with NZXT ensuring support for 300mm-long graphics cards such as AMD's ATI Radeon HD 5970.
The all-black steel frame provides room for up to nine 5.25in drive bays, or five 5.25in and four 3.5in. Ensuring the SSD crowd is covered, a bundled bracket allows for easy installation of up to two solid-state drives.
A bevy of cable-routing holes are present - and they're equipped with rubber grommets ala Corsair's Obsidian Series 800D - and a motherboard cutout allows for easy CPU cooler installation. Elsewhere, a mesh front panel is in place to aid air flow, pre-drilled water-cooling holes are provided, there's support for dual top-mounted radiators, the bottom-mounted PSU slot features a dust filter, and a top-mounted I/O panel provides a USB, audio and eSATA connectivity.
It isn't the best-looking chassis we've ever seen, but it's hard to knock it at £60.
