NZXT Hades Black PC Gaming Case Review

The thumb screws that NZXT included are not my favorite style by any means; the plastic is hard on the fingers if it is tightened down much, and the plastic itself squishes up and becomes very difficult to remove without a screwdriver. Though as long as you do not tighten it very much it works well enough. Note the style of exterior paint that I consider “splattered” over the black base coat which is why most of my pictures appear grainy, and is not very noticeable until you look closely.

This is the massive 200mm 150 CFM case fan. Though, with the dust filter as well as wire mesh I doubt the fan will be able to push that much air.

The dust filter adds slightly more than 1/8″ to the fan’s profile which already limits CPU cooler options to 131.5mm in height (165mm max if you remove the fan entirely). Once I get the system all together we’ll see if I really want the filter on or not.

Six out of the nine total 5.25″ drive bays can be screwless, but considering you can only use at max. four 5.25″ drives and four 3.5″ drives anyway, I doubt many will ever even be able to need more than that. The NZXT Hades has plenty of wire management options; hopefully they have the right placement to be utilized without problems.

The other side panel is identical aside from the missing fan.

The motherboard tray features a decent sized CPU cutout and plenty of zip tie mounts, but is not removable. Notice the drive bays are 5.25″ all the way down; this is nice for the vibration and sound proofing hard drives, but is very poor for wire management as my Corsair TX750 has a ton of cables that will need to be hidden back here and the side panel is just over 3/4″ away from tray.

The screwless clips are a nice design: just 1/4 turn to remove and another 1/4 turn to put them back in.

The SSD bracket allows the user to install up to two SSD’s on top of each other; the bottom one is screwed in from the bottom, while the top drive would be screwed in from the sides.

The front panel accessory wiring, thermal sensors and all.

The power supply will be supported by four of these small rubber standoffs which are glued to the bottom as were the case feet, and sadly can be moved around just as easily. One time during installation a standoff had gotten wedged in a way that the PSU would not mount. This is not a major pain, but one that could have been avoided.

With the front panel off, you can see the front of the case has very little meat on it, with just a bracket in the middle that the wires pass through. The front 200mm fan is white and black, but has four red LEDs which barely show through the mesh and dust filter for a very nice slight red glow is that hardly even noticeable in a dark room.

This is the plastic dust filter which covers the PSU fan. It is easily cleaned and does not restrict air flow too badly, either.

Now for the fun part: installation!