EVGA Hadron Air
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2014-05-07
·
1,633 words · ~8 min read
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now the name of this case lends itself to some pretty obvious jokes and just
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like Logan I'm going to go for the most obvious
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one hey look I'm a Hadron Collider so
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when we open up the case the first thing we find is an accessory box which
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contains H yes a power cable because this is a high-end case with an
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integrated power supply more on that later we've also got a manual whoa and
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whatever I threw over there I believe that's an EVGA case badge and finally oh
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cool we have some little like cable management clips and some screws for
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mounting a 5 and 1/4 in Slimline optical
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drive as well as a 3 and 1/2 in/ 2 1/2
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in sled and some SATA cables and finally
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like a hadron tattoo stickery thing next up we've got ah very nice packaging nice
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construction paper I mean cardboard whatever this stuff's called on the
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outside and then some nice Clos cell soft foam to keep it nice and safe while
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it's being transported and then finally okay well we're going to have to
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take marks off for that their uh you know protective you know paper around
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the outside of the Hadron isn't very strong actually we're not going to take any marks off of that whatsoever because
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it is extremely well packaged which is very unusual for a new casee
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manufacturer because this is evga's first computer case they've done lots of
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other computer hardware over the years but never a chassis before couple of
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small Corrections there guys yes that was a case badge that I threw all the
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way across the room and this is for the Slimline slot loading opticle which
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isn't necessarily 5 and a/4 inch it's just a slim line slot loading opticle
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and it goes right about here so on the right hand Edge we've got the spot for
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that as well as a headphone and microphone Jack and two USB 3.0 ports
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we've also got perforations along the bottom edge of the case perforations
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along the entire bottom of the case as well as a nice little rubber foot at the
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back and then a larger more raised metal
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piece at the front that actually gives it a bit of a like an upward tilted
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posture once the case is actually put down on the desk then on the left hand
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side we've got a full side panel window that will reveal the unexceptional cable
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management characteristics of this particular case only this side panel
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comes off at all and in fact the other side panel doesn't so all of your cable
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management will be done with zip ties and just trying to keep things you know
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out of the way of each other as much as you possibly can moving on to the top of
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the case the entire top of the case is again perforated and if there's anything
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EVGA understands it's the need for air flow to cool the other components in
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your system particularly modern hot running graphics cards so we're going to
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go ahead and reveal that under that perforation which unfortunately doesn't
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have dust filters although it doesn't make that much of a difference to me if
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you're using it for exhaust ah yes two 120 mm fans that are able to take air in
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from the bottom of the case which is where I showed you before there's lots
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of ventilation lots of perforation and then exhaust it out the top of the case
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I actually quite like this design the case overall feels solid without feeling
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heavy and this is something that again is unusual for a firsttime case maker um
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you know you usually expect them to cheap out on things like packaging not
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understanding the importance or cheap out on the construction and the metal quality and that hasn't happened here at
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all at the back of the case we've got two tubing holes if you wanted to run
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external water cooling as well as two PCI slots where you can have a single
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expansion card and it'll be dual slot cuz it's a graphics card and then you're
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pretty much good to go finally we end up here yes the power supply that I
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mentioned before 80 plus gold
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efficiency slim power supply with a 500
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watt capacity this is what has enabled EVGA to achieve this extremely unique
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form factor here because unlike Silverstone approach which is usually to
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go with sfx the slim power supply allows
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them to really control the vertical height of the case in fact it's only
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about 12 in by 12 in by 6 in wide so
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we're going to go ahead and open it up and discover something that has bothered a lot of other reviewers but I
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personally give exactly zero cares about and that is the fact that the power
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powder coating doesn't extend to the inside in all places you can see that
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there are places where it is actually visible that there's there's bare metal
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here these are things that you will never see especially once you actually
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have a system installed in the case and it's the kind of thing that I really
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tend to not stress out about very much at all once we're inside we can also
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find all of the well things that are
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inside so the inside features I'm going to start with the thing that is
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devastating and terrible to me and then we'll move on to the things that I think
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are great and that is this right here there's no CPU cutout and instead EVGA
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has opted for their own proprietary layout that's going to be compatible
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with their own mitx motherboards which quite frankly not a whole lot of people
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are using so I really would have rather seen the other side panel open up and I
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would have rather had the flexibility to install a cooler from the back there's
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actually a fair amount of room in the case for a decent sized Tower cooler
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although you won't be putting something like an NHD 14 in here for Drive
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mounting options we have these two caddies which are capable of holding
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either a 2 and 1/2 in or a 3 and 1/2 in drive if you got creative you could pull
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these out and you could probably cram a whole wack ton of SATA 2 and 1 half in
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drives in there and then this third slot right here is for that Slimline optical
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drive moving on down we've got the front
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panel I/O connector so there's USB 3 I would have loved to see a black cable
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for this but I do like that it's flat it's a ribbon cable as well as HD audio
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and power switch and power LED there is no reset switch and there is no dve
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Drive activity LED on this particular chassis followed by the power supply
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wires so these I guess the benefit of having a custom power supply built just
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for your case is that you can have all the wire lengths make sense so that the
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cables can be easily managed so the 24 pin for example looks like it can be
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easily chucked over here you can run some twist ties through all these
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perforations on the drive cage here again another Smart Touch from EVGA
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enabling lots of of passive air flow to be drawn over the Drives By these fans
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as well as the active air flow right up here just absolutely love that and uh so
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you can sort of cable tie that to that and put that where it needs to go and
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then you look by contrast at the graphics card harness which is extremely
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short and obviously designed to just plug directly into an up to 10 1 12 inch
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graphics card right here and you can see that they've thought it out quite
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carefully SATA connectors they provide only two because in theory you can only
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really have two SATA drives in the system but then they give you four more
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auxiliary standard four pin moxes so you can adapt those to whatever else you
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happen to need depending on what you are doing with the case so overall what
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would I say about this it's a great first try in fact it's a good case great
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first try though they've missed a couple small things I mean I think the powder
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coating issue that other reviewers have complained about is one thing missing
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the CPU cutout is another for me but they've also really nailed a few things
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like the overall build quality the quality of the packaging so your system
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is going to arrive in one piece if you have something pre-built with this or
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even your case is going to arrive in one piece if you order one as well as the
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inclusion of an extremely highquality power supply that can handle any mitx
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system that you can put in here plus something like a GTX 780 Ti without any
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trouble I think they've got a lot going for the hron air thank you for checking
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out my unboxing and overview of the hadra air from EVGA don't forget to
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