THE HYDRA IS, without a doubt, one heck of a unique chassis. Its folded steel design, unique aesthetic, and open-air style has ensured that it holds a special place in our hearts. The shearing off of that Allen screw in particular hurt, as it’s a case that has lived in the MaximumPCoffices since we first took deliver y of it way back when. But it does prove that with some love and a few tweaks, an old chassis can still look the part and perform just as well as its latest counterparts.
There are a number of cases that fall into this category: Bitfenix’s Prodigy line, NZXT’s Manta, the Corsair Graphite 780t, the OG Fractal Design cases—you name it. They might not have the latest RGB or the best cable management, but if you can make them work, they will still serve you well, even in 2024.
All in all, the build process went surprisingly smoothly. Even with us snapping off that GPU screw, there were few hiccups or moments that challenged us. That’s to be expected when your only cooling is a single CPU cooler.
Patching up those mild case foibles we weren’t happy with has made a world of difference, but there’s still room for improvement, particularly in the power supply department. Swapping out that older-style SF PSU for something a little sleeker, like the SFL series, and getting some of those braided Type 5 cables from another manufacturer would go a long way to making this case even better, shortening the cable mess in the back.
That is one thing we did forget to mention. To cable-manage this thing, you effectively have to bundle the cables together and tie them into loops as best you can behind the tray to hide them from sight. It is mildly difficult, and you’ll still always be able to see them. Custom cables here would help, particularly if you could cut them to the right length. Additionally, the GPU still isn’t supported as well as we’d like. Finding a better way to anchor that to the case at the other end would be a fantastic addition to this build, and make us feel a lot more comfortable in the long term.
That said, this is still an epically compact gaming PC build, perfect for LAN parties, traveling, or gaming on a big screen. In fact, fun side-note, instead of shipping this back for testing from the photo studio, we just chucked this inside a backpack, and carried it all the way home for testing without a problem.
1 It goes without saying that the stock PSU cables for this build, well, suck. That’s the first thing we would change. Go for something like the Corsair SF1000L, along with a custom braided set of its type 5cables. That would tidy this build up atreat.
2 The CPU cooler here is at the bleeding edge of what you can achieve with alow-profile heatsink, but you could choose to opt for achunkier Noctua solution instead if you really wanted to live comfortably with that Core i7-14700K.
3 The only real downside
