LENGTH OF TIME: 1-2 hours

DIFFICULTY: Medium

So then, with parts justified, let’s talk shop. On the surface, this is a relatively simple build. Last time we used this Hydra chassis, we weren’t entirely satisfied with the resulting build. There were a few foibles that arose after using the Hydra ITX, and during the build process that proved to be frustrating. Some of those issues stemmed from the design decisions made with the chassis, so those are two things we’ve adjusted and remedied from the get-go. On top of that, it’s starting to age as a chassis a little, so we’re going to need to do some minor cable upgrades just to keep up with the times, but more on that later.

The real focal point of this build is that Intel Core i7-14700K, and whether it can handle being cooled by a 65mm-high air cooler, because let’s be clear, Noctua is very good at air cooling. They’ve long been our go-to for the best air coolers and fans around—second to none in the industr y— but it’s still a tall order to cool one of the hottest chips around with nothing more than a slim 95mm fan, four copper heat pipes, and a whole assortment of aluminum cooling fins on an openair bench with nothing around it. Still, we’re hopeful, and according to Noctua’s own CPU compatibility list, it should be fully compatible, albeit with low turbo/ overclocking headroom. Interestingly, Noctua actually has the 12600K on that list, with a high ranking for turbo/ overclocking headroom, but jumping up the next-gen and its refresh sees that support plummet, which is a pretty good indicator of just how hard Intel is pushing this architecture.

That’s something we’ve repeatedly seen with this series. It doesn’t matter if you’ve got an Intel Core i5-14600K under a 420mm radiator, under load—it’s still going to push its clock speeds and volts all the way up until it hits 100 C and its TJMax before throttling. On the one hand, that’s darn impressive, and leads to some serious performance that’s remarkably stable. On the other, do we really want processors and their architectures to be running so aggressively on a day-to-day basis? It’s a tricky one to call.

A LIGHT AMOUNT OF MODDING

The Hydra ITX is an awesome case. There’s not a whole lot out there quite like it. It combines a small form factor with an open-air design, and has a supremely simple build process due to how easy it is to access all the major areas and components. There’s no excess cables, front I/O, or overly complicated cable management; just a single sheet of folded steel, mixed in with a number of mounting locations for hardware.

That said, it wasn’t flawless, and in our initial build with it back in October 2020, two things stood out in particular. First up was the Hydra cutout in the PSU shroud area, namely the fact that you could see through it to the PSU itself. It’s particularly annoying if your power supply has a white specs label on it. Secondly, the natural position of the GPU. In Hydra’s installation manual, the way they have you configure that GPU shroud ensures you can keep your PCIe passthrough cable on the bottom of your graphics card, but because the case is reversed, it means that you end up with your GPU’s I/O at the ‘front’ of the chassis, opposite the location