AS CHASSIS DESIGN goes, this is the most extreme example of minimalism we’ve ever seen. There’s no frills here, no excess garnish or gaming flair, there’s no support for crazy, over-the-top liquidcooling, and you can’t make it into a glorified NAS with hundreds of TBs of storage. The reality is that the Hydra Mini is a true manifestation of pure, clean, functional style, merged with exceptional craftsmanship and an attention to detail that makes it perhaps one of the most interesting cases we’ve ever had the pleasure of reviewing. That’s not to say it doesn’t have its flaws, and we’ll cover those in due course, but despite that we can’t help but admire this thing.
So what exactly is the Hydra Mini? Well, it’s a tiny ITX SFX chassis that is built by a small Italian company called Hydra. It’s available in three different color skus (white, black, and a clear satin finish, the latter being slightly cheaper). You can buy the Mini in a bundle, which includes a Hydra-branded PCIe riser extension for your GPU, at around $112 or $105 (not including shipping/import duties), or you can go for the standard case for just $78, or $65 for the satin steel variant.
This story is from the November 2020 edition of Maximum PC.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber ? Sign In
This story is from the November 2020 edition of Maximum PC.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber? Sign In
NZXT C1500 Platinum
Top-tier performance and efficiency
Nvidia DLSS vs AMD FSR
Which AI upscaling technique has the edge?
World of Goo 2
Goo-d enough for two
BenQ X300G 4K Short Throw Projector
Priced high, yet punchy
Hyte Thicc Q60
Almost more mobile phone than CPU cooler
Remove stalkerware from your PC
ACCORDING TO KASPERSKY’S LATEST ‘State of Stalkerware’ report, over 40 percent of those surveyed worldwide said they’d experienced stalking or suspected that they were being stalked.
BUILD AN IT SUPPORT HUB
Discover how to use RustDesk to provide remote assistance and control your own devices remotely with Nick Peers
AMD's turn to drop the ball?
WITH INTEL'S RAPTOR LAKE CPUs falling over, the company firing around 15,000 employees, and cancelling its 2024 innovation event, AMD must have been enjoying the view - until its new Ryzen 9000 desktop CPUs rolled out. So, is AMD's CPU a minor stumble or game-changing fumble?
Intel issues fix for Raptor Lake degradation
EARLIER THIS YEAR, I wrote about difficulties I was having with a Core 19-13900K processor (see MPC230 Tech Talk). Little did we realize that we were only seeing the tip of the iceberg. While most complaints have involved the unlocked Core i9 Raptor Lake CPUs, it appears the instability problems build up and potentially impact many Raptor Lake-13th and 14th Gen Core CPUs, with Intel identifying 22 different desktop parts.
AMD Ryzen 7 9700X
The new Zen 5 CPUs are here—time to benchmark!