Gadgetory

hey guys it's me tree and welcome back to another Harkin extra view EVGA is widely known for their graphics cards motherboards and power supplies but it's always exciting when companies expand their product categories so you're looking at EVGA first ever chassis the header on air the idea behind the hedge on air was to minimize the chassis without compromises on enthusiast systems and I personally think this is the future of enthusiasts enclosures making things more compact yet space efficient and the Hedren air is actually quite compact making this one the smallest cases we've looked at plus EVGA is considering water cooling enthusiasts so hedge on hydro will be released shortly now many of you might immediately get turned off because of the price which goes to $200 for a mini ITX chassis might be overkill considering there isn't much material that goes into the construction of the case and the reason for what seems like an inflated price tag is that every unit ships with a 500 watt 80 plus gold certified power supply which is highly efficient and uses good quality components now given EVGA excellent history with power supplies we don't expect anything but quality with the unit's supplied within the hedge on series aesthetically the chassis is very modern with curved angles large window panel and notice the case is on an angle with a front slightly elevated but still with rubber strip at the rear to prevent sliding and noise the front panel is very minimalistic with tinted reflective plastic with the power button in the middle and the company's logo above the right side panel does have ventilation holes throughout along with two USB 3 ports and audio jacks the header layer does support a slim slot loading optical drive which is located right above and EVGA includes a bracket onto which the drive would be loaded as part of the accessories we do get a cool case Cal a power cord and two 90-degree SATA connections at the rear we have water cooling holes given this is a mini ITX case only two PCI slots and a slim 500 watt power supply at the bottom notice there are no ventilation carrots on this portion of the case so keep that in mind for orientation of your CPU cooler now you most likely will be installing a low-profile cooler but the case does support towers up to 140 millimeters both the bottom and top panels are perforated to provide sufficient cooling removing the top panel is simple with a couple of screws and fortunately the mesh does not include a dust filter and even though it is for exhaust dust will settle when the system is powered off the hedron air comes equipped with two 120 millimeter fans that should do an adequate job for cooling given this is such a tiny enclosure and the fans are also routed through a single three pin fan cable which is nice to minimize cable clutter so finally let's get inside the hedge on air and check out how it manages with cable management during a system build now first thing only the window panel has thumb screws as there is absolutely no room in the back for cable management so really there's no reason to take off the rear panel now I was actually quite surprised to find paint stains behind the main panel if they no way affects functionality of the case but the premium price at least should reflect attention to detail and perhaps appropriate paint job I was further surprised to find this adhesive plastic spread in the back of the case and really if they're going for an all black interior they should do it right from the beginning now the head gel air supports two mechanical drives with SSD support on the drive caddies and this is also where you mount the optional SIM Drive it is nice to have two less brackets but the drive cage is not removable and quite frankly occupies a lot of room and now have liked to see a more modular design the power supply is located at the bottom it is not the conventional ATX eyes but resembles a server power supply it is long and slim allowing the head John to maintain and small form-factor the unit cools itself with a 40 millimeter fan and giving its high efficiency rating the power supply runs extremely quiet I hooked it up to my main work station with 3930k and gtx 770 and under load the fan was working but certainly was not the loudest component in the system and the remember the 500 watt capacity is totally enough to run a high-end system like that for connections we have a 24-pin motherboard cable an 8 pin CPU cable a total of 4 molix connectors and 2 SATA and - 810 PCI Express for your graphics card now there isn't much for cable management in this case we do get 2 hinges on the drive cage that might come in useful and also notice there is no CPU cutout but instead the very particular shape with mounting holes now this is for EVGA z' all mini ITX boards as you see our test board does not align with the pre-drilled CPU holes this is really not a big deal but I still would have preferred to see a CPU cutout instead the PCI brackets are locked in behind this protective hinge this is probably useful for land events and measuring the length of the chassis it sure seems to support 11 in your graphics cards now it might be a little difficult giving all the power supply cables are right there but without reading the spec sheet I assumed our GTX 590 measuring at 11 inches would be supported only to find out there is no way to fit the card because the side panel hinge is just a few millimeters too long to allow clearance for our GTX 590 only 10 the half-inch graphics cards are supported and mounting that inside the header on air and you basically get an idea of how a powerful system can get even in this tiny enclosure the PCI cables are very short so they don't interfere with the side panel and there's very little room between the GPU and the power supply but luckily we do have perforated side and bottom panels to help with cooling but still exhausting graphics cards would be more ideal for this chassis and looking at the final assembly there's really nowhere to tuck the cables and the cleanliness of your build will depend on the motherboard layout particularly the location of that huge 24 pin cable but it sure manages to clean up well considering of how tiny this case is and all thanks to that 500 watt slim power supply without which the form factor of the chassis would be completely different so to conclude a VJs entrance into the enclosure market looks very promising considering they've designed the case targeted towards enthusiasts with an impressive small form-factor it sure is not a boring case with reflective front panel and window support for two mechanical drives and a slim optical drive as well graphics card supports with up to 10 and a half inches and CPU towers up to 140 millimeters cooling in the header on air is pretty decent giving size restrictions but the two exhaust fans should do an adequate job they included 500 watt 80 plus gold certified power supply is really the winner here that is plenty enough for enthusiast systems and the sole reason for the Hadrian's compact design however given this is EB jeez first chassis I sure was not expecting it to be perfect my first critique is the ok paint job on the inside which looks unfinished and unprofessional second I would like to see more emphasis on module design particularly with the hard drive cage and third there is enough clearance for 11 inch cards there just no way of putting the card in having the same cutout on the left as on the right side would allow hassle-free installation and of course this is easily user modified but EVGA should have thought of that first so what do you guys think of EBG aced first ever chassis I sure I'm excited to see more small form-factor enclosures on the market and perhaps this will budge coarser and fractal design or NZXT to explore the niche for compact enthusiast enclosures now I cannot give the heads on air and a word just yet just because the case has some missed potential and I'm really hoping EVGA with consider feedback from the community and apply appropriate adjustments for this to be an even better chassis alright there's been a lengthy one thanks for watching guys leave your comments down below don't forget to subscribe and we'll see you in the next review