HAVN is a fresh face in the gaming PC world, having been birthed by the same parent company responsible for noblechairs, Endgame Gear, APXN, Ducky, and more. HAVN is its new premium case line, and the HAVN HS 420 is its first case, and it brings a couple of striking features with it.
While it’s certainly too early to know if the HAVN HS 420 will be good enough for a spot on our best PC case guide, it has impressed us enough from our first hands-on play with it at Computex to give us plenty of hope.
So what’s so interesting about this case? Well, clearly the most noticeable feature is its curved glass front panel. This uses a single piece of toughened, laminated glass (so if it does break, the glass doesn’t go everywhere) to form the see-through portion of the case. While we’re fans of cases with two abutting glass panels, having a single piece definitely looks cleaner.
The whole panel with the metal frame around it is removed in one go to reveal the spacious innards, which can be configured with or without a vertical GPU mount.
The large case also has room for two 120mm fan mounts at its rear, so one blows under your graphics card while the other sucks warm air out the top of the PC. There’s also room for a 360mm radiator/fan setup just in front of the motherboard.
The case’s perforated top can also be removed, while the entire rear panel of the case is covered in a fetching lozenge-shaped hole pattern and dust filter to provide lots more ventilation.
This is also where the PSU mounts, and it sits in a vertical position to minimize the width of the case. Meanwhile, the floor of the case is dedicated to a triple-fan cooling setup, although the HAVN HS 420 is sold without any fans as standard.
The real innovation here, though, is the internal glass panel that’s used with vertical GPU configurations. It sits just below the graphics card and allows cool air from the bottom intakes to flow up and to the entire top portion of the case. Meanwhile, it also deflects hot air from the graphics card’s cooler, down, back, and out the case, all while not interrupting the view of all your components.
It’s a really neat trick and we can see plenty of potential for similar uses of the idea in future cases. There are other subtler additions too. For instance, almost the entire case is essentially double-skinned, which, along with the large glass panel, means this case weighs a massive 17kg even when it’s completely empty.
What this second skin does, though, is create the clean, flat look of the panels sitting in front of the motherboard and around the rear fan mounts, as you can see clearly in the picture above of the horizontal GPU version of this case.
HAVN hasn’t revealed the final pricing and release date for this case yet, but we expect it to be in the standard premium range.
For more from the show floor at Computex – the world’s largest PC-dedicated tech trade show – check out our Computex story hub, including coverage of the new Corsair Platform:4 desk being shown, and a first look at the new MSI Claw 8 AI+ gaming handheld.