HAVN HS 420 VGPU review - pure elegance in PC case form

A relative newcomer to the PC case scene, things started with a bang for HAVN. Its debut case is the HS 420, which is a premium, super-stylish case with a striking wraparound curved glass front panel. It's the HAVN HS 420 VGPU we're looking at here, which as its name suggests is a variant that is dedicated to having your graphics card mounted in a vertical orientation. It looks unique both inside and out, and is dripping with cutting-edge features while having massive cooling potential. It all adds up to a PC case that's perfect for a high-end gaming PC.

In fact, it's enough to earn this HAVN offering a spot on our best PC case  guide. All this comes at a price, though, as you won't see much change from $300. However, we doubt you'd ever need another case. Offering a dedicated vertical GPU version of the case means everything you need to mount you card this way is included, such as a PCIe 5.0 riser cable and rotated rear bracket plus an angled bottom fan mount. These aren't included with the standard case, but are available separately should you wish to convert it, and they are the main reason the VGPU Edition is $70 more expensive.

The case supports up to E-ATX motherboards and has massive room for expansion when it comes to cooling. Given the price, it's likely only going to appeal to those that have already spent well north of $1,000 on their graphics card, otherwise your cash would be much better spent on boosting frame rates, processor power, or storage, unless getting the look provided here is really that important to you. We've put the case through its paces, testing for build quality, ease of installation, cooling and noise, to find out just where this expensive case does and doesn't justify its price.

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Specs

Features

Out of the box the HS 420 has no fans, which isn't uncommon with high-end cases like this, as the expectation is you'll be adding your own choice of top-quality fans, along with some sort of liquid cooling. Not that you need to resort to using a liquid cooler - whether an AIO cooler or a custom water cooling loop - as there's ample room for any air cooler you can imagine. Liquid coolers and radiators up to 420mm in size can be used in up to three locations, which is more than enough for even the most powerful components you can house in this case.

The HS 420 VGPU Edition is not for the faint-hearted, though, as its massive wraparound glass panel and metal construction mean it weighs over 19kg (42lbs) without any components in it. It's also very large, stretching to close to 55cm (21.6 inches) in length and height. For comparison, a more typical ATX case, such as the Corsair 4000D, weighs under 10kg (22lbs) and is 10cm (4 inches) shorter in height and length.

This case has four external panels in total, with the usual side and front sections being a single piece of tempered glass that's bent at a right angle. This gives an unparalleled view of the interior, and the whole section slides in an out on large rollers, giving a premium feel and helping to deal with the large weight of this panel.

The roof panel pulls off with a small material tab at the rear and exposes a large fan mount that's also removable, allowing you to fit fans and radiators outside of the case, which is a lot easier. The far side panel is enormous and is totally covered in an array of rounded rectangular holes that provide masses of ventilation while giving a unique look to the case too. This rounded rectangle shape is repeated throughout several other areas of the case design. The rear panel is also removable, providing easy access to fitting rear fans while providing a cleaner look once in place.

The front panel offers the usual pair of Type-A and single Type-C USB ports, which is probably the only standard feature here. There are no case feet at the base, for example, with the case sitting on top of a large spacer section with large vents allowing the lower fan mounts to breath. A huge slide-out dust filter protects them, although it's maybe a rare flaw with the case as it was a little tricky to slide out and felt a bit flimsy.

Cable tidying and routing is a big feature with the HS 420 VGPU Edition and it makes it easy to build a clean-looking PC. Grommets are located in the motherboard tray, but not as we normally know them. Instead, there's a louvre-like design to them that allows cables to pass through without disrupting the shape of the grommets too much. It's a unique design, although getting large cables through was a little fiddly.

The rear also features cable runs backed up by clips and Velcro ties for anchors and there's even a pair of six-channel fan controllers to amalgamate fan cables and use a single motherboard header to control them. If you need space for a few hard disks then you're in luck as there's a total of five 3.5 in mounts inside, although four of these would mean sacrificing the side fan mounts and storage bays.

Design

Building a PC into the HS 420 VGPU Edition is simple in some ways, but quite involved and time consuming in others. For instance, fitting a rear fan requires removing the rear panel and dealing with adaptors if you're using 120mm fans, adding several more steps to what is usually a quick process.

It's also essential to remove the vertical GPU mount to connect cables to the lower portion of the motherboard and do a decent job of cable tidying, and the mount has various screws hidden all over the place. Thankfully, apart from some compromises when it comes to storage versus cooling and needing a while longer to build your PC, the process is relatively straightforward.

Once built, the PC feels extremely solid with no rattle coming from the panels, thanks to the fact the larger ones are screwed in place - no push-pin panels like on the NZXT H3 Flow (not that they rattle on that case either).

Included is a GPU support along with the vertical mount itself, which can be moved back and forth to cater for larger graphics cards. The PSU is hidden away in a lower chamber, where's there's also plenty of room for stowing cables. An interesting accessory for any lower fans you install is a glass airflow guide that serves to point air towards your graphics card, which you can particularly see in the image above.

Performance

We don't believe in the usefulness of testing a case like this with no fans, despite it being sold as such. Instead, we've tested the HS 420 VGPU Edition with three 120mm fans, which is a standard confifguration we used across all our case tests (unless a case ships with more fans than this). We also use a standardized set of test components, consisting of an AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D CPU, 32GB DDR5 6000 RAM, an Asus B850M-Plus WiFi motherboard, a 1TB Samsung 990 Pro SSD, an MSI RTX 5070 Ti 16G Ventus 3X graphics card, a Cooler Master Hyper 212 Black CPU cooler, and an NZXT C1000 Gold power supply.

This case does have room for a lot of fans, with it clearly designed to be fitted with three in its lower section, two in its rear, and several more in its roof. However, even with just our three fans fitted in the roof, rear and base, the case performed well. With the case fans at full speed, our CPU hit 76°C and the GPU hit 69°C.

The CPU figure is actually slightly higher than using three fans in the much smaller NZXT H3 Flow. However, that case has one of the fans directly blowing air onto the CPU cooler, where as the HS 420 doesn't have a lot of direct airflow to the CPU. Meanwhile, the GPU was 2°C cooler than in the H3 Flow, showing just how well the GPU airflow configuration works in this case. It's also worth reiterating that this is with just three fans in this large case.

The core cooling ability of this case is highlighted by the fact that dropping the fan speeds to 50% saw the CPU temperature not change at all and the GPU temperature only rise 1°C.

One thing to note with this case, though, is that it really doesn't benefit from fans running at lower speeds, as despite its large curved glass panel taking up two side, it still has a lot of very opening panelling and ventilation that lets a lot of sound escape. With the fans at 100% speed we measure the sound level at 53dBA, but with the fans at 50% this dropped to 50dBA. You really will want to make sure you're filling those fan mounts and running the fans nice and slow.

Price

The HAVN HS 420 VGPU Edition price is $300 and while this is a huge amount to pay for a case of any sort, this is a very well-made case with some serious premium touches, like its wraparound glass front. Also the non-vertical GPU version is significantly cheaper, at $230. So, if you want the core look of this case and don't mind forgoing the vertical GPU mount, or you're happy to buy it separately later, there's a more affordable option open to you.

The other factor to bear in mind, though, is that this case is very much a blank slate that's designed to have another few hundred dollars spent on kitting it out with fans and other cooling components - if you're not considering large liquid coolers or custom liquid cooling then you're probably doing it wrong.

At this price, aesthetics start to play important roles too so the competition's designs could sway you one way or the other. The Hyte Y70 and its Touch version too are definite contenders. Be Quiet! also has its Light Base 900 FX, which will appeal to RGB lighting fans, with the opposite being true for the Phanteks NV, both costing a little less than HAVN's case. All told, though, the HS 420 does still feels like it's worth its $300 asking price by comparison.

Verdict

If you have $300 to spend on a PC case then the you should be seriously considering the HAVN HS 420 VGPU. This ultra-stylish case combines innovative design with fantastic build quality to make for the perfect home for a high-end system. Its cable routing is some of the best and most elaborate we've seen, it has a ton of cooling potential, and it even  has space for a bunch of hard disks too without compromising too much on fan and radiator support.

It's not a quick case to build into, though, so if you want to be up and running in a few hours, this probably isn't the case for you. It's a weekend project that's more suited to a high-end liquid-cooled system and the intricacies that setting up such a system can entail.

It's also not a case that's ready to go out of the box. You'll need to factor in your own fans and while its porous design allows for very low airflow restrictions and great cooling, it does mean that you need quiet hardware if you're noise sensitive. For a first effort, the HAVN HS 420 is stunning, although given the choice we'd pick the standard model over our VGPU Edition to save some cash and simplify the build process.

If you're looking for the best cooling hardware to make the most of this case, check out our best PC fan and best AIO cooler guides for our pick of the currently available options.