NZXT PODCAST - #200 - New H3 Flow, H9 Flow, and More!

Episode Date: May 27, 2025

On this week's episode of the #NZXT Podcast... We have our product manager, Kevin, joining us to talk about our new micro-atx H3 Flow, revamped H9 Flow, Kraken Plus coolers and more! Look at the new products here: https://nzxt.co/4ky5izm

Hello, everyone, and welcome to a very special late episode number 200 of the N60 podcast, the official podcast in the NCC community. This podcast is usually recorded at 10 a.m., but today is a very special day, but we record on Fridays on the official NCC Twitch and it's available to stream on demand on Apple Podcast, Spotify and SoundCloud. My name is Mike. It was me as always. It's Ivan. How you doing, Ivan? How I do, baby boo? I am super excited to be here for the NICHA.

in ZXT podcast after Dark Edition. I feel like we should do something different today. I don't know. Maybe I told you earlier we should probably should have done today's episode in a hot tub or something. Yeah, show up our feed and everything like that. Yeah, probably too late for that. Before I introduce our special guest today, I do want to make one quick announcement. So for those of you who are tuned in live, you are in for a treat.

You're going to get first dibs into a giveaway that has not. not been announced on social media yet. You can type exclamation giveaway in the chat. You will get a link to access the giveaway. And if you stick around until the end of the show, you will get a secret word, which will get you a bunch of bonus entries into the giveaway. And if you're wondering what this giveaway it's for,

it's for our brand new products, which we just announced two days ago at Computex. And with us here today to talk about those products is the one and only Kevin, Kevin, Kevin, welcome to the NZXC podcast. How are you doing? Hey, I've been a mic. Thanks for having me again.

So first of all, Kevin, thank you for doing this. It's like five in the morning where you're at. You're actually at CompuTech right now in Taiwan. So we appreciate you waking up early on a Saturday morning to be here. No worries. Yeah, it's almost seven. So getting awake. Well, you've been on the show before.

You were on that long ago, actually. but for those who have no idea who you are, can you just quickly introduce yourself and let everyone know what you do around here? All right. So I'm a senior product manager leading the PC components team. And yeah, so I'm mainly in charge of all the PC cases. So that's sort of what I do here.

But yeah, every PC component I have a product manager that manages each. That's kind of an important job, wouldn't you say, Mike? Yeah, I think I'd be more important than what we do, honestly. Yeah, it's like in charge of our bread and butter, basically. So, uh, community is, you know, just as important. I don't know about that. So what does a, what does a typical day look like for you, Kevin?

Yeah, it's, um, you know, we start the day out. checking usually the daily routine if there's any like fires to put out, you know, coming in from emails. You hopefully don't get those very often. But yeah. And then there's always the Slack channels. We have way too many Slack channels that just require attention. Yeah, I don't know.

Maybe something to optimize. something to think about. And then, yeah, do have, because a lot of the team members are here in Asia, so depending on the time of the day, you know, it's about those meetings and meeting with the core teams that work on these products. And, yeah, just making sure we are, you know, making progress towards what that next new thing is. Speaking of products, can you tell everyone what we just released? Yes, so this has been our cycle one launch that we've launched two new brand new cases, the H9 flow and the H3 flow. And we also have new sets of coolers that came out. And yeah, overall pretty exciting.

And then lastly, we have a C-750 bronze power supply. but yeah very not I would say it's not targeted for the US audience oh did we lose Ivan's voice sorry I was muted you mentioned cases first so I think we should start with the cases and we're going to start with the big boy

Mike can you roll the clip of the H9 flow I love the music whoever does the creative team that does these videos kind of 10 for them but I want to talk a little bit about the H9 since it is a refresh of the old H9 so Kevin if you can go into like the features and specs of the H9

I'll go and pull it up on our website right now so people can kind of look at it right yeah so overall the new H9 it's we've taken a lot of I would say inspiration from the H6 overall in a I guess the goal was to make performance

even better. There was a lot of learnings as we were building dual chamber cases throughout and the H9 being

the biggest case out of our and being the flagship we wanted to maximize its cooling potential and therefore enlarging it to be able to support

the biggest radiators that are sort of available on the market and we've also gone to launch a new brand new size out of our cracking lineup.

So, yeah, all of that really ties together. What would you say are the biggest differences between the old H9 and the new H9? Yeah, part of it is keeping up with the times. Like, BTF, hidden connector support, that's now available in the H9. But, you know, when we, we started doing the original H-9, it was all about taking dual chamber cases and introducing

that sort of wraparound glass. I think we were the first one to do it. And now every single case is sort of like going down this fish tank. But in that process, we've just learned that the placement of the fans just weren't very optimal. You know, the, if you have it in an intake orientation on the front, it would just be blowing, you know, air into the glass and not really finding its way out. So, yeah, a lot of the learnings from that point that led to the H6, making it a portable, you know, dual chamber case, and, yeah, bringing those elements over now to the H9.

I'm glad you mentioned the H6 because when the H6 launched from day one, people have been asking us on social media. You guys, are you guys ever going to make a bigger H6? Or can you make the H9 look? People have actually asked us to make the H9 look like the H6. But can you, can you like elaborate what the differences are between the H6 and the new H9? Because they're actually, even though they look similar. their spec very differently. Yeah, I would say because the H6 was very specific in targeting,

reaching a price point that was just much more affordable, there was a lot more, I would say, we couldn't do, such as adding additional filters, radiator would just be limited to the top. top, but it was very focused, right? The H-6 does its job very well. The H-9, however, because it's our flagship, it is, you know, more dollars could be,

I guess, put into places where maybe a little bit more pieces of steel could be utilized to simplify ease of insulation, the SSD door on a hinge that we've been, that we've introduced in the, the original H-9 we kept. So, yeah, those little elements that allow for us to, I guess, put features into a product that is, I guess, slightly more in terms of the price point. Yeah, and you kind of touched on it.

So with the H-6, you kind of had like this angled fan, but you talked about the dual chamber design and it looks like the H-9 also has that. So what's like the benefits of a dual chamber design? And do you want to explain what it actually is for those that have no idea what a dual chamber is? Yeah, the dual chamber design was originally, you know, inspired from the guys over at the N. Lee working on their O-11 cases. And what that allowed for previously, well, all dual chamber designs sort of carry this,

which is open access to an opening along the floor. Traditional layouts, you generally have a PSU shroud along the bottom, and therefore you can't really get fresh air intake from the bottom. And therefore, dual chamber puts that power supply on the back of the case, and therefore it's sort of in its own separate chamber. And what it was meant to do is allow for fresh air intake along the bottom to reach the GPU. And overall, you know, that primary chamber is sort of GPU focused on, I guess it's cooling. And so, yeah, dual chamber with the H9 and the H6, those are sort of its key.

benefits. And a lot of this case is about performance. I know back we had our old H9, we had an H9 Elite and an H9 flow, and now we were sticking with just an H9 flow

with a perforated panel on top. What made us go with only the flow version? Yeah. I would say yeah, the focus that's been at

NST sort of ever since while we've gotten the negativity around NSC just creates hot boxes and sacrificing who said that tell me their name right now, Kevin

and I guess and I guess we don't want to ever give up on performance in terms of the products that we make. We think performance is really the key metric that our customers look for, and of course, great aesthetics to match.

So when we had the elite line with the H9, what we were giving up was significant, I would say, cooling performance because the top then only has this tiny sliver for the internal air to be exhaust from the top. But yeah, definitely created a unique look. But this time around with the H9, we want to keep it simple. Performance will be great all around throughout the entire H9 series.

But I don't know, maybe if we get some, I guess, responses that this is what customers are looking for. We'll definitely do deeper dives. Well, speaking of customers, how do you, how do you take the feedback from our community? And how does it actually influence you guys when you're working on these products? Yeah, I mean, we scour the web for just anything related to not only our products, but also, you know, competing products. But, yeah, it really is. finding and matching sort of what

customers are looking for what the community is asking for and hopefully making a product I guess with all of these feedback in nowadays

it could be a little bit simpler with I guess AI being able to scrape a lot more information in a much quicker you know I guess fashion.

Yeah, but either way, I'd still very like going into the details, looking at specific, you know, I guess comments and that have been shared. So, yeah. And for this case in particular, how did you balance a form and function with designing this thing? Because, you know, like Mike was saying earlier, you guys decide, and I see you guys, that in the product team, the product team decided, you know what, we're just going to go with the flow, pitch the elite, but how do you balance form and function? Because you still, you want to still make it look as nice as possible, right, while it performs. So how do you, how do you balance that?

Yeah, I'd say for this flagship line, we definitely did focus very much on the performance. and in terms of the form that follows the function, we've really looked at, you know, what are some of the, I would say, really key, you know, aesthetic aesthetics that we've introduced with the latest cases, like following up on the H7 and the H5 and making. making sure that the family sort of all ties together and one big happy family. La Familia. What would you say was your greatest challenge you experienced while working on this case?

I'd say one of the challenges that my team had to were we encountered was enabling like hidden connector support because it requires you know, pretty big punch out. And the way we sort of have that angled fan in, and we've also made it a requirement that, hey, now the front right, you can install radiator, you know, that whole angle and how that curves over to the, where the motherboard sits, there's, you know,

we had to make sure that the areas of the country, cutouts are big enough for the requirements from, you know, ASUS and MSI and, you know, whoever else makes the back connect. So, yeah, that piece was, you know, definitely a challenge to bring up. And, yes, that would have been much easier if we just made those motherboards ourselves, right, Kevin? Just saying, a million-dollar idea, man. Yep.

Well, okay, so I asked you, that was the most challenging, but what was the most, surprising thing you learned while developing this case? Yeah, we had to sort of design some of the things more unique in terms of how the panels kind of go together. Just due to like some of the space constraints and yeah. So what's different in the H9 on the front right with the fan mounts. Instead of being able to just pop it off and you know in the H6 it's not a separate radiator bracket and we want to make sure with those pieces and how it goes together that it's sort of still easy to go about and yeah overall the insulation what you can do

panel removals that it all feels well tied and that it's structurally very very sturdy and speaking of that like GPUs and people

basically GPs are getting bigger and bigger and bigger as times go out I mean if you remember 10 years ago we had like the GTX what like 670 or something like that and they were basically this thin and now these things are literal bricks.

So what size GPUs can fit in the H9? And then also, like, how many fans can fit in the case, too? Yeah, so in terms of GPU size, you could pretty much throw anything out there. I don't think there's any remotely close to, like, 410 millimeters in length. Assuming that it doesn't, yeah, sag all too much. hopefully. But yeah, essentially any GPU out there, you will be able to fit in this.

In terms of that length support, yeah, it's pretty much not hindered by anything. Even if you have front right radiator and fan insulation, it'll still support all the way up to that 410 line. and in terms of the support for sorry what was the second part of the question just fans and then like performance yeah so fans you'll be able to support a total of 10

now if you do push pull on top then you can add another three to that number so that's essentially what we did with the Competext builds that we had at the boots, we did a top mount 420, which was sandwiching the radiator up on top. So, yeah. On paper, it's 10 fan placements,

but if you decide to add more for pushbowl, it's adding another layer on top. And I know the reviews are rolling out now, but can you share any performance numbers with us? How does this thing stack up? Yeah, so in looking at raw performance numbers, it really was, you know, if we talk about, you know, a build with liquid cooling, which is generally what we aim after,

because, you know, that allows for the best performance out of, you know, any sort of build that you can put together with first-party products. So comparing ourselves to, like, the previous gen H-9, on the GPU side, it was a three-degree decrease in terms of GPU temps. And it's slightly better on the CPU. So overall, just having that natural airflow come through

and in and out of the case. It just, yeah, really helped the performance for the GPU. Crazy how this, like, little angle really changes up the performance of this case. Because it doesn't seem like, you know, the old H9, it was completely flat, and then in the H6 and now the H9 flow, it's angled. It's crazy how much of a difference the H9, or the angle really makes it. Do you have like an idea of like how people build in this? Like do people, should people use like air coolers for this?

Should people use liquid coolers or can you do any of that? Yeah. You know, we definitely, I would say optimize for liquid cooling. But in terms of, you know, just due to its size and its volume, you know, If you want to throw like a massive air cooler, you still can choose to do so. But yeah, I would say highly optimal for liquid cooling. You know, with our cracking lineup, it'll just match up really well in the case. And yeah.

So I was just going to ask, you know, there's all types of PC builders and PC gamers out there in the world. But who would you say is the ideal user for the H-N-A-flow? So I guess being a, you know, panoramic wraparound, glass, dual chamber case, it really is for, you know, people who want this thing, you know, sitting on their desk, they appreciate, you know, the biggest components,

best looking components that they could put into a PC build that's within their reach. And it could be content creators, it could be gamers who just love clean aesthetics. And they like that next to them, you know, right in their sort of desktop environment. So I would say it is for the builders, the enthusiasts. You know, if you are thinking about doing a custom loop, we do have a punchout up on top for a fill port. Yeah, it's those were things that we didn't really fully think about when we originally did the H9. And what we found was, yeah, so many people got the H9 and they were just met. massive announcement of people doing custom water loops in these.

So, yeah, for those enthusiasts, hopefully, you know, those are things that they're looking for. And I'm happy to hear more feedback. You know, what else are you looking for when you're going about doing these custom water loops? But, yeah, liquid cooling because of its sheer size, its cooling potential and space for radiator. And if the H9 is not for you, we also have another case, which I'm hiding right behind me. Little guy. It's so cute. The H3 flow.

It's the second micro-ATX case NZT has ever made, right? But before we get into it, Mike, can you roll the clip and show people a video? Re-vamped the micro-everyone's been asking for a micro-at-X case for so long. You don't know how many DMs I get of this. Yeah. That is true. It's interesting to me because I remember when we had the previous micro ATX, KC, the H-400, you know, one of the reasons we stopped making it, and we even said it's on the podcast,

so it's not a secret, is that, you know, the micro ATX market at that time, it was not that big, right? And I'm curious, what made you and your team decide, you know what, now is actually a great time to make a micro ATX case again? Yeah, I would say it didn't really, I guess, come to the team how we were just sort of a, we didn't really have a product that was able to address some of the, the, I would say, requirements. So I actually did a business trip out to Japan,

and one of our key customers there was just showing us, you know, the market status, like everything above, you know, $100, we would have sizable, you know, shares in. And then he showed me everything that was like sub-a-100. It's like, wow. you know, there's just so, so much more that, you know, people are looking for because, you know, in Japan, there are, they generally have more, I would say, smaller space in terms of what they can have at home. And, you know, they're always looking for something that doesn't take up as much space. and in terms of creating this micro ATX that fits a particular price segment that, you know,

is really creating a product that could allow us to sort of address the customers that, you know, are looking for something that is of that size and of something more, I was say, friendly. on the wallet. Yeah, so, and of course, taking that back and, and, you know, really working with some of the internal teams. And because we do build, you know, PCs, it really just, you know, makes sense for us to, you know, now do a microatX. Well, it's definitely friendly on the wallet.

You know, the H-9 series starts at 13999. and the H3 flow is $799, which is actually shocking to me. When I first saw that price, I thought it was a typo. I thought I was going to speak more than that. But what would you say are the main features and specs people should care about for the H3 flow? Yeah, so similarly, you know, across the whole lineup of cases, performance was sort of the key thing that we wanted to make sure. we nail. And, you know, a lot of the inspiration has been taken from the introduction of the H5 last

year, you know, making it into a more compact form factor and still manage to let it, you know, have 280 radiator support in the front. You know, in our testing 280 and 360 performs fairly similar. and the top also supports 240 radiator mounting as well. So in terms of performance and the flowiness of the entire case, along with the PSU shroud perforations that allow for fans to be mounted, for GPU intake, all of those, you know,

really allows for a compact case to also perform really well. So, yeah, we didn't give up any on sort of performance. Did you, so, you know, like we said, we had previous micro-ATX cases. Did you guys, like, take inspiration from them, or did you guys kind of just start from, start from scratch? No, I think the way we did the original, well, it was H-400. It wasn't, I would say, it was just sort of about downsizing the H-500 and also the H-700 and building a case that was for micro-ATX. The problem with that was, that's still like a $130 micro-ATX case, which is a, you know, just becomes a product that's sort of out of reach. and in general, micro-ATX case, I guess, motherboards,

they do come in on a more, I guess, budget side, and therefore you mix like a premium with a budget motherboard, you know, it doesn't really match all too well. So I would say that would probably be the key takeaway in the miss from the H-400. you know, just in thinking about overall, what are the components sort of going into some of these builds? What are the selections?

Yeah, this time around with the H3, it's really about, okay, although micro-ATX market is pretty much, I would say in our numbers that we size up, it's, I would say flat. Not entirely growing, for us it's about addressing a market that you know just hasn't been really looking at performance and for us to create a product that

allows for you to do builds have those performance that you would need and you know for any sort of any day modern build it's a great case to choose and if you especially if you have you know you want something more compact

than the H5. That's something to consider. I've always felt that micro ATX is like the most underrated form factor of all computer sizes. And the reason being is because most people actually get ATX, right? Like an ATX motherboard. But most people are not using the entire motherboard. They're only using one slot for their graphics card, right? And that's the beauty about the micro ATX is there's no wasted space, basically.

Like you use the entirety of the motherboard. And if you really want to save money too, I feel like there's a lot of great micro ATX motherboards out there nowadays. That wasn't always the case. You know, I think it kind of doesn't get the attention that ATX or mini ITs. X get, but people usually go really big or really small. No one ever really thinks, like, I wonder what's in the middle there. But, yeah, I think micro-atX, if people really think about it, it makes a lot of sense.

Yeah, I would say there's definitely still trade-offs, especially if you are considering, like, a chunky, you know, GPU. It only has four slots. In general, the motherboard, the first slot is sort of taken up. up by the MVME. So you're really only left with three. And if you're considering having fans to draw more air, that would probably be sort of the trade-off.

Yeah, so, however, though, they make really great GPUs right now in like two slots, especially the latest 50 series. Yeah, so. I would say overall, you know, builds, if you're looking for something more affordable, you know, components all around, you know, to what I even mentioned, good selection of products out there that allow you to complete that package. Do you, I know you talked about how the market itself was an issue because it's not like a growing market. Did you have any other challenges when making this case? Was it like balancing like the price or was it a certain part of the case that you're like, oh, this is going to be a lot tougher than we thought? Yeah, I mean, we really have to make significant tradeoffs with this case.

So we weren't able to, you know, put in the usual like Valpro type points on the backside. it's just due to trying to hit this, you know, specific price point. And, yeah, all around, it's what is sort of the bare minimum that we have to hit, but then what are some of the pieces that people care about, like, structurally, and, you know, we don't want to make a flimsy product. Yeah, this product feels really, really solid as you're handling it. So, yeah, those are kind of the things that, that we focused on the performance and, you know, sort of the quality behind the case.

How? Yeah, but a lot of tradeoffs, no. How did the community feedback play a role in the H3? Hmm. Yeah. I would say, to Ivan, your point earlier about, you know, when people saw the H5, you know, they, they wanted something smaller. I would say it was about taking a lot of those elements

and sort of shrinking it down and seeing and I would say looking at what are those sort of minimum requirements to hit and sort of going up from there to see what we can manage to put in. And we've also I guess punched holes for support for BTF

and you know so if that's what people are considering it does simplify some of the building experience here and there but yeah it doesn't have to be. What do you think you prioritize

more with H3? Was it form or function? well it's got a function to begin with end but yeah it's the look of the H3 very well resembles you know the the H5 the top we've actually gone to adopt the the top filter panel that we've used to have in the original H5 and yeah because we weren't able to introduce like more steel into the entire package. So, but I think, you know, the way we do color matching, even if you get a white, you know, the white is going to just still continue to look sort of flawless around.

You won't have those sort of slight color variances. So even if it's across different material, that's something we care highly about. clean aesthetics, you know, just throughout, it should feel like an NZXC case. So this is a much smaller case, obviously, compared to the H9, which is one of our biggest. With the ever, like I said, the ever increasing size of GPUs and parts itself, what size GPUs can fit in the case? Yeah, so we do support. you know, all the way up to 377, but ideally you do have a set of front fans.

So once you have front fans in there, it'll reduce that to about 352. But there are still very, very, I would say, high performance. Like a lot of 5090s fall within 352. some a little bit longer than that but yeah if you are thinking about putting a 5090 in a budget case you still can

yeah I want to see that and I know it says that you can also front mounted and you'll need it'll be even smaller do you recommend people to front or top mount if they have like

a liquid cooler Yeah, I would say today, a 240 top-mounted radiator would get the job done for most CPUs out there. I mean, unless you're looking at overclocking to like, I don't know, 6 gigahertz all around on like an ultra-9, yeah, that 240 might be, I guess, yeah, it might not be. yeah, it might not be able to handle that. So in that case, you might want to look for front-mounted radiators, 280. But for the most part, most builds, CPUs generally aren't the thing that requires the most amount of cooling. Then I guess front-mount fans and, you know, GPU that's up to 352 would be

It's yeah. And I'm showing the people off right now just so that they know We can do a 280 millimeter of front 240 top and you said you can put seven fans in the in the case Yeah, so if you do have You have the two 120 on the PSU shroud mounted That would be the additional two from the two on the front two on top and the one in the rear What are the performance numbers like in this case? So in looking at how it compares to some of the,

well, we compared it to, say, like, a cooler master, the master box, Q300, by far, even with, like, air coolers, our GPU temps were, like, much better by, you know, 3 degrees. and CPU by 9 degrees the way they were building those cases they weren't really air flowy

to say the least I would say some of that is I don't know just dated and maybe people they don't stress the importance of performance but yeah micro ATX

Now that there are smaller components to choose, I would say performance just needs to be elevated, and the H3 does just that. Earlier, you mentioned that the H9 was for someone who wanted, like, top of the line hardware, really wanted to maximize performance and things like that. Who would you say is the ideal user of the H3 flow? Yeah, I would say anyone who's thinking about

you know, getting into PC gaming. And, you know, they have a tight budget because they don't know what this space is going to, you know, be like. And if you are considering doing a build for a friend, and you need sort of a bare minimum case because they're not asking for too much. You know, the H3 is a compact case that, you know, does everything

I would say any sort of modern build would need. And at the same time, it looks quite clean, I would say. The proportions and the ratios that the team has sort of designed, I think it's well-rounded. And yeah, I would say those are sort of the target audience for this case. Thanks. Well, we didn't just release new cases. is we also announced some new coolers.

The Cracken Plus, that's the one that's new. The Cracken Elite 420, it's just a new size. It's the same elite, but bigger. But let's start with the Cracken Plus. So what are the main features and specs of the new Cracken Plus? Yeah, so last year when we introduced the Cracken Elite line, we introduced a brand new nzzyxc turbine pump. And the previous generation Cracken,

which was previously named, we were still on the former ASTEC base cooling solution. So it was about taking that NZXC turbine pump and then utilizing it for the Cracken lineup, and therefore we're calling it the Cracken Plus line now. And it still has the same 1.5 2 inch square display. We've definitely gone to simplify installation. So if you're considering running RGB, you no longer have this external

RGB controller that you would have to strap everything to. It now halves the single frame RGB fans that we introduced. And that just simplifies connections, simplifies, you know, insulation all around. You know, four screws is all you need to mount the fan onto the radiator. Yeah, overall, just a much better user experience, I would say. So that's the main difference between the Cracken and the Cracken Plus,

but can you elaborate on what the differences are between the Cracken Plus and the Cracken Elite? Yeah, so the Cracken Elite will still continue to be our flagship. That is, you know, has a 2.72 or 74 inch display. You know, IPS, really nicely sort of backlit. And that is going to, yeah, full screen. That's going to handle, you know, so much more if you are thinking about throwing, you know, sort of customization onto that LCD. Also, it has like an additional ring.

of RGB around the LCD. But yeah, the Crackham Plus really is about bringing display to a more affordable price tier. So some of the animation and features, customizations would be more limited in that sense. Yeah, so those are sort of the key differences. Performance-wise, you'll find them to be really similar. across the various sizes.

And, yeah, if you're looking for, you know, high customization, animation, cracking beat is probably the one you will want to choose. But if you're just looking for, you know, great cooling, simple customizations, the Crackin Plus. And I guess we'll talk about that. What can you customize on this cooler? So the Crackin Plus, you can put, well, any of the cam infographics, you can support, you know,

drift handling. The bit rate might be a little bit slower, but you could put images on there. Yeah, so that would probably be the limitations for the Crack and Plus. But, yeah, the software team continues. to refine and look for ways to better optimize and utilize the hardware. So given the limitation of some of the, maybe the chip and the display, they're always looking at how to squeeze every last bit out of each of these. yeah it's like

I don't know if you guys remember like the PlayStation 4 or maybe it was a PlayStation 3 like new titles AAA titles were still getting introduced and you know they were maximizing what what the capabilities are of the hardware

you know similarly internally we you know that's something we try to do as well so new features from CAM you know it's constantly being worked on so I just got a flashback to my PlayStation humming.

The thing was zooming sometimes. Like a plane to eat off. Yeah. Yeah, man. These little hot boxes for sure. When you guys were working on the Crackham Plus,

were there any specific pain points from the previous generation of the Crackin that you just said, you know what? We're going to address these head on. We're going to make sure that we take care of it this time around. I think more on

just making sure that the cooling performance is hitting the marks because of the size of the cap and the differences within that the team we had to work closely with our

player to see that we're hitting those targets so yeah those are sort of the challenges that come with you know, any sort of deviation or changes that, you know, happen for sort of any product. But yeah, it's about, you know, how do we make sure that we are, you know, setting that benchmark and hitting those and making sure that we're launching a product that's, you know, going to be better, just overall.

Well, speaking of launching a product that's going to be better, we also released our biggest and baddest crackin of all time. The Crackin Elite 420, the big boy. The head honcho. It's huge, man. When you see it in real life,

you're just like, how is this thing real? It's ridiculously large. I think the pump, too, just makes the newer, bigger pump, but also kind of just adds to the whole aesthetic.

I love it. It's crazy that 420 is now like the next step into cases because you know back then uh getting a 360 millimeter cooler you're like wow that's a big now we're getting even more bigger and bigger as it keeps going on it's crazy yeah yeah we say 420 it's been around um but um never really been a size that um i guess reached mainstream adoption um just due to its size and due to its um

availability. Yeah, I mean, 3-140 fans, that's actually a good amount of real estate that you would need out of any case. So if we've launched the H7 last year that would support 420 in the front and

we've been working on this size for some time just due to also creating a single frame that is 420 you know, you still want it to be rigid and, you know, it's not going to, like, bend out of shape. Structurally sturdy, you know, that's very key for, you know, sort of any fan development because, you know, these blades are spinning at pretty high RPMs and you don't want any sort of warp happening. So, yeah, getting to 420 size, it's not just about, you know, taking a design and enlarging it.

you got to make sure everything is sort of sound structurally all around. There have been... Yeah, sorry? No, I'm sorry. Go ahead. Finish your thought. Yeah, there have been, you know, other, I would say, explorations to go for, like, maybe even thicker. We see some, you know, other competitors that have gone for thicker radiators, but, you know, you would have to introduce an even more powerful fan that is thicker.

that can have high static pressure to kind of move air through. So our approach is more, this is now a bigger radiator throughout. You get more, I guess, surface area to kind of go work through. Speaking of working through, what would you say are the main features and specs people should care about with this new Cracking Elite 420? Yeah, I think it's fairly straightforward.

is just about an enlarged radiator size accommodating, you know, three larger fans than the 360. And, but otherwise, you know, expect the same, you know, ease of installation. You know, the breakout cable is still, you know, attached to the radiator. That takes away all the cable mess, you know, around the CPU. And, yeah, it's a... bigger size, better performance. And yeah, if that's, if your case can fit in it, if you're considering the new H9, you know,

the 420 is the size to choose because it just rounds everything up. Well, I'm glad you mentioned performance because that was my next question. I want to know how the performance of a 420 or our Crack and Elite 420 compares to the others, the Cracken Elite 360, the Cracking Elite 280, cracking only 240 what what kind of performance gains can customers expect with this cracking yeah I mean so a lot of the performance numbers won't really show until you're really pushing like to the edge like overclocking to make sure you're sustaining like really high wattage

And yeah, so we're definitely seeing, you know, good performance updates to compare even within. So it's maybe minor, you know, by one to two degrees if you, you know, consider it. But then overall in terms of like, if you put it into relative perspective, it's actually, you know, quite significant, I would say. Yeah. But, yeah, if you're really pushing, like, the edge, you really, you know, you really, you know, know, overclocking and fine-tuning, you know, your over-clocks to specific, you know, over, I would say, TDP sort of thresholds. Yeah.

Fliskin is asking in the chat, do you giggle every time you say Cracket 420? You know. Why is that number so funny, Kevin? I don't know. Like, I think, you know, I think you were the. one that mentioned to me, hey, if there was a missed opportunity, we should have launched on April 20th. That would have been good, a month ago. But yeah, we just kind of get the product, yeah, out and ready in time.

But, yeah. Well, we launched on 520, so a month too late. We should have waited 69 days after 420. It would have been perfect. All right. So earlier you said this fits in the H9. Are there any other NZXT cases that the Cracken Elite 420 would fit inside? Yeah, so the other would be the H7 in the front.

I think it provides a pretty well-rounded look because now the front is just fully filled out with 420 fans. We did launch the 420 fans slightly ahead of the Cracking Elite. But yeah, now you can't sort of complete that performance. in the H7 as well. So yeah, definitely something to consider if you are looking to building the H7. And when you guys were working, I keep saying you guys, but when you and the product team,

because there's also gals on that team, when you and your team were working on the Crack and League 420, was there anything surprising that you learned about coolers of this size? Um, no, I think it was, it has been pretty straightforward. Um, structurally, I don't know if, um, you know, the, the team encountered too much of challenge. I mean, they had to make sure the plastic pieces and everything that, um, were, you know, going into it was going to be okay. I mean, we had, um, you know, smaller sizes to work with. Also 140 variations due to us having 280. So, yeah, there weren't too significant, I guess, challenges. But yeah, just making sure that all of these pieces put piece together is still going to be rigid. All right, I want you to follow along with me, Kevin. Let's say I'm a brand new PC builder.

My name is Laurent. I have no idea what I'm doing, which products I should choose. I decide, you know what, I'm going to get a Cracken. How do I choose between a Cracken Elite or a Cracken Plus? What do I do to make on my mind here? Yeah, it depends. If you're looking for RGB, we do have, you know, variants of that throughout. And, you know, if you're just looking for, you know, quick, simple, you know, simple customizations,

the Cracken Plus would, you know, it would serve any build today. And then if you're considering, you know, building in a much bigger case, the Cracking Elite is going to be the one that has that extensive lineup. The 420 size, you know, maximized for, you know, performance and also, you know, looks all around. there you go laurent now you know exactly which cracking to get and with that it is now time for my favorite part of the show where mike is going to ask you some really dumb questions before we wrap it out kevin all right mike a little early in the morning for me so i this is yeah i will try for those that don't know kevin is the tie walk right now so it's a little early on

that weekend for that we want to say thank you for waking up early on your day off to help us out. But we'll get through the rapid fire as quick as we can. We just got some dumb questions that I have lined up. So one, simply easy, you know, what games are you playing right now? Hmm. What have I been playing? So we had a, so at our suite, we had a co-op with, with Nvidia G-Force. And the game that they, I guess, asked us to put.

put on there to demo the latest 5090s was Blacksmith U-Kong. And, you know, I've dabbled in Eldron Ring, didn't really play Dark Souls. But, you know, that's been what I've been, I guess, playing on the downtime when we didn't really have too many guests over at our suite. So I managed to get to, I guess, I forgot what the boss was called, but it was like a massive black bear that hits like a truck yeah so

black myth Yukong What would your last meal be? Hmm I don't know Maybe some hearty

Taiwanese dish You know minced pork over rice Good The correct answer Was a guava Kevin I'm sorry Oh yeah

Mm. Refreshing. What goes first, the milk or the cereal? Cereal for me. I'm going to be a little weird. I like doing the milk first and then to cereal because I don't like eating cereal that doesn't have milk on it.

You put the milk first and they put it. You just keep refilling it. That's just... So that's the thing, right? What if you... ran out of cereal. Like, you already poured a bowl of milk, and then you only have enough cereal to, like,

you know, get to, like, a third or... Oh, you just keep going. Take the milk? Yeah, you just, you know, if you run out, if you run out of milk, you just, like, eat it, be done with it, but if you run out of cereal, you just keep your filling it. I think you should always pour the milk first

before to cereal. If you ran out of cereal? Yeah. Oh, yeah, I mean, if you run out of cereal, you just drink it. I eat cereal that has that you can drink the milk after. Like, cinnamon toast crunch, you can eat it after. It's delicious. See, I always, like, pour in just enough milk to get that right balance.

Yeah, I agree with you, Kevin. Mike Bikes the weird one here. Favorite place you visited or vacationed at? Favorite place? I would say Japan. I've always enjoyed going to do. Japan for well I mainly been going for two seasons which is the summer and the winter so for winter I do snowboard so yeah it's a great destination for food for you know the

culture the snowboarding window or I'll see I always forget snows there who um window yeah Let's see. Oh, okay. I got some, I got some phone once. All right. If you could dispense five liquids from your finger,

each of the fingers, what would the liquids be? And it could be any liquid. You know, you can have like lava as one. You can do milk as one. You can do any five. So what would your five be?

Water. Um. It was a trick question because there's only four fingers on your hand, Kevin. I hate, I hate it. Stop. All right, water. What else?

Tea. Tea. Coca-Cola. Okay. Is it all you drink? Yeah. Coffee. All right.

We got four. Water. These are the four things I drink. Coca-Cola, coffee. And what would the fifth one be? The thumb is a special one. I honestly don't. Don't.

Maybe beer. on occasion I think the number one thing that once you realize you're like oh I wish I didn't is gasoline you put gasoline on one of the fingers because then you can fill up your car and can also use a defense mechanism too

I guess if you drive electric would be yeah if you drive electric then to be in yeah if it's beer I just imagine Kevin walking around Japan sucking on his thumb yeah you're doing with the pinky you gotta be a little classy

let's see all right for an entire year you have to be able to tell a truth and if you do that you get $50 million

but if you fail you owe $1 million would you take the deal uh oh I think we lost them I think Discord may be stuck okay so it's not my connection I think it made me Discord

uh oh okay so it's not it's not OBS. It's Discord. I think Discord may have gone down. Hey, at least they look happy. You're right. Oh, hello? Oh, there they are. I hear you guys. There you go. All right. Okay. Very good. We're good. Okay. Yeah.

I was like, I was like, is it my side? I think it's just Discord having issues right now. Okay. All right. Before this ends up. So, entire entire year, $50 million, you have to tell the truth. But if you fail, you lose a million dollars. Would you do it?

Wait, wait, wait, wait, what? If... Tell the truth for entire year, you get a 50 million. But if you fail, you owe 1 million. Would you do it? Entire year, if I do what... I have to tell the truth.

Can never lie. I'd do it. I'm an honest person. You'd liar. You wouldn't do that. Would you do that, Ivan? Not lie for a whole year? I don't think I could, man.

I have to like, yeah, I have a three-year-old. Yeah, I have a three-year-old now. Yeah, that's what I was wondering, because I was like, you guys got kids, so those kids are going to ask some really stupid or really bad questions, and you're just like, uh,

I got out the truth. Yeah, no, I take that back. Yeah. Could you go an entire year without measuring a table? No, I can't do that. Wait, measuring a table. What do you mean by that? There's a meme going on.

It's like you get $500 billion, but you can't measure the slope of your sidewalk for three days. Can you do it? If people go, nope, can't do it. Sorry. It's the stupidest meme of all time. All right. And now the most important question of all time. Do you think 100 men or one silverback gorilla, adult silverback gorilla?

No weapons, nothing, but. Ooh, no weapons. Mm-mm. Who would a weapon? Uh-oh. I think he froze again. Discord, you can't be doing this right now. I mean, it looks like I'm fine on my side, right?

So, uh-oh. Oh, yikes. Uh-oh. Let me try to figure this out. Oh, reconnected. Hello? Okay, we're good now. There you are.

All right. So the internet's not holding up well again. So we'll add this quick. So 100 men or what silverback gorilla? It will go to announcements. Yeah. So I think you were about to show me an image. I asked Mike to put up a picture of a little bit of a gorilla.

It's terrifying. Like, do you imagine? The reason why I don't think 100 men could be one of these things is because, like, Someone has to go first, right? Like, let's say it's those three versus, like, who's going to go first? Because whoever goes first is going to get destroyed, right? Yeah.

And I feel like the second guy's going to see that is like, I'm not going to go in there. I'm not going to get my, you know, arms ripped off by this monster. And then I think people would just be scared to, like, want to fight this gorilla. And those that do choose to fight, there's just no way. I don't see it happening. Dude, I have this picture. It's raw strength of a gorilla is 4,000 pounds. This is a human, which is 300.

It's insane. I think it might be, is it the strongest animal on the planet? No, I think it's got to be like polar bear or something like that or like a hippo or something crazy. Yeah. Yeah. Let's find out. I was just thinking like, you know, back in, I don't know, maybe the,

the caveman days when men were stronger. Yeah. When men were men. Men, men. Yeah, I don't think a hundred men could do it. But if it was like 100, if it was 100 average men, I'd be like no. But if you chose like the strongest guy,

like the football, the boxers, the Emmett, then yeah, I think that's that's doable. Here's the last question I will ask. Can the three of us, beat up like a wild goat. Oh, God. How bigger wild goats? How big are mountain goats?

Oh, okay. Ooh, I don't sure. They can weigh up to 300 pounds. They weigh up to 300 pounds and they're four and a half feet tall. Oh, I don't know. Farm goats. But then if you're pulling up mountain goats. Yeah, that's what I'm thinking, like a mountain goat.

Yeah, I don't think we could No, I don't think I could Oh my God, hold out to show the photo The Go, I see Look at this thing Yeah, there's no way We're fighting this thing Oh my God

Yeah, no, they're not Stick is massive Look at this thing Yeah, there's no way Zero chance we're gonna I think Ivan goes and cocky Gets folded And Mike loses all fighting serious, starts backing away, only realize that Kevin has already loved.

I agree. Yeah. I would probably just run. I'd run. Those swords, man. I mean, good luck getting away from that. Yeah. Like, I would run and then I don't even have to be faster than the goat.

I just had to be faster than you guys. Let the, let you guys worry about the goat. All righty. I think that is it on the, um, announcements. I'll hopefully wrap this up quickly before the stream ends again. But let me go through announcements real quick. We have a Memorial Day sale going on right now. You can save up to $300 off N60 PCs and more. You can do Asperation Point Memorial in chat or if you're listening to this, go to n6.com. We are a Dreamhack in Dallas right now. So if you're in the area,

visit our booth and join in for a very special giveaway specifically for those at Dreamhack. been out for that. We and as Kevin here has talked about, we launched our new micro ATX H3 Flow, our newly updated H9 Flow, a Crackin Elite 420, a line of Cracken Plus coolers available in 240, 280, and 360 millimeters. So you can take a look at nzxti.com or escalation point new stuff in chat. And we are giving away so much stuff on our club. I was worked hard on this

Super dope Go to nzacc.co slash club And you can join the club for exclusive giveaways You earn poochie points You can see right there You see from HarborQuest Some person just got some poochie points

Boom you go ahead And put that into our monthly giveaways That we give away so much stuff Before I give the secret code Kevin do you have anything you want to say Yeah I mean If you are picking up these products happy to hear feedback.

So yeah, let us know what you guys think. And yeah, definitely reach out. Ivan, do you have anything before I give them the special code? I just want to thank Kevin once again for joining us on a bright and early Taiwan Saturday morning. Kevin, we really appreciate you taking the time. We know you didn't have to do this. So thank you. We really do appreciate you.

no thanks for having me all righty guys uh so thank you guys for joining us uh like we said we're doing you guys are first in line for the exclusive giveaway for an h3 flow h9 flow a crackin plus and a crack in a league 420 uh go ahead and make sure do all of the specific things in there i think we even have like a submit cell depth one uh but the most important one for you guys here for joining us live is the secret code that gives you 500 extra entries. That's where we're saying thank you for joining us live. Thank you Kevin for doing us live early in Taiwan right now. So let me go ahead and give the special code. The special code for 500 extra entries is blow and steady. Blow and steady is the secret code for 500 extra entries.

Thank you, Ivan. And thank you guys for joining us live. And remember tune in on Fridays on the official nccc twitch and don't forget to listen to previous episodes on apple podcast spotify and sound cloud you got any questions for us send an email to podcast at nzc.com or tag at nccc on social media platforms thank you kevin for joining us and everyone that is in the u.s have a safe memorial please stay safe and we'll see you guys soon not the knocking