Review
- Introduction
- Packaging and Specification
- External Impressions
- Internal Impressions Part 1
- Internal Impressions Part 2
- Installation Experience
- Conclusion
I’ve observed in previous cases from Corsair have mount holes for 2x fans on the HDD bays from the inside. This is the first time I am seeing case fans mounted by default from the inside rather than its usual position. I am curious to see if this kind of a setup can keep the hard drives cooled, even with ALL the HDD slots being occupied, especially drive like Velociraptor.
As said on the previous page, The handle is riveted on the case but there’s no support between both the handles. A steel case becomes pretty heavy once you mount a system with a cooler, graphic card (or more than 1) and other add-on cards, storage,optical drives and the power supply. Corsair didn’t put the official net/gross weight of the case but those who have put gaming rigs together will know that cross 6-10 KGs depending on the hardware. With such expensive hardware mounted inside the case, carrying mid size cases the usual way is more re-assuring.
But to be fair its clearly not going to be feasible to install a CM Trooper-like handle on a case that is worth 140USD. You might use the handles if you’re moving around very short distances , but other than that the handle is just blend in and support the military design.
This isn’t the first time we have such handles in cases. Few years ago, there was Coolermaster AMMO 533. Difference is back then coolers with single 120mm fans, 8800GTX and the 65nm Core2Quads- maybe bit older than that. Now we have longer dual slot cards with dual fans, dual 120/140mm air cooling, closed loop water cooling unit with dual 120mm radiators. The handle should have been made accordingly. Many gamers do not like to spend a lot of money on cases unless its absolutely necessary. A good/strong handle would have been great to see.
There is a 120mm fan for the rear provided as said above with 8 PCIe slots. ATX motherboards are with 7 slots. The 8th slot will be useful if you want to use any accessory PCIe bracket like fan controllers or USB ports PCIE bracket. As expected from Corsair, all slots are vented.
From the left sidepanel view: The 5.25" drives can be secured via pins as shown above, whereas on the other side the drive simply clips on.
There are 2 ways to re-route the cable from here- one through the 5.25" bay via the right sidepanel section and second is through right side of the case and another is the hole highlighted in green above. There’s also a support bar for the wires or any other cable.
You can install 140/120mm fans and as you can see from the picture above, there’s a lot of space between the 5.25" drive and the fans.
300/400/500R does have mount holes to install the front fans from within the case, however the longer screws to mount fans were missing. 300R came with all the required screws- so does Corsair C70 with 8 spare screws, should you decide to mount 2 more fans from the front panel side.
The front panel connectors and buttons are in a plastic enclosure. They haven’t used the header+ PCB as they did on 400R/500R but..
Pieces of wire’s insulation jacket seem to be shredded and as you can see minor portion of the plastic is melted. Do not misunderstand- the wire is properly soldered to the USB port, but I wish the USB 3.0’s soldering was more “cleaner” .
There’s no cut-out on the underbelly of the front panel to pull it out of the case, but it has 3 push clips on both sides of the panel and its easy to push them out unlike in certain type of cases with plastic counterpart- but it also secures the front panel nicely so its not a big deal. There are push clips to remove the front panel’s mesh filter within the panel. I don’t talk much about the 5.25" bays if you read my reviews on a regular basis- but the clips for the bezel is reasonably good- the bay panel is also metal.
Both the sidepanels have a recessed design. The right sidepanel lets you install 2x 140/120mm fan.
The transparent panel is very nicely installed on the sidepanel’s frame. The sidepanel clips are also properly secured as well.
