Final words and conclusion

Final words and conclusion

It seems that whatever Corsair does with their products, it turns into gold. Admittedly the one thing you might not like about the chassis is the actual style, it's as subjective as anyone can be as that is a matter of taste. I'm in-between everything and think the chassis looks okay, but am not a big fan of the rounded bezel though.

However for 99 bucks you do get a serious chassis that does not forfeit a lot, in fact labeling it mid-range or mainstream doesn't even do it justice. The work space inside is great with easy access to pretty much anything and with 8 expansions lots there is plenty room for multiple graphics cards that are lengthy. Everything can be installed tool free and the new retention 3.5" HDD clips work a lot better then the previous models have shown.

Though being mainstream you do get an all black interior for the cool looks, the CPU back plate cutout for easy installation/replacement of CPU-coolers and overall features that belong in the enthusiast segment. We spot two USB 3.0 connectors at the front side, noticed plenty of grommet holes for cable routing, then there is a real good amount of room behind the motherboard for extensive cable management and then there are the dual 120mm  radiator  or fan mounts at the top. Corsair even includes lengthy screws to mount the radiator. And other simple stuff, if your motherboard is not yet equipped with the internal USB 3.0 connector block, then a small block to USB 3./0 connecter gender changer has been included.

As always it's all about details with Corsair and that makes this a grand chassis. You'll have plenty of airflow as the chassis has meshes everywhere, ehm let's see .. the one thing we missed out on was dust protection at the mesh side panel. So it would have been nice to see dust protection there. The PSU and front intake do have removable dust filters that you can clean out. That's it really, oh and perhaps the firewire could have been replaced with USB 2.0 or eSATA ports.

It's really the only remark I can think of.

Other then that, great design, pretty okay quality and a very nice feature set for a sub 100 USD chassis. As such we can recommend the Carbide as a true good value chassis.

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