Corsair Carbide Air 540

[GoogalyMoogaly]

Ive spent a fair bit of time on it and as ever its not perfect.

Is there a case that is?

CaseLabs cases do look nice, but they're very expensive and from what I've seen they lack the finishing touches of mainstream cases. Plus everything seems to be extra, which is annoying considering how much you pay for the case upfront (I was looking at getting a STH10 for a while, but £700 for a case that wouldn't really fit on or under a desk seemed a bit silly.

The Corsair 540 may not be prefect but it's also relatively cheap for a case of it's spec these days. What other case can work so well as air or watercooled? (Switch 810?) Which other case can fit a triple and double rad with no modding in this price range? (Switch 810)
And lets fact is while the chassis of the 810 seems decent, the cheap looking plastic NZXT surround it it is a ****ing eyesore.

I'm hoping to get one of these soon to replace my HAF 932 which is a bit like the Switch 810 except in my opinion the plastic doesn't look as bad.

Hopefully I'll be building a new Haswell setup in a 540, if I can ever choose a motherboard...

 

[PeeGee]

Any word on when we'll see a full review on this case ?

 

[Greenback]

Tom's ill at the moment so can't see it being this week

 

[GoogalyMoogaly]

I know Tom's been ill and so is probably behind with everything, but as this case has been out a while now, what do the people that own it think of it?

Personally I think it's fairly average.

• I dislike the way you have to remove 2 thumbscrews and 2 'panels' to be able to clean the front dust filter.
• I dislike that the optical drive bays actually prevent you from using the top grommets for any sizable cables (fan cables etc. seem fine).
• I don't think it's particularly easy to cable manage the back compartment. Sure it's easy to throw all the cables in there, but in this case it's a section of the case rather than just being a gap behind the motherboard tray. Keeping the motherboard side neat and the other side messy seems like doing half a job and making excuses.
• I found PSU mounting a bit fiddly, especially the screw in front support and the hot-swap drive connectors.
• I think the SSD assembly could be improved. Just pushing and pulling them apart seems like it could lead to things breaking or becoming loose after repeated use.
• The optical drives seem the wrong way up to me, I'd have rotated them 180º (not sure why though).
• I feel it could've been a little bigger in each dimension.
• I realise it's called the AIR, but WCing seems a little awkward. Can't quite get a 60mm rad + fans in the top, a 60mm rad + fans in the front starts to block off grommets. Also, not really an easy place to mount a pump, drive bays don't seem ideal and there's not a lot of floor space for a pump or anywhere to fit a tube res.
• Getting positive air pressure seems awkward. Taking the front as intake and top/rear as exhaust (due to no dust filters) you can have 3x120mm (or 2x140mm) intake and 3x140mm exhaust.

EDIT:
Oh, and...

• Not enough front-panel USB connectors
• Front-panel USB3 connector could be longer!

 

[Rory.Will]

I haven't seen this case in the flesh yet but I like it from what I've seen so far. Love the idea of putting all your "mess" out the back and fully showcasing the Motherboard and Cards etc. Cable management seems good.

I think it's a perfect case but with some small, really annoying issues...
The lack of 3.5" drive bay mounts in the back is crazy, all that room too.
There are mounts in the motherboard section but they look stuck in and out of place, plus there's a gaping hole underneath them?? Would have been nice to have seen a blanking panel at least for this.
Also it would have been good to see a hot swap bay of some sort?

You can mod these things easily but for me it feels like they had the perfect case design then decided to bugger it up.