Icekube
New member
I decided to take the plunge and buy this case because I was sick to death of my Haf X, having to take out the whole motherboard to get anywhere near the cpu cooler back plate because the cut out is far too small, and I could only do that once I'd won the battle to removed the motherboard from the rubbish screw mounting points, which seem to not like letting go of the screws and require a pair of pliers to grip on the back side and the screw driver on the other
now that wasn't every screw, just 1 or 2 but it was a pain in the @rse none the less.
Anyways on to the 650D
First off, the aim of my new build was to provide a good amount of airflow to all components whilst making as little noise as possible, which can be a hard enough balance to find. And yes I do realise I should have changed my H70 for an NH-D14, but I just can't stand the look if even though I know it's a superior cooler, and I do plan on going water cooling in the near future, so it wasn't worth changing coolers.
The first thing that struck me was just how good this case looks, the brushed aluminium Fascia and the nicely hidden front i/o and the side window. But one of the most impressive things for me was the attention to small detail by Corsair, at every screw mounting point that had preinstalled rubber dampers, and provided extras in the accessories. Now this may not seem like much, but when your trying to keep your system as quiet as possible, it's little things like this that make your job just that little bit easier
The 1st thing I set about doing was to replace the 2 x 200mm fans, now a note of caution...Corsair don't use industry standard fans, they are 20mm thick as apposed to 25mm - 30mm, so right away your limited to your choice of replacement fans.
So in the front I went for a Xigmatek XLF-F2004 200mm fan, mainly because it's quiet and shifts a fair amount of air, the white led's were a nice touch but I wasn't specifically looking for a fan with led's (800 RPM, 76.0 CFM and <18 dBA). It was also a nice surprise to find it came with rubber mounts like most Noctua fans
Then onto the top exhaust fan, whilst toying with the idea of going water cooling, I've decided to hold off for now, so I went with 2 x Noctua NF-P14's, as I obviously want to shift the most amount of air possible without making too much noise, and these certainly fit the bill. Again I was able to use Corsair's rubber dampers with the Noctua mounting plugs, and as you might notice I broke the head off one of the plugs
so I have it roughly mounted until my replacement arrives later this week.
Here's the view from the cable mamangement side, note the hugh cpu back plate cut out and mass of grommets
So once I had the fans replaced it was time to mount the hardware, and I have to say it was a breeze installing all my components into this case, it is smaller than a Haf X, but the room seems to be in all the right places if that makes sense. I won't bother going into detail on how I installed everything, as we all know how it's done. The one thing I really liked was that there was a hole cut at the top of the rear of the case, now whether it was with routing usb 3 cables to your rear i/o in mind I don't know, but that's what I've used it for
Here's a few pics of the finished rig and please excuse the mess of my desk
I used the uv's purely because I had them lying around, I may take them out as I'm not quite sure atm.
Anyways on to the 650D
First off, the aim of my new build was to provide a good amount of airflow to all components whilst making as little noise as possible, which can be a hard enough balance to find. And yes I do realise I should have changed my H70 for an NH-D14, but I just can't stand the look if even though I know it's a superior cooler, and I do plan on going water cooling in the near future, so it wasn't worth changing coolers.
The first thing that struck me was just how good this case looks, the brushed aluminium Fascia and the nicely hidden front i/o and the side window. But one of the most impressive things for me was the attention to small detail by Corsair, at every screw mounting point that had preinstalled rubber dampers, and provided extras in the accessories. Now this may not seem like much, but when your trying to keep your system as quiet as possible, it's little things like this that make your job just that little bit easier
The 1st thing I set about doing was to replace the 2 x 200mm fans, now a note of caution...Corsair don't use industry standard fans, they are 20mm thick as apposed to 25mm - 30mm, so right away your limited to your choice of replacement fans.
So in the front I went for a Xigmatek XLF-F2004 200mm fan, mainly because it's quiet and shifts a fair amount of air, the white led's were a nice touch but I wasn't specifically looking for a fan with led's (800 RPM, 76.0 CFM and <18 dBA). It was also a nice surprise to find it came with rubber mounts like most Noctua fans
Then onto the top exhaust fan, whilst toying with the idea of going water cooling, I've decided to hold off for now, so I went with 2 x Noctua NF-P14's, as I obviously want to shift the most amount of air possible without making too much noise, and these certainly fit the bill. Again I was able to use Corsair's rubber dampers with the Noctua mounting plugs, and as you might notice I broke the head off one of the plugs
Here's the view from the cable mamangement side, note the hugh cpu back plate cut out and mass of grommets
So once I had the fans replaced it was time to mount the hardware, and I have to say it was a breeze installing all my components into this case, it is smaller than a Haf X, but the room seems to be in all the right places if that makes sense. I won't bother going into detail on how I installed everything, as we all know how it's done. The one thing I really liked was that there was a hole cut at the top of the rear of the case, now whether it was with routing usb 3 cables to your rear i/o in mind I don't know, but that's what I've used it for
Here's a few pics of the finished rig and please excuse the mess of my desk
