Corsair Obsidian 350D mATX Gaming Case Unboxing & Overview
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2014-05-07
·
2,968 words · ~14 min read
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This video is brought to you by the Corsair Obsidian 350D MicroATX case.
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Exceptional expansion and cooling flexibility for compact, high
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performance PCs. Visit Corsair.com/obsidian
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to learn more. Welcome to my unboxing and first look at the Corsair 350D. Now,
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Corsair initially launched their case line with an Obsidian case. That was an
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ATX case, a very large one I might add, the 800D. And then they followed it up.
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They fleshed out the lineup with additional cases in lower-end series
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such as carbide or graphite. And
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Obsidian has been reserved for their
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extremely high-end cases. Now, this is their first microATX case and it is not
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losing the performance heritage of their
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any of their sort of launch cases, which I guess the only one that I can really
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compare it to is actually the 800D. But
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let's not worry too much about that. The point is this is meant to change the way
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that people build small high performance systems. I mean with boards like ASUS's
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Gan series which have been available for a couple generations now, there's really
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no reason why you can't put exactly as much cooling and exactly as much
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performance on a microATX system as you can on an ATX system. So, once I
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actually figure out how to get the box open here. See, you can see my thumb is
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ah jammed in there trying to get the Ah, there we go. So, we'll be back in just a
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moment. Now, the case itself comes in a hard foam, but more on that in a moment.
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Let's see what Corsair has to say for themselves on the box. They've got a QR code here, photos, videos, product tour,
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and more. But don't worry about that. You're watching a video about the product right now. Blown up version of
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the case. They've also got some general details about the overall specs,
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flexible cooling options. comes with one 140mm intake fan, 120 mm exhaust fan.
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There are five mounts total. The front and top mounts are spaced for 240 mm
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radiators for more cooling options. That's what Corsair's done well is
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they've really integrated liquid cooling options well with their cases. Not only
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accommodating for their own products, which are usually sort of pre-filled
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all-in-one units, but also for custom
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liquid cooling. I mean, this is something that a lot of manufacturers do
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that drives me absolutely crazy is they operate under this assumption that the
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consumer is going to buy only their own products. And it's like, you know, okay,
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but what about consumers who aren't interested in all-in-one liquid coolers?
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You know, so you look at a lot of different cases and they are completely
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unoptimized for a custom cooling loop. Um, and they call themselves water
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cooling ready because they put radiator ready spacing in the top so that you
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could mount an all-in-one. So anyway, that's just my little rant there. Corsair doesn't do this, particularly
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looking at their most recent cases like the 350D as well as the 900D. So, not
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the greatest phone that I've ever seen. Not particularly dense, not particularly
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strong. It is a smaller case and this is a factor. You don't need to protect it
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as much in shipping when it's smaller and doesn't weigh as much. So, I'm sure
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Corsair did the necessary drop tests, like there are standards for this uh
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crush testing and all that kind of stuff before bringing the 350D to market
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because they've been generally pretty good about packaging. Overall, having
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worked at an online retailer uh in Canada where shipping can often result
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in things dying, very horrible deaths. It didn't happen too much with Corsair
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stuff. So, let's start with the outside of the case. We've got a nice big window
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on the side. I like this. I don't necessarily
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always prefer a window that lets you see
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everything like the power supply and drives and all that kind of stuff, but
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what I like about this particular one is it gives it a very clean look because
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the size of the window isn't overly huge. Um, but it's sort of even on all
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sides and just makes it look very very clean without sort of being over the top
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flashy gamey looking. Uh, on the front you can see this front plate did seem to
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Oh, that came loose, didn't it? That's a shame. Okay, so let's go ahead and
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speaking of shipping in Canada being a bit of a nightmare, let's have a look at
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the front plate here. So, it's a beautiful brushed aluminum finish on the
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metal front plate. Hopefully you guys can see that. Very small uh innocuous
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Corsair logo on the bottom. They've got two little dots here so that you'll know
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where to press if you want to remove this. And it looks like Oh, it looks
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like that comes off. That's lucky. There we go. All right. So, no actual damage
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done to the case, which is wonderful. Uh, we've got a removable fan filter
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here in the front. So, in the front, you can either mount a single 140 mm fan or
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you can do dual 120 mm fans. You can actually see there are alternate
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mounting points here, here, here, and
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here. Okay, I get it now. So, I'm going to put this on. I hate touching these
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because it's going to stain. Ah. Uh, so I'm going to put this back on. So you
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can see the ventilation comes in around the sides here, sides and bottom. So
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there's lots of space there. And then what Corsair's done, just going to do
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that, is they've put in a dead space here.
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Okay. Okay, there we go. They've put in a dead space here that's blocked off by
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these to allow the fans to not be just trying to draw air directly from a
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plastic plate that's right in front of them. So instead, they are bringing air
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in around from the sides where there's that dead space and then they can pull in from there. So, okay, we'll go ahead
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and remove the front fan filter. Check this out. So, it can accommodate a
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single 140 mm fan in the middle, which is what Corsair ships it with in the
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area where there's the least restriction. So, if you look through that fan, it goes right directly into
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the chassis. However, you have the option with the included mounting holes
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here, here, here, here, here, here, and here. Anyway, all over the place to
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mount dual 120s or even dual 140 mm fans
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in the front of the case. the the other fans won't necessarily have quite the
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same effectiveness of this one fan. But obviously doubling up the fans, even if
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efficiency is reduced a little bit, is still going to give you more overall cooling performance. So that's a very
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cool approach to take there. On the top of the case, oh right, so two five and a
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quarter inch bays, uh headphone, microphone, and reset switches here,
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power switch up here, two USB 3.0 super
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speeds, and then yeah, two 5 and 1/4 in bay. So there that takes care of the
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front. On the top you've got that same flexibility. So, dual 120 mil or dual
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140 mm. And check this out. In order to account for the fact that sometimes the
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spacing isn't exact on certain um liquid
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coolers or whatever else, they've expanded the holes for one of the 140 mm
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mounts. So, you can change the spacing a little bit if you want. That's uh that's
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actually a really nice touch as well. It goes to show you Corsair actually builds
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system in their systems in their cases before they release them to market, which I can't say for everyone. On this
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side, there's not a whole lot. Okay, blank side panel. Here we've got a
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removable fan filter. That's actually one of the most ruggedly designed
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removable fan filters I've ever seen. Look at this thing. It's like solid.
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Usually, they're extremely flimsy. So, let's go ahead and And the rails that it
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sits in are really nice as well. It locks into place. So, you can see
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there's a little bit of resistance to remove that.
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And then it has like these huge plastic rails that sits on. That's kind of nice.
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Uh the feet are covered in little rubber feet so that it doesn't slide around all
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over the place. And that's cool. So, check this out. All the pieces in the
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bottom. Okay. So, there's rivets here, here, here, here, and here. But it looks
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like the drive cages are going to be mounted by screws. So, we should be able to remove those no problem. At the back
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of the case, we find pretty standard. Oh, look at this. Five PCI expansion
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slots. So, they've allowed you to install a dual slot card in the bottom
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of your MATX board. So that will effectively give you what you would
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normally have on a board with five expansion slots. So you can fill this
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one, fill this one, and then you can actually install an additional card in
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between even if you have something like an SLI setup, which is very cool. I've
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always felt that's a limitation of the microATX platform is that you can't have
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two dual slot graphics cards running an SLR or Crossfire and have a high-end
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audio card or something like that. So that's really cool to see as well. 120
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mm cooling fan in the back, liquid cooling holes, which of course are
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wisely left in because most people won't be using those, as well as standard
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power supply mounting. All right, let's
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open this bad boy up and find out what makes her tick.
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Thumb screws on the back make it easy to remove the back panel. Overall, um, I'd
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say it's not quite at the same level as I would have expected from an Obsidian
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class case. looking at cases like the 800D and the 650D in terms of the
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construction. So, there's a little bit of flex here. Um, as you guys can see, I
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mean, we expect this on a windowed side panel, but quite honestly, when I
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wrapped on the other side panel, um, it
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wasn't really all that awe inspiring either. Oh, actually, okay. That's not
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as bad as I thought. Okay. Well, there you go. Either way, I mean, it's not
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built like an 800D, but it's also not priced like an 800D, so there's sort of
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something to consider. All right. So once we get inside, we've got two 3 and
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1/2 in sliding hard drive cages. Now these are usually flimsy, but once you
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actually put a drive in them, they stiffen right up and so you can slide
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those back in there. This whole cage comes out. Love the use of screws for
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the construction instead of using rivets. So those there's those screws on
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the bottom as well as right here. Screws
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on the back. This gives you the flexibility. See, one, two, looks like
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just two screws on this side here. This gives you the flexibility to remove the
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whole thing, including these 2 and 1/2 in mounts. That's how you're going to be
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able to mount those radiators in the front of the case itself, which leaves
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you just with five and a/4 in bays. Up here in the bottom, they've of course
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got support for nice long power supplies. I mean, Corsair builds an awful lot of power supplies, so they're
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going to want you to be able to use anything from their range and something that they're going to brand as a
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performance class case. And they've done another wise thing here, which is to
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improve include enough cable routing holes in the bottom. This is huge. So
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many case guys have like one hole at the bottom and then like six holes around
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the motherboard tray. It's like, okay, well, how where are all these cables
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going to come from if I wasn't able to put them through here? So, there's two
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big ones down here. There's one up here for your eight pin or your four pin. One
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up here for whatever you might need to run to the very top right hand edge of
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your board. Um, maybe they want you to use it for routing the front IO or
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something like that behind the motherboard tray. And then ones here for your 24 pin or whatever else, assuming
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you're not just routing them around the edge of the motherboard tray here.
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Motherboard tray itself feels quite solid considering that there's an extremely large cutout for the CPU. So,
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no matter where your CPU socket is positioned, you shouldn't have too much difficulty with that. And I just want to
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have a look at Oh, check that out. So, that's how this comes out. There you go.
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There's your 2 and 12 in drive mount. So, these are awesome. Hey, Slick, can you throw me an SSD? Uh, preferably
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Corsair. See, now I'm putting that now I'm
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putting the pressure on him. There we go. Aha. Corsair Neutron GTX. So, this
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is how the installation process works here. You just pop this bad boy in and
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it loads just like that. Look at that. Springloaded, too. So, when you open it
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up, it pops it out for you. So, you don't have to do any of the work. This
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is actually better than the one that I saw implemented on I believe it was the
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300R. That one was a little bit stiff and a little bit hard to get the drives
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out of. Looks like Corsair figured that out and got that fixed with this guy
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right here. So, there you go. Now there's tons of space there. So, what's the point of all this, I guess, would be
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the next question. Oh, yeah. There's some internal cables and stuff that you
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might want to see. Corsair, of course, always with the nice little touches. I
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mean, it's all about spending money in the right places. spend money making
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that OEM use black cables. They don't
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like it because, you know, it's harder to QC, but make them do it. And then
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maybe the side panels a little bit thinner or whatever else. Don't worry too much about that because this is the
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way that people end up with systems that actually look good and look high
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performance and look high class. That's why Corsair cases have so many build
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logs done in them where it just looks really good because they spend the time
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and spend the money on those little finishing touches. Same thing. Even a US
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I'd like to see someone implement a less bulky USB3 connector. But I guess you
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know you can't have everything that you want necessarily. But either way, it's
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all black. Even the connector here at the end. I've seen a lot of them that are black except this little bit is
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blue. You can still see it. You can still see it coming out. Um included
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little bits here.
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So you got fan screws. That's good. You got some other more different screws.
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You got some uh zip ties and all that kind of stuff. Um, I like this
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personally when they include one stationary standoff that doesn't get
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something screwed into it because it gives you a reference point for where to
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position the board as you're putting it into the case. Not everyone does this
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and even many brands that do it don't do it consistently. So, there you go.
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Corsair, if you're watching this, keep doing this. I like this. I appreciate
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this. There's a toolless 5 and a/4 in bay, but as usual, you don't have to use
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it toollessly. You can screw screws in and that will actually be more secure
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for things like shipping it around. And I think we're pretty much done here. So,
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why do we need this? Um, if you want to build a high performance system, you
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know, SLI, Crossfire, whatever else, and you don't want to expend any more space
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than you absolutely need to, if you want something that could be portable, say, for example, if you're a video
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production house, and you want to be able to move around a rendering workstation with you that's not that
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heavy, then something like this would be a fantastic choice. And the fact that
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it's windowed and liquid cooling ready and all that good stuff is just kind of
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icing on the cake at this point. Thanks for checking out this unboxing and first
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