The front fascia is replaced by an acoustically padded door, but there are gaps around where the door closes that allows plenty of air to travel into the enclosure. The 330R adopts the internal framework of the Carbide 300R but changes some of the exterior, extracting additional mileage out of a fairly solid design. Silent computing is a tough racket to break into while the 550D was a solid enough option, it continued to suffer from the iffy air cooling thermal performance that has plagued many of Corsair's designs (excepting the stellar Carbide Air 540). Corsair has to contend with the intermittently available Nanoxia Deep Silence 1 and 2 along with Fractal Design's Define lineup. The competition at $99 is tough, though, especially for users who want a silent enclosure. Now, with the new Carbide 330R, Corsair has created a variant on the Carbide 300R designed to offer silent performance for end users who aren't ready to spend up on the splashier Obsidian 550D. The Obsidian 350D turned out to be one of the best micro-ATX cases I've ever tested, and the Carbide Air 540 will actually be showing up in a future article as the case of choice for a very specialized build. The top of the 300R is designed to handle a 240mm radiator (like, say, a Corsair H100) as well.Having fleshed out their case lineup from top to bottom, Corsair is starting to show some of that old experimental spirit again. After having a couple of close calls with our Cooler Master Hyper 212 Evo, I was pleased to see that it fit in the 300R with no complaints. ![]() What you should appreciate is the copious amount of clearance for all of the components, including the heatsink. They've also removed one of the expansion slots normally there's an eighth one (a convenience I appreciate), but going down to seven isn't a total loss since we're still within spec for a standard ATX motherboard. Corsair's cases typically have dual drive cages, but with only four internal drive sleds, they open up space for an intake fan as well as extra long video cards. There are really only two places where you can tell Corsair trimmed some of the fat, at least from the spec sheet. USB 3.0 connectivity via internal headers Corsair Carbide 300R Specificationsġx 140mm intake fan (supports 2x 120/140mm) When we pop it open later on, we'll see why the Carbide 300R commands its $79 asking price, for better or worse. While we've gone down to the raw fundamentals of SECC steel and black plastic, there are still a lot of smart details, and at this juncture it's still uncommon to see USB 3.0 connectivity in a budget case. While that's not in the "true budget" arena we've seen companies like Bitfenix and Antec stake out, it's definitely more affordable than most and may hit a sweet spot for users who don't want to spend too much on a case but want something of slightly higher quality.įor the most part you can see it just by looking at the case, too. The Carbide 300R attempts to bring many of the things we've come to know and love and expect from Corsair cases down to a hopefully more palatable $79 price tag. ![]() Yet like a certain fruit-flavored company we know, they seem unwilling to part with many of the amenities that make their cases such a joy to assemble and work with, and the result is a Carbide that's caught between two worlds. Corsair's least expensive entry is the one we have on hand today, the Carbide 300R. Ostensibly, Corsair's Carbide line of enclosures are their budget cases the Obsidian and Graphite lines both start where the beefy Carbide 500R leaves off.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |