Corsair Carbide Air 540 Case Review
by Dustin Sklavos on July 3, 2013 12:00 PM EST- Posted in
- Cases/Cooling/PSUs
- Corsair
- ATX
Testing Methodology
For testing full ATX cases, we use the following standardized testbed in stock and overclocked configurations to get a feel for how well the case handles heat and noise.
| ATX Test Configuration | |
| CPU |
Intel Core i7-2700K (95W TDP, tested at stock speed and overclocked to 4.3GHz @ 1.38V) |
| Motherboard | Gigabyte GA-Z77X-UD4H |
| Graphics Card |
ASUS GeForce GTX 560 Ti DCII TOP (tested at stock speed and overclocked to 1GHz/overvolted to 1.13V) 2x NVIDIA GeForce GTX 580 in SLI (full fat testing only) |
| Memory | 2x2GB Crucial Ballistix Smart Tracer DDR3-1600 |
| Drives |
Kingston SSDNow V+ 100 64GB SSD Samsung 5.25" BD-ROM/DVDRW Drive 3x HGST DeskStar 3TB 7200-RPM HDD |
| CPU Cooler | Cooler Master Hyper 212 Evo with Cooler Master ThermalFusion 400 |
| Power Supply | SilverStone Strider Plus 1000W 80 Plus Silver |
Each case is tested in a stock configuration and an overclocked configuration that generates substantially more heat (and thus may produce more noise). The system is powered on and left idle for fifteen minutes, the thermal and acoustic results recorded, and then stressed by running seven threads in Prime95 (in-place large FFTs) on the CPU and OC Scanner (maximum load) on the GPU. At the end of fiteen minutes, thermal and acoustic results are recorded. This is done for the stock settings and for the overclock, and if the enclosure has a fan controller, these tests are repeated for each setting. Ambient temperature is also measured after the fifteen idle minutes but before the stress test and used to calculate the final reported results.
For the "full fat" testbed, the GTX 560 Ti is swapped out for a pair of GTX 580s, and three hard disks are added to fill out the case.
Thank You!
Before moving on, we'd like to thank the following vendors for providing us with the hardware used in our testbed.
- Thank you to Puget Systems for providing us with the Intel Core i7-2700K.
- Thank you to Gigabyte for providing us with the GA-Z77X-UD4H motherboard.
- Thank you to Crucial for providing us with the Ballistix Smart Tracer memory.
- Thank you to Cooler Master for providing us with the Hyper 212 Evo heatsink and fan unit.
- Thank you to Kingston for providing us with the SSDNow V+ 100 SSD.
- Thank you to CyberPower for providing us with the Samsung BD-ROM/DVD+/-RW drive.
- Thank you to HGST for providing us with the trio of hard drives.
- And thank you to SilverStone for providing us with the power supply.
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SunLord - Wednesday, July 3, 2013 - link
All that wasted space in the back chamber is a major turnoff to me. With all that space I would've prefered to of had some more hdd bays they could've gotten at least 3 or 4 3.5" bays in the massive back voidhammer256 - Wednesday, July 3, 2013 - link
Looks like the little brother of CaseLabs' Magnium line of double-wide cases. Of course, CaseLabs is also a lot more expensive...Ninhalem - Monday, July 8, 2013 - link
Also Case Labs' enclosures are all made out of thick aluminum, and are specifically built with modification and custom liquid cooling loops in mind. Although, I must give Corsair credit for thinking outside of the box for a mainstream manufacturer.Popworks - Tuesday, July 16, 2013 - link
Actually I'm seeing some inspiration from a...Black Caselabs M10 with 64mm top and XL window
lmcd - Wednesday, July 3, 2013 - link
I'd have liked to see drives at the top of the case, with 2 2.5 and 1 3.5 configured for hotswap in addition to the 2.5 bays and 3.5 bays available.marc1000 - Wednesday, July 3, 2013 - link
yeah, the empty space begs for drive bays, but they would be hard to wire and place.maybe two 3.5 hot-swap bays below the DVD bays would get the job done - even if a little expensive.
other than this, pretty awesome case!
marc1000 - Wednesday, July 3, 2013 - link
this is the kind of drive cage i'm talking about: rows of drives in front of the case. just two would be enough (look at first picture of this server case)http://www.anandtech.com/show/7121/trials-of-an-in...
lmcd - Wednesday, July 3, 2013 - link
Yeah that's kinda what I was thinking, though I thought at the top of the case. Same idea though.Ammaross - Wednesday, July 3, 2013 - link
The AzzA Hurrican 2000 has 6 front hot-swap trays. Unfortunately, it wastes about 2 3.5" bays worth to do it.... http://www.targetpc.com/uploads/blog.12.h.jpgkilkennycat - Wednesday, July 3, 2013 - link
I agree, a cage for 2 stacked HDDS could readily fit the lower left-hand corner (of the plenum view) but the HDDs would definitely need some circulating air to be thermally-happy... there is ZERO airflow within the plenum with the power-supply mounted as pictured. Notice the SSD temperature rise in the graphs - a consequence of no airflow !!! A side-cover fan could be provided, or maybe the following alternate:-If there is enough air-clearance between the power-supply and the MB mounting-plate the power-supply could potentially be mounted in an inverted configuration and draw its air from the plenum and rear air-holes -- which would create some air-circulation without an extra fan. Holes in the side-panel over the added HDD-cage would enhance this cooling.