Corsair Unveils its First Inverted-ATX Cases, the Carbide 600Q and Carbide 600C

[MT Alex]

If nothing else, this case would finally let us see the nice machining and looks of our gpu blocks instead of the humdrum backplates or plain looking pcbs that are usually visible. I like that.

 

[Corsair George]

@Corsair George , I'd like to see a review for the 600Q from http://www.silentpcreview.com/ , or is it too much like an upside down P180?

I really like this case, and it looks well thought out. One of the little things that I noticed was the 8 expansion slots. IMHO, there will be a lot of these used for workstations. I still like solid tops and optical drives.

What I don't like:

• The marketing pictures with the fans blowing out on the bottom.
• What you have to go through to get to the front air filters.
• The bottom air filter is accessed from the rear. (actually, with it being magnetic, will a person have to tip the case over?)

You can access the dust filter from the sides or front too, we just showed the photo from the rear. It's magnetic so just reach under the case and pop it off, remove it from any side you want.

 

[Corsair George]

@Kursah I hardly think I'm abrasive.

Like you I tend to plan my systems to run very cool. I just dislike when a company rep comes in and says everybody is aware of this and doing it, when in fact everyone but the OEM industry has gone away from the suggested ATX standard...

Okay I see where I misunderstood what you were saying.

When I said "everybody is aware of this" I meant guys who sell aftermarket PSUs to system builders and gamers. Not HP/Dell/etc. Those guys are buying $6-$10 PSUs in bulk that are designed to exactly match the system they're building, and a lot of them are custom or very close to it. Every length of wire, connector, etc, is determined as to whether it's necessary or not. I opened a Dell desktop a couple years ago that had two SATA connectors on the PSU, spaced perfectly for the ODD and the HDD, and no extra connector at all if I wanted to add a second drive. Because the connector costs money.

What I was talking about was guys like us, Thermaltake, Antec, Cooler Master, EVGA, Seasonic, etc. We are all making standard ATX sized PSUs, designed for the needs of the enthusiast/aftermarket community. In these systems, over the past few years, the PSUs have gotten worlds better. When we started making PSUs 9 years ago, it was still very common to see stuff rated at room temperature, rated at Peak output, or just flat-out mislabeled. Stuff that didn't keep its voltage regulation or ripple in check at all, and efficiency and audible noise was hilariously bad. Look at the old PC Power & Cooling TurboCool 1KW. At the time it came out it was the first 1KW PSU for enthusiasts, and it was horrifically inefficient and insanely loud. Even their "Silencer" series is loud and hot by today's standards.

But nowadays, the PSU market is built completely for overkill.

Here's an example of what was considered a gaming/enthusiast PSU from 2006:
http://www.jonnyguru.com/modules.php?name=NDReviews&op=Story3&reid=11
650W, $120. When heated up it dropped in performance spectacularly. Group regulated so it performed differently depending on what you plugged into it. Generally a cheap, crappy design with efficiency in the 75% range.

Here's an example of our RM650i from 2015:
http://www.jonnyguru.com/modules.php?name=NDReviews&op=Story6&reid=445
650W, $129. When heated up it does not affect performance. Individually regulated so it performs identically no matter what rail is loaded with what. A highly efficient design that never drops below 85% efficiency and can peak in the 90% range. Fully modular cables, built-in software monitoring.

Most importantly, notice the capacitors and other internal components, like the fan. The first unit uses off-brand, 85C rated caps. The RM650i uses 100% Japanese 105C rated capacitors. The fan we use is a rifle bearing fan with a hilariously long lifespan, and very quiet operation. The unit is rated at 50C, as well.

When the ATX enthusiast cases with PSUs were being designed in 2005/2006, the PSU was moved to the bottom not just for the PSU's sake - although that was a benefit for cheap, crappy PSUs like the former - but it was also a benefit for overall case cooling. After all now you could put a huge 200mm fan on top or a couple of 120mm fans on top and exhaust more hot air out of the case than the PSU could move.

Today, those same PSUs are so overbuilt that they can operate in much more drastic conditions without affecting their performance.

To put it simply - today's enthusiast PSUs are so overspecified and underutilized that the "cold air from the bottom of the case" makes nearly no practical difference to their operation or longevity, provided you aren't buying some bottom-of-the-barrel $20 thing on Black Friday.

 

[rtwjunkie]

Okay I see where I misunderstood what you were saying.

When I said "everybody is aware of this" I meant guys who sell aftermarket PSUs to system builders and gamers. Not HP/Dell/etc. Those guys are buying $6-$10 PSUs in bulk that are designed to exactly match the system they're building, and a lot of them are custom or very close to it. Every length of wire, connector, etc, is determined as to whether it's necessary or not. I opened a Dell desktop a couple years ago that had two SATA connectors on the PSU, spaced perfectly for the ODD and the HDD, and no extra connector at all if I wanted to add a second drive. Because the connector costs money.

What I was talking about was guys like us, Thermaltake, Antec, Cooler Master, EVGA, Seasonic, etc. We are all making standard ATX sized PSUs, designed for the needs of the enthusiast/aftermarket community. In these systems, over the past few years, the PSUs have gotten worlds better. When we started making PSUs 9 years ago, it was still very common to see stuff rated at room temperature, rated at Peak output, or just flat-out mislabeled. Stuff that didn't keep its voltage regulation or ripple in check at all, and efficiency and audible noise was hilariously bad. Look at the old PC Power & Cooling TurboCool 1KW. At the time it came out it was the first 1KW PSU for enthusiasts, and it was horrifically inefficient and insanely loud. Even their "Silencer" series is loud and hot by today's standards.

But nowadays, the PSU market is built completely for overkill.

Here's an example of what was considered a gaming/enthusiast PSU from 2006:
http://www.jonnyguru.com/modules.php?name=NDReviews&op=Story3&reid=11
650W, $120. When heated up it dropped in performance spectacularly. Group regulated so it performed differently depending on what you plugged into it. Generally a cheap, crappy design with efficiency in the 75% range.

Here's an example of our RM650i from 2015:
http://www.jonnyguru.com/modules.php?name=NDReviews&op=Story6&reid=445
650W, $129. When heated up it does not affect performance. Individually regulated so it performs identically no matter what rail is loaded with what. A highly efficient design that never drops below 85% efficiency and can peak in the 90% range. Fully modular cables, built-in software monitoring.

Most importantly, notice the capacitors and other internal components, like the fan. The first unit uses off-brand, 85C rated caps. The RM650i uses 100% Japanese 105C rated capacitors. The fan we use is a rifle bearing fan with a hilariously long lifespan, and very quiet operation. The unit is rated at 50C, as well.

When the ATX enthusiast cases with PSUs were being designed in 2005/2006, the PSU was moved to the bottom not just for the PSU's sake - although that was a benefit for cheap, crappy PSUs like the former - but it was also a benefit for overall case cooling. After all now you could put a huge 200mm fan on top or a couple of 120mm fans on top and exhaust more hot air out of the case than the PSU could move.

Today, those same PSUs are so overbuilt that they can operate in much more drastic conditions without affecting their performance.

To put it simply - today's enthusiast PSUs are so overspecified and underutilized that the "cold air from the bottom of the case" makes nearly no practical difference to their operation or longevity, provided you aren't buying some bottom-of-the-barrel $20 thing on Black Friday.

Thank you for such a thorough explanation. You are very knowledgeable in your field.

I'm a pretty conservative person and change comes very slowly for me. I took forever to finally accept bottom-mounted PSU's, but the airflow advantage of putting exhaust fans up there sold me, which leads me to a point you made on that.

Sure, PSU's are over designed, but it still cannot compensate for the well laid out "normal case" airflow where I will have two front intakes, a bottom intake supplying the GPU, and one or two exhaust fans on top, as well as the normal rear exhaust.

Sure I can hear the fans, but it's not excessive. I don't have to crank up the speakers to hear my game over them. I shop for the best compromise of cfm vs decibels at max speed that is in my "don't really notice it" tolerance, and have a great middle ground in a well-designed case. None of my components get beyond warm.

I guess my concern was such a huge change sets off my conservative nature, and the fear that I'll have to one day put up with equipment that doesn't meet my needs because everyone else is always going gaga over new gear, without looking at all the positives and negatives both.

I can see where this could be a good design for a number of situations. I don't think that gaming is one of those situations for me.

I DO appreciate you being here on this forum! I have always been ecstatic when a rep shows up and sticks around. I also appreciate the opportunity to debate. Too many people have lost or never learned the art of debating, and misconstrue argument as an attack. I hope you did not misconstrue mine.

 

[Kursah]

@rtwjunkie I wasn't singling you out rather than the general responses...educated and experienced or not. Folks see something and some respond by uaing experience and education, others ignorantly, and others yet just follow the leader and are more throwing salt in the wound than donating anything useful.

It's something that stems to many threads and topics. But I do feel that some abrasiveness is a good thing too...going blindly into something because someone says so can be just as bad, if not worse than those that do the opposite.

Also with the typed word, how you might read what you wrote could be different from how I or even George reads it. Many of us know that though.

Anyways...I gotta stop coming to this thread...I keep checking the links and pics...makes me want to do bad things with my credit card.

 

[rtwjunkie]

Anyways...I gotta stop coming to this thread...I keep checking the links and pics...makes me want to do bad things with my credit card.

New Gear tends to do that to many of us!

 

[tastegw]

lay the mobo flat i say,

 

[newconroer]

As if no one else has considered that ever?

Immediate problems :

• The PSU and drive shroud is above the GPU...where is the GPU air rising to? Straight into a floor(oops a ceiling I mean).
• Your exhaust fan is below the GPUs. Other than passive areas and holes/cracks in the case itself, nothing is actively exhausting the GPU air as it rises. And if the exhaust below is pulling the air back down over the CPU, then that renders the entire idea moot.

They have literally turned the case upside down and simply put the 'feet' on the opposite side.

What they should have done is left the case standing right side up and set the motherboard mounting points to the top right (front) of the case. The mounts would be reversed so the board is inverted. The top vents/fans would passive or actively exhaust the GPU air and stop it from rising up over the CPU and motherboard, because it can't. The CPU heat gets exhausted by the rear mounted /traditional mounted fan near the I/O panel.

I can't believe some one got this past the corporate bozos in a concept brain storm meeting.


Really Silverstone has it right with their 90 degree turn. All the rising heat goes to the main exhaust at the top simultaneously as opposed to the GPU heat washing over the CPU on it' way to the surface. Meanwhile the cool intake air is directly beneath these components creating a wind tunnel with the exhaust air above them.

Not sure why other manufacturers ignore this.

 

[DeathtoGnomes]

watercooling your gpu slows the heat rise considerably but thats still not an active option for the budget enthusiasts since there are too many variances in card designs to create a standard for mass producing water blocks at more affordable prices.

Im still waiting for the day that vid cards get redesigned right side up.

 

[rtwjunkie]

Im still waiting for the day that vid cards get redesigned right side up.

Hell yeah! I really don't see why they can't build it the other way.

 

[alucasa]

Im still waiting for the day that vid cards get redesigned right side up.

Would be nightmare for mini-itx builders. :/

 

[newconroer]

There's a lot that can be done to optimize - though I feel it starts with the motherboards. Things like this general understanding that no one would use the bottom PCI E slot, so we'll leave all the case header pins in the corner, and thus make it impossible to install a GPU there, unless it's a baby one. Meanwhile we'll keep making the motherboard with the PCI E lane, and calling it a triple or quad multi GPU supported motherboard and jack up the price!

Or why can't they turn the PCI E lanes 90 degrees making the GPUs perpendicular to the to the CPU. Then a case manufacturer could rotate the mounting holes 90 degrees, and thus the GPU and CPU are at the same elevation.
This is similar to installing a board in a Silverstone rotated case I suppose, but different in it's own way.

How about putting SATA data cable ports somewhere other then under the spot where GPU coolers extend to? Really, of all the places on a motherboard?

Screw it. I am going to turn my case on it's front, install some rubber mounts and use the front as a bottom intake. The original rear is now the top, handling exhaust. And the bottom becomes the front intake with it's two 140mm fans.

 

[kciaccio1]

I don't see the point of this.

Only point I see is if you want the window on the other side of the case.

 

[DeathtoGnomes]

Hell yeah! I really don't see why they can't build it the other way.

IIRC there was a spacing problem with card height and it make the cards too close to the CPU and northbridge heat sinks for PSU air cooling alone. This also affected ATX sizing which later became the standard and afaik can never be changed short of an act of god, or someone with some balls to create a new design worth keeping.

 

[Vlada011]

I don't know... now I like somehow more pure aluminum case, some Lian-Li and In Win have 900 series extremely nice, for Mini ITX, mATX and E-ATX, 3-4 nice version.
But at this moment for bigger build I like Lian-Li PC-X510, for smaller In Win 901 and 904 Plus.
I like that sound of aluminum when you close panels... Maybe because of that I didn't change my Obsidian 650D...
Because serve me well, everything fit inside and it's little higher quality than later cases from CORSAIR. 800D, 700D and 650D arrive in period when they fight for market and name.
But PC-X510 near some huge TV in living room is completely something else, or In Win 904 Plus...

 

[sa seba]

I think this case's interiour can be looking great, working well, and be quiet at the same time.
A H110i GT in the front set as intake, 2 fans at the bottom set as intake.
Exhaust can be taken care of by a reference design GPU, a H90 connected to a HG10 Bracket on the GPU, and a high end PSU on top.

 

[AsRock]

The intake fan that brings in fresh air is like 4" away from the GPU.

But if your using the 3rd party like coolers your going have 2-3 fans pulling air from the PSU fan \ outside the case. And as they blow air at the card that's going cancel most air coming from the front.

This is been bugging me about this case for a while now and i am sure that having extra intake fans at the bottom just may not be enough. And lets say the gpu would get enough air flow, would the PSU i guess it would get the little as it could from the vents if possible which is going bring in dust.


Wish i could find a video testing it be honest as it's been time for a case change for a while now as my current one has served 4 systems now.