The Corsair 3500X ARGB retails for $109.99 as both the white or black variant. This feels like a good price for a solid case with clean looks considering you get three fans as well. There are not a lot of cases with dual-glass of this size out there that manage to deliver a similar price, fan setup and build quality. Corsair is explicitly offering this SKU with a lower barrier of entry compared to their 2500 or 6500 Series, which start at $160 or $200 respectively. That said, there are some drawbacks you will have to live with, compared to other cases of this size and style out there.

The theme of most of these issues is cosmetic. But, unfortunately visuals is also something that these enclosures really want you to go for, with the two glass panels meant to show off all your hardware and wiring in great detail. So, for Corsair to go for classic fans with the back shown to the user feels weird - especially as ARGB variants with their hubs glowing out towards the side of the case. On top of that, the fact that these fans come with really short cables and are meant to be daisy-chained while utilizing one long extension cable to reach the motherboard header is made worse by the lack of grommets - especially on those openings facing forward towards those fans. Corsair includes such rubber elements on the 6500 series, but not with the 3500 family of enclosures. Lastly, while it is nice to have these fans, they feel a bit out of place, so Corsair could have opted to just include two 140 mm units instead with a 120 mm in the back. All that said, luckily the price difference between the 3500X without fans is a mere $20, so you are getting these units for a small upcharge.

The biggest functional issue seems to be the fact that the BTF implementation still needs tweaking. It is absolutely possible to use such a motherboard, but you may have to pre-connect cables and may lose access to a fan header here and there. If you are running into this problem, a piece of electrical tape on the metal part of the motherboard tray to act as insulation would provide peace of mind, knowing it won't short on any pins - however unlikely that may be. Here is the thing though - with that in mind BTF still works just fine, it just isn't perfect.

So where does this leave the Corsair 3500X ARGB? If you really care for those three fans, we can still recommend it, as you aren't paying much to get them. It is spacious, simple but functional, feels very sturdy and has a few nice details, from the rotatable expansion slots to the encased IO ports and uncompromising cooling support. If you dislike these fans, you can still opt for the 3500X at just $90 and buy your own. On that note, because the fan setup feels so out of place, you may want to reconsider splurging on the iCUE Link 3500X RGB until Corsair offers reverse versions for this type of setup.

The recommendation can be further cemented due to the fact that Corsair is already actively tweaking the design to ensure a seamless BTF experience as well as increasing the length of the fan wires by 50 mm to give you a bit more flexibility in how to cable manage these. On top of that, Corsair will be adding a GPU Anti-Sag Arm to future 3500X cases. That improved version should hit the retail channels by early 2025.