Assembly

Installing the motherboard is done by traditional means with the use of spacers and screws. Thanks to the central placement with plenty of room at the top and bottom you will have no issues getting to any of the connectors on the edges of your board. There is also tons of space for long and thick GPUs. As there is a large gap towards the front, those with the 6500X can rest assured that even with air or liquid cooling in the front, any long graphics card will fit.


Adding an SSD to the mix requires screws and a screwdriver to mount them to one of the two metal trays. These are designed in a way to keep the connectors fully accessible, which is a small but important detail. Once filled, simply put the frame back unto the side of the larger HDD cage and secure the captive screw.


The plastic trays used for 3.5" drives look surprisingly generic. While Corsair has been using these types of trays across well over a decade, this variant is all plastic, whereas past cases implement a plastic one with metal pins at least. In other words, the trays used in the 6500 series are more fragile. Each of these can hold either a 3.5" or 2.5" drive, but you only get the pleasure of a tool-less experience with the bigger storage format. Unfortunately, Corsair only includes 12 screws for a total of three 2.5" drives, so if you want to install four, you will have to live with each drive only being secured by three, not four screws for example. But, back to the drive installation: once the 3.5" drive is clipped into place, you may slide the tray back into the cage until it snaps in firmly.


The 6500 series can hold essentially any PSU you want to throw at it with an official clearance of 225 mm. It is held in place by four screws and the two lips are rigid so that they can keep the unit in place without issue. As you can see, you are meant to have the power supply intake fan facing outward, so that it may draw fresh outside air through the mesh side panel.


While we tend to install AIOs in the ceiling in our case reviews, as that is usually the spot that allows for the bigger variant, the Corsair 6500X has this nice nook on the side, so we opted to use that instead. As you may remove the mounting plate, you can easily prepare the whole unit outside the confines of the chassis. Once ready, simply put the whole thing back into place and secure it with a single screw. As you can see, the 360 mm unit fits beautifully and the cable management is a breeze as well, thanks to the numerous, well-placed hooks.


With everything installed, the interior of the Corsair 6500X looks spotless. As this variant doesn't ship with any fans, the all black and gray setup feels right at home inside it. In the rear, cable management was a real breeze. We went in stages and secured the case cables first, then added the PSU and found hooks for those zip ties and lastly repeated that process for the PWM & pump wires for the AIO.

Finished Looks

Once turned on, the only thing that lights up is the white LED underneath the power button. Naturally if you opt for the 6500X RGB, you will have the iCUE fans to give the case that multicolor treatment.


As all the IO is at the top, there is nothing in the front of the chassis. Even though the glass is tinted noticeably, you can still see the hardware components within, even without the glow of fan RGB illumination. In the rear everything is where you would expect to see it.


Lastly, the mesh panel clearly allows for air access as you can even see the LEDs on the underside of the motherboard shimmer through the fine mesh filter and metal, triangle shaped cutouts in the panel itself. This side would be even more interesting to those with RGB equipped PSUs or 2.5" SSDs, as those would be visible as well.