A Closer Look - Inside

Looking at the interior, the general layout of the case is pretty traditional with the PSU on the bottom, next to storage and the main cooling locations in the front and top of the chassis. Naturally, due to the sheer size of the 9000D RGB Airflow, there is just so much more that can be done and Corsair seems to have used most of the available real estate pretty well. On the backside, there are two smaller doors with hinges. These are held in place by magnets, but you may also screw them down to properly keep them in place. While one could argue that the 9000D RGB Airflow no longer needs these as it now comes with a steel side panel, these inner doors hold all the 2.5" drive bays as well, so it is good to have them regardless.


One of the biggest change from Corsairs previous super tower chassis are the two cooling mounting frames which rest on rails so that you may pull them out and easily add your fans or radiators to them. Instead of fairly simple, slide out mountings in the past, Corsair has now designed a flexible mounting system, which they call InfiniRail. The bits for screws can be moved up and down these rails and the centerpiece which allows for two rows of fans or two radiators can be moved or even removed to accommodate all manner of fan sizes or radiator dimensions. A simple but effective lock at one corner keeps the rails from sliding out should you grab hold there to move the case around during assembly. While that works, the rails still have a bit of play which may give you a few scares when you are in the zone and assembling your system.


Looking at the front from the interior of the chassis, you can see that the entire surface area is intended for cooling. Having up to eight 120 mm fans here would certainly not only look amazing but properly push some air into the case as well. Similarly, in the ceiling, there is essentially limitless potential with the exact same surface area to push air out the top of the chassis. The only downside here is that airflow is a bit more restricted than in the front due to the solid metal cover only having an opening at the center besides the gap it leaves on either side. Corsair really tries to keep the interior as clean as possible, taking a unique approach in trying to hide cables as much as possible by simply cutting and bending parts of the otherwise flat, solid panel.


Besides the primary areas for cooling, Corsair also tries to make good use of the space above the motherboard by offering another option to mount three 120 mm fans or a 360 mm radiator here. This space was just a solid cover in the original 1000D. The only downside is the fact that adding liquid cooling here will limit what you can install in the ceiling. With that in mind, odds are low that you would consider anything but air cooling in this position in favor of retaining the full potential in the ceiling.


The Corsair 9000D RGB Airflow has a dedicated box on the floor for 3.5" drives. It comes equipped with a cover to not only make things cleaner overall, but also allow you to remove the whole thing and use that plate to allow for even more room for liquid cooling elements, such as reservoirs or pumps. Interestingly enough, there is a vent here, which doesn't seem to have an obvious function and also lacks any kind of dust protection.


Next to that, towards the rear of the chassis, there is a shroud to cover the primary ATX power supply bay. It has a dedicated grommet covered opening to route cables through if needed as well as several hooks for zip ties. The only downside here is that you have to remove the whole thing when wanting to install or swap out your power supply. This could be quite a pain if you also have an ITX system installed on top of the shroud. Corsair could have tooled the chassis to allow for the PSU to be pulled out the backside of the case and eliminated this issue altogether. In turn this cover could have been made permanent, saving a little bit on simpler tooling to offset that cost. With the cover removed, you can clearly see the large opening into the backside compartment as well as the two dust filters.


Speaking of ITX, that secondary system is meant to be mounted on the top of the shroud once you have removed the plate in the rear to uncover the opening for the motherboard and its two expansion slots. Having the ability to install a fully functional secondary system could be useful for those who need to dedicated purposes - say one to stream with, while the other one is intended purely for gaming. Or, the main system could be heavy on AI or rendering while the secondary ITX system allows for more traditional tasks to be tackled in the meantime. The two slots allow for a pretty powerful GPU for that secondary system as well, but there will be very little room between its fans and the glass side panel, thus thermals will likely be the limiting factor. As already noted when looking at the exterior, the power and reset buttons are in a plastic box at the top of the rear with its wiring running down into the backside chamber of the 9000D RGB Airflow.


Above all that, there are the eight expansion slots for the primary systems. Each of these comes with a reusable cover which is held in place by a big thumb screw. Corsair does include a bracket to allow for the bottom six to be rotated into a 4-slot vertical layout so that you can show off your GPU properly. This is nice, as you can potentially retain some of the horizontal expansion slots in the process. In the very top, the vent for two 120 mm fans or a 240 mm AIO provides ample flexibility and room so that you can fully utilize this without having to worry about incompatibilities. There are a few small hooks to use for slim wires so that those can be routed away from view a bit easier as well.


The motherboard tray is so large that you can install pretty much any motherboard out available. To ensure cable management doesn't suffer no matter how big you decide to go, there are two rows of modern looking, two-tone grommets with room to spare to allow for custom liquid cooling components to be mounted next to them. The top and sides of the motherboard tray are also lined with grommets and a simple GPU support bracket has been embedded as well. Having this is certainly positive, but it is made of plastic, and it is not guaranteed that this design won't end up interfering with the fans of your graphics card.


Turning the Corsair 9000D RGB Airflow around, swinging the two doors open, you are greeted by a total of six dedicated 2.5" drive bays - three on each of the doors. These two doors are actually identical in every way, with one just being flipped to fit its hinges on the other side.


The amount of room you have for cable management is pretty insane, all thanks to the fact that Corsair really wanted this case to be wide enough to allow for two rows of fans side by side in the ceiling and front. Even with this spacious compartment behind the motherboard tray, the 9000D RGB Airflow can still hold air coolers of up to 180 mm in height. In other words: there are no air coolers in the market that won't fit. From this angle, you can also clearly see those aforementioned grommets on the side of the motherboard tray. There is practically no limit to the components you could install, while still having plenty of options to keep the interior of the chassis clean and tidy.


The opening of the PSU bay gives you complete access to all the thick wires that from the power supply. This area will also come in handy to hide any unnecessary wiring. Much like that one drawer full of clutter we all have in our kitchens. Next to this, you will find five hard drive trays, which may be pulled out easily as needed. Each of these can hold either a 3.5" or 2.5" drive, bringing the total to a whopping eleven possible storage elements within the Corsair 9000D RGB Airflow. While this is a lot for a single system, one can pretty easily manage to integrate this number when splitting it up between the two possible systems the case could contain, without even needing any additional controller cards.


Another change between the 1000D and the 9000D is the inclusion of the iCUE LINK System Hub, which not only controls the RGB of the I/O panel in the front, but allows you to connect up to 13 additional iCUE LINK capable devices, such as fans, AIOs and more. These two black boxes are magnetically attached and come pre-wired, so all you need to do is connect it to your motherboard, PCIe power and attach any additional components to them.


Unlike the 1000D, which sported two USB-A 3.0 wires, a pair of USB-C cables and the audio cable, the 9000D comes with a bona fide USB-C hub installed in the front. This means it only needs a singular USB-C cable to provide data to all six ports, alongside a SATA connector for power. While this is unique, this update is also a double-edged sword. With the original implementation, users would run into the issue of not being able to connect everything when only using a single system within the case, but had the flexibility of splitting half the USB ports if the setup did include two systems. Now, you no longer get that flexibility, unfortunately. The front panel connectors for the main system are unified into a single plug which is nice to see.


On the ITX side, we covered the board and expansion slots, as well as where potential cooling could go. For power, you will find an SFX bay on the floor of the cable compartment, which is also closest to the system location. This means that any wiring will be contained to that corner of the interior. The front panel (or in this case back panel power and reset buttons), wiring comes in the old school individual strands, which is weird, as Corsair could have used a unified plug here as well.