A Closer Look - Inside

To gain access to the interior, simply remove the pair of thumb screws holding each side panel in place. The first thing I noticed right away, is the fact that the chassis uses bumps instead of normal spacers to hold the motherboard in place. Having worked as a PC assembler before, these were quite often the cause of shorts in the board, so I suggest you tape them up before putting the board there.


There is a large opening in the motherboard tray, so you should have easy access to the underside of the CPU area. You will get around 20 mm of space between the tray and side panel, thus routing cables here should not be an issue.


Corsair has only placed a single hard drive cage in the Carbide 300R. There are markings and openings to suggest the possibility of having a second one to fill the gap to the 5.25" variants though. With only one such cage, the chassis can hold up to four 3.5 or 2.5" drives. In the very top you will find the three external drive bays, each of them utilizing the same screw-less locking mechanism also found in other Corsair cases.


Turning our focus to the rear of the case, the bottom PSU bay also features a few bumps, lined with foam as an anti vibration measure. Above that are the seven motherboard expansion slots, each with an individual cover and thumb screws to hold them in place. In the very top is the aforementioned 120 mm fan with a 3-pin connector.


There is a simple but well constructed, removable dust filter on the underside of the chassis, while the opening in the top clearly shows where the optional 120 or 140 mm fans may be mounted.


In terms of case cables, the Carbide 300R is nothing out of the ordinary, besides the fact that all of these are black. Having a very simple I/O set, you will only find a 20-pin USB 3.0 header and HD Audio connector. Considering the fact, that this chassis is geared toward the entry/mid-range user, it would have been very important to include a USB 2.0 adapter or expand the front I/O to include such ports.