A Closer Look - Inside

To access the interior, simply unscrew the two thumbscrews holding each side panel in place. The main side only has three fans and the two hard drive trays. The PSU bay, SSD cage, and the two external drive bays can be found on the other side. This means that all the cable clutter can also be confined to this side of the Carbide Air 540.


Taking a closer look, it becomes apparent that Corsair utilizes a simpler version of their AF140 Quiet Edition Airflow units within the chassis. These are unique because of their plain black and gray look, and you can't add any color highlights to their frames. On the floor are two 3.5" drive bays that are hot-swap capable, which also eliminates their cable mess, making this side of the chassis look spotless. The aforementioned mounting possibilities for a radiator are in the ceiling and the front, which allows you to put up to two such devices into this side of the chassis for ultimate cooling.


Turning our focus to the rear, the eight motherboard-expansion slots are protected by separate covers that are each held in place by a thumbscrew. Above that is the third 140 mm fan; it pulls air out of the chassis.


On the other side is a small, removable hard-drive cage for 2.5" units. It comes with a screw-less installation system for easy assembly. Opposite to that is the optical drive bay that is also equipped with a tool-less system. Last but not least, there is the PSU bay; it does require screws. A little support bar may be moved towards the interior for long PSUs.


All the cables within the chassis are lined black and of the standard variety. The hot-swap modules utilize SATA power instead of Molex, which should aid in cable management or allow for the Molex plugs to be exclusively used for a water-cooling system. The USB 3.0 cable and the HD-Audio plugs are also of the standard variety. It would have been good of Corsair to supply a method of connecting the USB 3.0 to the smaller 2.0 header, which would allow the I/O of older boards to be used. That said, the user base of non-USB 3.0 equipped PCs is becoming smaller and smaller by the day.