Before we dive into how the Corsair iCUE 4000D RGB Airflow stacks up in today's enclosure landscape, it is important to look at the pricing structure. When we first reviewed the original 4000D Airflow, it clocked in at an MSRP of $79.99. As such some may wonder why the iCUE 4000D RGB Airflow sells for essentially twice that. In the Looking at the original's pricing history, its MSRP did hold true back then. However, that variant of the chassis costs $104.99 instead. Yes, a $40 increase - welcome to the new normal with all the supply chain issues, freight costs and inflation. As such, the $45 premium of the ICUE variant feels justified, as it replaces the two non-RGB fans with three RGB units and adds the required iCUE hardware.

The 4000D frame is still a nice base of a chassis two years later. That said, it feels a bit dated - which is especially disappointing in terms of the ceiling AIO compatibility being not really what Corsair seems to communicate. It feels like the 2020/2021 standards don't apply to modern motherboards which in turn causes issues that force you to limit it to 240 mm in size. If Corsair chooses to communicate 280 mm support, they need to be very clear and also include the max height your motherboard or memory can be for example. Secondly, dual-slot vertical GPU placement was fine in 2020, but with three or four slot GPUs out there now, that feels inadequate with the rigid 7+2 layout the case offers. These days many brands have opted to make the seven horizontal slots more flexible to accommodate the thick vertical GPUs instead.

Other than that, the Corsair iCUE 4000D RGB still provides everything you would want from a mid-range chassis with this fan setup. From that perspective Corsair does have a bit of an uphill battle as more recent, brand name cases manage to offer the right flexibility for both large GPUs or radiators as well as modern tooling with their own unique details - for noticeably less, so in this case even adding the very good AF120 Elite fans into the mix is not enough to sway things in its favor.