A Closer Look - Inside

The steel side panel comes with a thin, magnetic dust filter to keep grime out—you may easily remove this dust filter for cleaning.


To access the interior, simply remove the thumb screws and pull the panels off the case. Corsair included push pins on each side, so the panel holds in place nicely even without the screws fitted, which is great if you need to quickly and repeatedly access the interior. Overall, this implementation is excellent and feels solid. On the interior, things look quite typical for a modern chassis, with a metal shroud on the bottom that does come with a plastic extension in the front you may replace with the accessory mentioned at the beginning of the review. You may install two of your 2.5" HDD plates here to show off your SSDs. In this new version Corsair has also changed the tooling of the shroud ever so slightly to alternatively allow for two 120 mm fans to be installed here. There are also two fairly large cable-routing openings in the shroud, which could have been cut much smaller to keep things as clean as possible.


Just like the 4000D, there is a metal shroud with the same subtle branding—it allows for very clean cable management. The one in the iCUE 5000D RGB Airflow is much wider and also acts as a cover for the side intake mount if you aren't using active cooling here. Unfortunately, Corsair did not pre-wire the three intake fans in the front well, as there are cable routing holes right next to each unit, but the wiring has been haphazardly routed differently.


Turning the case over, you won't have immediate access to all the functional elements behind the motherboard tray. Corsair has chosen to place a secondary cover here, which hides everything and is held in place by magnets. While it is nice to have, you won't be able to see any cable mess in the end either and on top of that, this secondary panel won't really need much pressure from within to pop off the magnets.


Towards the front of the chassis is the mounting position for the side fans/radiator consisting of three 120 mm spots, so a 360 mm radiator will fit as well. Next to this, there are still the three pre-attached Velcro strips holding the IO and case wiring in place inside the central channel formed of plastic. You will still find three separate trays for SSDs with the yellow accented thumb screws on the motherboard tray as well.


Interestingly enough, Corsair has opted to keep the existing 6-port fan hub of the original and add not one, but two additional PCBs. There is one in form of a 6-port RGB hub for the proprietary fan's connectors and a separate Corsair Lighting NODE Pro RGB to interface with via USB to the iCUE software. This results in three separate SATA power connectors for the 3 PCBs. However, by separating the RGB hub from the brains, Corsair offers a cheap upgrade path in case you want to add even more of their fans to the mix, by offering you a 6-port RGB hub for a mere $10.


In the front, underneath the shroud, is an HDD cage that holds two plastic trays for two 3.5" or 2.5" drives. By default, it is installed as far towards the back as possible to allow for unobstructed access even with fans or a radiator on this side of the Corsair iCUE 5000D RGB Airflow. Above that, the whole area is intended for cooling purposes with the three AF120 Elite fans pre-installed, set to pull in air through the front of the chassis.


Underneath the shroud, the PSU bay is standard-fare with its foam pads for the PSU to rest upon. Above that are the expansion slots, each with its individual thumb screw holding the reusable cover in place. At the very top, you may install a 120 mm exhaust fan which may be adjusted in height for proper alignment with your air cooler thanks to the elongated mounting holes.


With the way the ceiling is shaped, there is still loads of space between it and the motherboard's top edge thanks to the spacious dimensions of the Corsair iCUE 5000D RGB Airflow. Users could potentially go all out and install fans on top of the ceiling, while utilizing aftermarket dust-filter solutions. This would enable easy installation of a push/pull configuration with a thick radiator as well.


All the cables within the Corsair iCUE 5000D RGB Airflow are black and mostly what you would expect. The USB 3.0 cable is flat, which makes routing it so much easier. There is no HDD activity LED though, which is rather unfortunate, as it is usually a good indicator of whether your system is frozen or just working really hard.