Review System

Assembly

Installing a motherboard is done by traditional means, with spacers and screws. Corsair has pre-installed the spacers, including one with an alignment pin in the center to prevent any issues with placing the board properly. There is plenty of space above and towards the front of the board, with the two large routing holes in the shroud also nicely lining up with the connectors on the motherboard's bottom edge. That said, with a somewhat compact cable channel, things are a bit tight on the front-facing right edge. However, we had no tangible issues plugging everything in with a bit of extra attention and effort.


Adding an SSD to the iCUE 5000T RGB is done by simply taking the frame off the case and screwing the drive down. Once filled, just pop it back into one of five possible locations within the chassis.


You do not actually need any tools for a 3.5" drive as you can snap it into place before sliding it back into the cage underneath the shroud until the two latches on either side of the tray snap down to secure the drive.


With all the space in the ceiling, we have already established that an AIO can easily fit here. For the build within the iCUE 5000T RGB, we instead opted for the more unique side-placement possibility. Adding a classic 360 mm AIO here is straightforward and fits perfectly. The plastic shroud cover can also be kept in place or replaced with the alternate one.


To add your PSU, slide it underneath the metal shroud and screw it down through the rear of the chassis, which is pretty straightforward as well. Fitting a potent unit to power all your gaming gear shouldn't be a problem, but things are a bit tighter if you want full access to the HDD cage and that side-radiator mount at the same time.


With everything installed, the Corsair iCUE 5000T RGB looks mostly clean on the inside even with the that inner cover unused, and all the wiring behind the motherboard tray has its proper place as well. The cable channel works quite well because of the thick Velcro strips, but adding a few zip ties helps pin things down even more. The PSU we use has rather short ATX and CPU power leads, so they had to be routed straight to the right opening instead of taking advantage of the channels—this is not at all a fault of the chassis, of course.

Finished Looks

Turning the Corsair iCUE 5000T RGB on immediately draws your attention to the LL120 fans in the front. With the dual lighting zones, both in the hub and ring of each fan, they are clearly visible as soon as the computer is powered on. In the rear, everything is where you would expect it in a modern tower enclosure.


While having ARGB fans within a chassis is pretty common these days, Corsair has gone the extra mile (or two) to design the iCUE 5000T RGB with embedded ARGB strips in mind. These six units—three on each side—run across the top, front, and bottom of the chassis and give you a level of exterior lighting that makes the chassis unique. While it may be considered overkill on paper, this embedded design does allow users to make tangible use of the iCUE software and Commander Core XT hardware.