A Closer Look - Inside

Speaking of insides, the entire case is black - including the interior. You do not need to do much to gain access to the interior. Simply push the button in the rear and the side panel releases. While this is great, such a convenient way to open the Obsidian 800D up may prove fatal at a LAN party. A thief will not require more than a few seconds to pull the panel off and steal your precious hardware or do deliberate damage after you have beaten him in that Counter-Strike tournament.

Turning the case around we can clearly see a lot of openings in the mainboard tray. The entire piece may also be removed for even easier installation, but considering the small benefit would come at the price of taking out the entire tray, coupled with the fact that assembly is already a breeze, I do not really see any need for it. The large opening under the CPU area is very large and also covered by a simple plastic door. As we will see at the end, this gives you more than enough room to access CPU cooler backplates.


Corsair has chosen to create a thermal compartment in the bottom. The PSU has been isolated from the rest of the system. This way uses can keep all unneeded cables in this area and route the required ones nicely through the underside of the mainboard tray. A fan in the dividing wall creates additional air flow. Corsair has designed the Obsidian with the mainboard upright in the upper section of the case. The expansion slots are removable and held in place by black thumb screws. Above that is a 120 mm exaust fan right next to the backplate cutout.


Moving our focus to the front area of the chassis, you will find two internal hard drive bays all the way on the bottom compartment. These do not require screws but make use of plastic rails to hold the drives in place. It is nice to see such bays, as some hard drives do not line up correctly with the SATA backplates. Above are these hot-swappable bays. I have taken off the plastic covers to show you the fan and the four PCBs. A 120 mm unit blows across these four hard drives to keep them cool. Corsair has opted for plastic locks for the five external drive bays. While I am not happy to see such an option, these do hold well enough. You will still need to use screws to tighten things up though, as we will see during the assembly process.


All cabling has been kept in black as well and all connectors are labeled, so that any confusion will be kept to a minimum. Those who have memorized the standard colors of each type of connection, will have to revert to reading these labels.