A Closer Look - Outside

Out of the box, the FSP CST350 Plus actually makes a much better impression than we initially assumed. Everything feels very sturdy and the trained eye will immediately spot some similarities to the Cooler Master NR200. But, while the manufacturing origins of the two enclosures may be the same, the CST350 Plus has plenty of differentiation - starting with the fact that it can house a Micro-ATX board for example.


The front of the Plus variant being reviewed here sports a fine metal mesh embedded into a plastic frame, while the non-Plus comes with a solid steel panel instead. You may pull the cover off to reveal mounting positions for two 2.5" drives. Unfortunately these are set to be installed on the interior of the chassis instead on the front of the frame behind the front cover. In the rear, you will find two sets of expansion slots, one being the classic horizontal type for the motherboard, and the other offering two for a vertical GPU mount.


Both side panels of the CST350 Plus are vented to allow for additional air flow within the chassis. They are held in place with push pins for easy removal.


In the rear, the bottom half is taken up by the four expansion slots with individual, reusable covers. A small latch covers the hole to the right of these. Above that is the cutout for the motherboard backplate and the two aforementioned vertical GPU mounting slots, alongside another small latch. FSP has pre-installed an 80 mm exhaust fan here. As such, you will loose this bit of active cooling (which you paid for) when going with this type of system setup. Instead, it would have been more practical for FSP to include a second 120 mm fan instead.


On the top, there is another vented cover, which will be held in place by a single thumb screw that can be found inside the box of accessories. In the ceiling you may install up to two 120 mm fans if you end up going with an SFX PSU. FSP includes a single unit in the ceiling to get you started. In the front edge of the chassis, there are two USB-A 3.0 ports which are unfortunately blue instead of a nicer black. You get two high-quality, metal audio ports and a nicely embedded USB-C 3.2 Gen2 plug. The power button in the center has an appropriate LED embedded in it that lights up when the system is turned on.


On the underside, you will find another full metal cover that looks just like the one on the top, and is also meant to be held in place by a single thumb screw that ships inside the accessories kit. There is an obvious reason why this cover is similar to the one on the top, but more on that later.