Corsair Unveils Carbide Air 540 and Carbide 330R Cases at Computex 2013

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Corsair®, a worldwide designer of high-performance components to the PC hardware market, today announced two new mid-tower PC cases—the Carbide Series Air 540 and the Carbide Series 330R. Both cases incorporate innovative and unique features for superior cooling and quiet operation.

Carbide Series Air 540 High Airflow Mid-tower PC Case. The Carbide Series Air 540 is designed with a wider form factor with two “side-by-side” chambers and a Direct Airflow Path™ layout. This unique design helps the case deliver best-in-class cooling at incredibly low noise levels.

The main chamber of the Carbide Series Air 540 houses the motherboard and hot-swap 3.5” drives for superior drive cooling and quick swapping. The second chamber holds the power supply, SSDs, and 5.25” drives behind the motherboard tray. The separate compartments make building a breeze and provide cleaner cable routing and superior cooling for system devices. In addition, layout in each chamber is optimized to limit obstructions and streamline airflow from the intake fans to the hottest PC components, resulting in lower temperatures and noise levels.
 
I'm digging the side by side midtower case. If needed something that size I'd be all over it for my next case, assuming, that is, that it produces good temps.
 
Not bad I think I would use it for a cheaper AIO or watercooled folding case....
 
I saw the 540, and immediately thought it's wide stance would make for a great NAS server case with space for lots of drives...


...unfortunately there are only two hotswap 3.5 drive bays.
 
I think that the air 540's side by side arrangement would've been a nice way to make an HPTX case in a reasonably small space, giving plenty of room to work around any size mobo, but w/o a hi-rise case.
 
Like the 540! I just hope you can get it with a solid side panel. Never liked clear panels.
 
Not bad I think I would use it for a cheaper AIO or watercooled folding case....

No room for more than cpu watercooling.

This is an aircooling case primarily... As opposed to Case Labs or Mountain Mods, which people are comparing it too.
 
They have pretty much taken what the Raven does (everything mounted vertically with fans blowing air up from the bottom and exiting out of the top of the case) except with the traditional horizontal layout. It would be very interesting to see a side by side review of the two.
 
No room for more than cpu watercooling.

This is an aircooling case primarily... As opposed to Case Labs or Mountain Mods, which people are comparing it too.

You know that a 360 rad can fit in the front "with" a 248/280 rad at the top.
 
I think that the air 540's side by side arrangement would've been a nice way to make an HPTX case in a reasonably small space, giving plenty of room to work around any size mobo, but w/o a hi-rise case.

Silverstone GD08. Bought one and never looked back. Will take full ATX and has plenty of drive space. Looks nice too.
 
I didn't see any fan mounts for the HDD/ODD/PSU chamber. Might get toasty in there.

The two 3.5" hot-swap bays are in the primary compartment. The other side only has 2.5" drive bays, so unless you're running RAID 7200RPM laptop HDDs with your ODDs ripping blu-rays non-stop, then the PSU won't be intaking anything warm.

I mean, the thing looks like a window air conditioner, but I actually really like it. It'd probably be best served on the ground barring a ginormous desk, but it accommodates EATX, all the cabling nonsense can be stuffed out of sight in the PSU compartment, and it has a ton of airflow for a very reasonable price.
 
Seems like my CaseLabs M10, just smaller and a shit ton less expensive. Nice case though.
 
You know that a 360 rad can fit in the front "with" a 248/280 rad at the top.

Top rad fit might get tight wrt the motherboard. Hard to judge size, but anything more than a 1"thick rad and 1" thick fans looks like it'll get vlose to the board.
 
Thin rads yes. But I'm sure people that are looking more then two gpus are not considering this case.
Everything can't fit a Monsta rad.
 
Decent case at a decent price.

$140? Pfft. Compared to some of the cube case solutions out there, that's a drop in the bucket!
 
Top rad fit might get tight wrt the motherboard. Hard to judge size, but anything more than a 1"thick rad and 1" thick fans looks like it'll get vlose to the board.

From the looks of the photos of the Computex system and video's, a 1" 240 rad on top will work with push/pull (H100i in the demo system). Judging by the slight overlap of the MB a 280 rad would not work with push/pull.

The front seems to have room for a 1" think rad with fans on the front of the chassis and on the back of the rad for push/pull with 11" GPU's. Would lose the use of the fan filter in that configuration though.

Seems like two 280's or a 240 on top and a 360 on front in 1" with push/pull is the max you are fitting in there for water cooling without modification.
 
Looks like a great case, like that side by side design. I only wish they provided room for more hard drives.
 
Looks like a great case, like that side by side design. I only wish they provided room for more hard drives.

Second on this...I haven't made the switch to NAS yet, so my case is my primary repository for hard drives. Guess I need to start looking into NAS, because I am really digging the look and feel of this Corsair case...it's like a baby Case Labs.
 
If I was still in game of building high end custom PCs, I would be all over that 540. I have always loved cube designed cases like this, just never could afford/wanted to due to price. Kudos corsair.
 
Wish the 540 had more 3.5" drive mounts, even if they weren't hotswap. This could be a great storage box if you could put drives in it.
 
With active cooling only in the main compartment, this is a poor choice for a storage case.
Regardless of the look, it's a one trick pony for gaming. There are better cases for storage than this one.

For gaming, I think it's awesome.
 
With active cooling only in the main compartment, this is a poor choice for a storage case.
Regardless of the look, it's a one trick pony for gaming. There are better cases for storage than this one.

For gaming, I think it's awesome.

Yeah, that's my point, they could have made this a great storage cube, but they went a different way.
 
Yeah, that's my point, they could have made this a great storage cube, but they went a different way.

This case isn't designed to be a storage cube, it's designed to be a great cooling case.

Most of the builds you see in the rigs threads have less two mechanical drives or less. Some have one and an SSD, which seems to be the norm.

With the wider availability of decently priced NAS solutions as well as high-density 4TB drives, we decided against making the case larger than it is for extra mechanical drive bays.

This case looks large but it's deceptively compact. It's shorter (both top to bottom and front to back) than a 400R, and only about 4-5" wider. It's a big chassis inside, and its footprint is wide, but it's not a huge case. It might be one of the shortest cases capable of mounting both a 360mm and 240mm radiator internally at the same time.
 
This case isn't designed to be a storage cube, it's designed to be a great cooling case.

Yes, I've stated that twice now, you didn't design it that way. I said it could have been a great storage box if you had gone a different way with it, oh well.
 
Finding the real dimensions of the 540 is proving hard:

20.2 x 15.6 x 18.7
16.5 x 17 x 18
16.3 x 13.1 x 18

The last one is from the Corsair website.
 
Finding the real dimensions of the 540 is proving hard:

20.2 x 15.6 x 18.7
16.5 x 17 x 18
16.3 x 13.1 x 18

The last one is from the Corsair website.

415 x 332 x 458mm are the correct dimensions. (L x W x H)
 
I wonder how many case sales are lost by not having these and all the other cases announced ready for retail with the launch of something like Haswell. I mean, how many people are buying all new setups, or at least cpu/mobo? I really dig the 540, and would throw one in my shopping cart with everything else, but since its not, I'll just re-use my old case. I find it a PITA to swap everything out again just for a new case, so now the next chance I'll buy a new case is the next time I buy a new mobo/cpu. I can't be the only one who thinks like this? And if I'm not...what are the case manufacturers thinking missing out on what I would think is an ideal selling opportunity?
 
I wonder how many case sales are lost by not having these and all the other cases announced ready for retail with the launch of something like Haswell. I mean, how many people are buying all new setups, or at least cpu/mobo? I really dig the 540, and would throw one in my shopping cart with everything else, but since its not, I'll just re-use my old case. I find it a PITA to swap everything out again just for a new case, so now the next chance I'll buy a new case is the next time I buy a new mobo/cpu. I can't be the only one who thinks like this? And if I'm not...what are the case manufacturers thinking missing out on what I would think is an ideal selling opportunity?

I'm sure they miss some sales, but not all the haswell boards are out. A lot of people, and ones that'll buy cases like this, are waiting for the ROG type boards to come out next month.

The 540 is ETA'd for late July.
 
In the middle of building a Haswell workstation for a friend. If the 330R was out, I would have cross-shopped it with the Fractal Design R4.

How are the drives cooled in the 540? I usually run 1 ssd and 1 Black hard drive (or two, but currently have a Green drive in an external).
 
well, the 540 is available from Corsair's site, so I went ahead and ordered one. Would be awesome if I got before the weekend, but assuming it's UPS from CA to VA, not likely until next week. Now what to put in it...
 
^^^ I'm almost tempted to buy one even though I'm downsizing Mobo's. I think a Mini ITX version would be awesome.
 
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