The Corsair Carbide 400Q Case Review
by E. Fylladitakis on April 29, 2016 9:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Cases/Cooling/PSUs
- Corsair
- ATX
- E-ATX
- Carbide
Conclusion
With the Carbide 400Q, Corsair wanted to create a compact and elegant case that also offers good thermal performance and very low noise levels, all for a reasonable price tag. These are just too many eggs for one basket and a single design cannot possibly excel on all five of those areas. It is the balance between them that matters and we feel that Corsair did a fine job balancing their design to the best possible extent.
The Carbide 400Q is one of the most compact cases currently available that can support an Extended ATX motherboard, as well as top tier graphics cards and liquid cooling systems. It cannot support many drives but these are more than enough for the majority of home and office users, most of which own a maximum of two or three drives. There is no support for external drives, forcing users who want to work with optical media to go for an external device. This can be a problem for professionals, especially for those that need to receive or share digital material with their customers. Most home users and gamers will not mind, as the bulk of digital material is being transferred online nowadays.
In terms of quality, the Carbide 400Q is very good overall. The mechanical strength of the steel chassis is excellent. It is next to impossible to bent or twist the chassis, even if a lot of force is applied. The paint job is excellent, highly resistant to fingerprints and scratching. Our only concern lies with the plastic frame of the faceplate. The plastics are thick and of very good quality, but it is very tightly attached to the metallic frame of the case, requiring a lot of force to remove it.
With the stock configuration in mind, the balance between thermal performance and acoustics is towards the latter, but the Carbide 400Q still offers thermal performance comparable to that of most ATX tower cases and can easily support a relatively powerful system. If the user wants to, the Carbide 400Q can support even systems with triple graphics cards and liquid cooling, but that would require the removal of the top panel cover and the installation of more and more powerful fans. This would defeat the purpose of buying the Carbide 400Q in the first place, as the end result would probably be a cramped, noisy setup.
In conclusion, the Carbide 400Q is finely balanced between thermal performance, size and acoustics. It currently retails at it MSRP price of $99, which is reasonable for such a case but, in our opinion, if it could have been a little lower it would be more competitive in a crowded market. Nevertheless, the Carbide 400Q can be a very good choice for a typical gaming PC, allowing for relatively low noise levels and good thermal performance using the stock configuration with the case fan thermally controlled by the motherboard.
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LordanSS - Friday, April 29, 2016 - link
To be honest, I'd like to have space to install a BluRay burner for use as a backup solution for important things.Not talking about using normal BR media, but the M-Discs instead for more permanent backup. But I guess this would be an edge case, and an absolute minority of consumers for desktop cases.
Black Obsidian - Friday, April 29, 2016 - link
For occasional use, a USB3 Blu-Ray burner seems like the natural solution. Pull it out the odd time you need it, leave it stored when you don't.Murloc - Saturday, April 30, 2016 - link
who back-ups on optical disks anymore?Not even OSes are sold on disks anymore.
LordanSS - Saturday, April 30, 2016 - link
I reckon you either did not read, did not understand or just don't know what I was talking about.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M-DISC
Valantar - Sunday, May 1, 2016 - link
Sorry, but they are. My household (two people) has five PCs in regular use. None have optical drives. We do have an external DVD drive for whenever the need might arise, but it hasn't been used for years. It just sits atop the HTPC like a tombstone to optical media. We do play blu-rays from time to time, but the PS3 does that job better than the PC. I can't remember needing an optical drive for drivers or anything else since before Windows 7.The space needed for 5,25" bays is better utilized for more modern use cases, like radiators, drive mounts or space savings (or all three, like in this case). I _really_ regret getting my Fractal Define R4 half a year before the launch of the Define S - I'd much rather have an additional 140mm fan in the front than two unused 5,25" bays.
twtech - Saturday, May 28, 2016 - link
I still use optical media for some things, including OS installs. I don't use the drive a lot, but if I'm going to have a huge metal box for my PC enclosure anyway, it might as well have an internal optical drive for those times when I would like to use one.HOOfan 1 - Friday, April 29, 2016 - link
With the lack of 5.25 inch drive bays and the covered basement, I would say it is more of a competitor to the NZXT S340 and less a successor of the 300Rvenkatsrin - Friday, April 29, 2016 - link
Why do you keep reviewing big ugly cases, who needs such monstrosities??There is hardly any coverage on matx or mitx cases... boo hoo...
BrokenCrayons - Friday, April 29, 2016 - link
I don't think computer case products really are changed that often by manufacturers. Just doing a quick search on Amazon, I was able to find mATX case designs that are essentially identical to the ones I was purchasing 5-10 years ago. It's probably just that there's not that many out there to review. Let's admit it, a case usually lasts a very long time. I've got one that was originally purchased in 2006 and really have no intention of replacing it as long as there are ATX motherboards around.Though I admit I could probably make a certain person very happy if I bought a Corsair Carbide 400Q for him and stuffed a new gaming computer into it. But I don't want company in my MMOs so I'd rather keep him on a console where gaming is simpler and easier for him. Plus there's sports titles on consoles and he's sort of a sports game guy. PC games...well those that aren't directly ported from consoles anyway...those are more for thoughtful or social types.
CaedenV - Friday, April 29, 2016 - link
Any article with a coke can for scale is instantly a great article lol