Corsair Graphite Series 600T: Cool and Quiet
by Dustin Sklavos on November 26, 2010 2:25 AM EST- Posted in
- Cases/Cooling/PSUs
- Corsair
- 600T
Inside the 600T
When you pop those side panels off of Corsair's 600T, you find an extremely well thought out internal design that's almost entirely tool-less and extremely spacious.
The motherboard tray is the only part where you can't get away from needing a screwdriver: you're still going to have to screw in the board, but the standoffs come built into the tray, and there's a large cutout for heatsinks that need to be secured on the back of the motherboard. That said, I still found popping the I/O shield and motherboard into the case to be far easier than any other case I've used. Surrounding the motherboard tray are a series of rubber-lined holes used for routing cables behind the tray, and these work fantastically: they keep cables in place, and frankly they just look better than the usual routing holes.
Expansion slot covers are ventilated and secured internally with thumbscrews; I've seen other tool-less implementations that have been more complicated and I have to be honest, this seems like one of those places where you're just better off using screws and individual slot covers. You'll probably want to use your standard Philips head screwdriver to secure these screws, but you can do without in a pinch. Again, there's an eighth slot here that makes doing a multi-GPU setup easier, since you can still use a bottom PCIe slot for a dual-slot GPU. Alternatively, you could use the extra slot for additional USB ports or whatever your particular motherboard might include.
Popping in a power supply is remarkably simple; my 750HX snapped into place securely enough that you could probably get away with not screwing it in on the back of the case. There are adjustable grips on the inside of the case that help hold the PSU in place regardless of size.
When you get to the drive bays, you start to really see some of the more innovative design choices Corsair made with the 600T. The panels covering the 5.25" drive bays don't require any force to pop out; you squeeze the sides inside the case and they come out easily. From there, just push the drive into the bay and a lever-based system locks it into place. Push the lever down and you can eject the drive again. It feels a little bit loose but has proven to be secure enough in practice. You can also screw the drive in on the opposite side, but it's not really necessary.
Below the 5.25" bays are the two internal drive cages that support three drives apiece. These are also completely tool-less. The drive trays snap in and out of the cages easily, and have pins in place on the sides. To install a drive, you just remove a tray, insert the pins into the side of the drive, then flex the other side to snap in the other pair of pins. One of the nicer features about these trays is that they're all designed to accommodate 2.5" drives, too, though this requires you to use screws to mount the drive to the tray. To do it, pop out one of the pins and then screw the drive into place in the tray: no adapters required. The trays are also designed to point the ports on the drives to the back of the case, behind the motherboard tray, for easy cable routing.
Here's where we get really slick: of the two drive cages, the top one can actually be removed and then replaced adjacent to the bottom one. It's a very cool idea for cases that are going to need to support extra-long video cards, although I have to be honest here...I'm not really sure they even make video cards long enough to require you to do that. My stock Radeon HD 5870 still has a heck of a lot of elbow room and I can say with certainty that the 5970 would too.
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Dustin Sklavos - Friday, November 26, 2010 - link
Seriously? If the USB 2.0 ports bother you, enjoy your uh...fictional case that doesn't actually exist. The case has a USB 3.0 port, how many 3.0 peripherals do you even have?I, on the other hand, enjoy having that many USB ports handy.
semo - Friday, November 26, 2010 - link
You talk as if USB 3.0 won't become the defacto peripheral standard in the near future. The standard has been out for a while and cases don't see hardware revisions often, so this case will seem outdated once USB 3.0 drives and peripherals become more common.The_Assimilator - Friday, November 26, 2010 - link
How many current motherboard chipsets integrate USB3 controllers? That's right, none. How many upcoming chipsets will integrate USB3? Also none.There's a good reason for this, and it's called Light Peak.
And if you're complaining about PC parts becoming outdated... then you should really stick to consoles. USB ports don't make a case, although I would like to have seen the 60T space the front ones out a bit more to accommodate extra-thick USB flash drives, like Corsair's own Flash Voyager series.
thrust2night - Friday, November 26, 2010 - link
Looks like you've assimilated your ass with your brain.There are motherboards which have more than one onboard USB 3 ports. And if USB ports don't make a case, neither does Light Peak. And since you are obviously not aware that Intel will be releasing motherboards with their own onboard USB 3 controllers in 2012, you made yourself look more like that idiot you are.
USB 3 is here to stay and there is no point in buying a case that offers only one front USB 3 port. If you are right, why would companies even give you a USB 2 port, they could save money and stick with USB 1.1 coz like you said, Light Peak is coming.
semo - Saturday, November 27, 2010 - link
I can't believe USB 3.0 is such a taboo subject on IT sites... it just boggles the mind. We should all be looking forward to it rather and not find merrits with USB 2.0...Anyway, @The_Assimilator I think you should look deeper into Light Peak. It is only an interface and not a bus. You can aggregate USB 3.0 traffic onto Light Peak if you want to but for the immidiate future we need USB 3.0 (spare me the "10 MB/s for my USB stick is enough, I can wait" crap)
LancerVI - Sunday, November 28, 2010 - link
No USB 3.0? No Purchase!The question of USB 3.0 and this cases lack thereof is a valid and good question.
And there are plenty of motherboards with USB 3.0 onboard.
Dear The_Assimilator,
It's better to be thought of as a fool then to open your mouth and remove all doubt.
Lancer VI
thrust2night - Friday, November 26, 2010 - link
So you're saying people should by a case based on the number peripherals they have?And what nerve to contradict your own statement by saying you would enjoy having that many USB ports handy, implying you don't have enough peripherals to use all the USB ports.
He still has a point. If you're paying a high price for a computer case, which you would probably keep for a few years, if not indefinitely, why would you buy one with only one USB 3 port in the front? It's just plain stupid and the worse part is, idiots like you don't even see it.
SandmanWN - Monday, November 29, 2010 - link
Kinda pointless argument. The only thing that can utilize USB3 to its potential is external SSD enclosures. Most people don't even have one of those around. All mouse/keyboards/printers/etc have not use for it.Even the high end user argument is bunk. It will be years before USB3 devices are even common place and by the an enthusiast should have upgraded already.
philosofa - Friday, November 26, 2010 - link
Whilst the USB 2.0 connectors themselves are backwards compatible (i.e. you can fit 2.0 devices into 3.0 ports) the USB 3.0 connectors that connect to the mobo are completely different - afaik there's no way of connecting a USB 3.0 cable conenctor to a USB 2.0 mobo header. As a result the reality of the current situation is that any current case will by necessity have a mix of USB 3.0 and 2.0 connectors, given that a (currently tiny) minority of boards have USB 3.0 headers at all. It's a bit unfair to expect Corsair to exclude the majority of their customers.I suppose some kind of switching system would be possible, but TBH that's probably an excessive expectation on our part- thus I have to applaud the fact that Corsair fitted at least a single USB 3.0 front panel connector; as Dustin says realistically how many USB 3.0 devices will you connect to the front panel (for me it'd just be a USB 3.0 pen drive)?
thrust2night - Friday, November 26, 2010 - link
But on the same note, how many USB 2 peripherals are you connecting to your computer. I would even go as far as to ask if you are actually using the USB 2 ports on the front panel 24x7. Because if you are not, then just having one USB 2 port and the rest as USB 3 would be better.Or, it would have been good to have 2 USB 2.0 and 3 USB 3.0 ports on the front, since the number of motherboards with onboard USB 3 will actually increase making the case future proof. There are some motherboards like AsRock that provide 2 onboard USB 3 ports.