Corsair Carbide 400R: Succeeding in Reverse

Noise and Thermal Testing, Overclocked

While the Corsair Carbide 400R wasn't particularly exciting at our stock settings, there's always the chance it could acquit itself better under a substantially increased thermal load. Bumping the Intel Core i7-875K in our testbed up to 3.8GHz introduces a huge increase in heat for the enclosure to dissipate; let's see if this produces better results or at least a bigger difference as far as the side intake fan performance is concerned.

Once again, thermal performance is decidedly middle of the road, neither terrible nor stellar, and once again the side intake fans seem to benefit the GeForce GTX 580 more than anything. There's definitely room for improvement here, and once again our unlikely hero at $50 more, the Rosewill Thor v2, continues to offer stellar bang for the buck. It's worth noting that the 400R consistently outperforms its predecessor thermally, though.

In the process, one of the major differences between the 650D's design philosophy and the 400R's surfaces: while the Obsidian series was designed for acoustics first, the 400R is geared toward thermal performance. The result is one of the louder cases we've tested. It's not egregiously loud, but other cases have definitely performed better and more efficiently here.