Corsair Vengeance C70 Case Review: Going for the Gamers

Noise and Thermal Testing, Stock

Going into testing, I had a couple of reservations with the Corsair Vengeance C70. While I'm happy to see them moving more towards positive air pressure designs, Antec has proven time and time again that positive pressure isn't necessarily the key to success. I was curious about the intake fans placed behind the drive cages, but also concerned that Corsair just hadn't made enough progress in terms of actual thermal management. As it turns out, my concerns were well founded.

It wasn't that Corsair hadn't made much progress in terms of thermal design, it's that it seems like they haven't made any progress. That's a serious problem, because thermals have historically been the weak point of their designs. Corsair makes easy to build cases, and some of them do have decent thermals, but they've never been stellar and certainly don't excel the way Antec's Eleven Hundred does.

Ambient temperature during testing was about 25.5C which can account for some of the difference, but essentially the C70 is still in line with the Obsidian 550D and Fractal Design's $40 Core 1000. That isn't promising.

Unfortunately the C70 is also a bit louder under load than the similarly-priced Antec Eleven Hundred, a case that, at least in our stock settings, substantially outperforms it.