Corsair Carbide 300R Case Review: Corsair For the Masses
by Dustin Sklavos on June 29, 2012 2:25 AM EST- Posted in
- Corsair
- Cases/Cooling/PSUs
- mid-tower
- ATX
Conclusion: Remarkably Strong
I've normally been pretty skeptical about Corsair's cases in terms of their thermal performance. Assembly has almost always been a breeze, and cable organization has seldom been an issue, but when crunch time came around they tended to linger in the middle of the pack. By definition, that's not terrible but it's not great either. On the more expensive cases it becomes a problem, especially if they're competing with air cooling juggernauts like the SilverStone FT02.
Yet when we're talking about a case that's under $100, trade-offs become a lot easier to swallow. That's part of what I like so much about the Carbide 300R. While acoustics are somewhat weak, the feature set and performance make them much easier to live with. Laterally oriented drive sleds, solid cable routing, toolless drive installation, USB 3.0 support...there's a lot to like about the internal design.
The 300R doesn't have any means of really dampening sound and so its acoustics can frankly be pretty lousy (particularly with a high-end overclocked system), but for once Corsair has done a bang up job with thermal performance, offering a case that's frequently very competitive where it counts. It still can't beat the Antec Eleven Hundred, but Antec's case also costs at least $20 more and isn't as easy to service as the 300R is. If you build the 300R smart, I believe you can definitely improve the acoustic performance.
Ultimately if you're in the sub-$100 market for a case, I think the Corsair Carbide 300R is going to be pretty close to ideal for end users looking to maximize performance against budget. The only major competitor in my mind is going to be Bitfenix's Outlaw, which sells for $30 less and pretty much steals the show in that market. Yet the 300R is more feature rich, easier to assemble, and allows for a 240mm top-mounted radiator if you're looking to spend up on cooling. It's not a homerun, but it's pretty close. At $79 it's a solid deal; if you find it for any cheaper than that, grab it.
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mikbe - Friday, June 29, 2012 - link
I sure am glad I had a DVD drive when my Gigabyte motherboard refused to boot a Win7 install thumbdrive.I also like to buy used CDs at yard sales, flee markets, and Goodwill. You get some really cool stuff you can't buy anymore or was never even on iTunes.
Grok42 - Tuesday, July 3, 2012 - link
Yeah, I couldn't get Win 7 to install from a thumb drive either for some reason. I also install Fedora every ~6 months. I haven't purchased a CD in ages, not sure there is even a place in my town I could if I wanted to. I simply pull the external USB DVD drive out of the closet, plug it in and then put it back. Even weekly this isn't a big deal. Would an internal drive be easier? Sure, but I guess I build too many machines to waste $20 for a drive in each so I just quit. I think there are certainly an argument to be made for one external 5.25" bay on some cases. I'm just saying there is also an argument for one, just one good case with zero.futrtrubl - Friday, June 29, 2012 - link
I agree somewhat about the external bays since I hardly ever use optical drives these days, but as others have said there are enough other uses for them (card reader for me, fan mods/hot swap bays/etc for others) to justify 2 bays on a modern case.I do however find your objection to the 7 expansion slots puzzling. Why not have the seven? You aren't going to save space by cutting the numbers down since you would still have to fit an ATX mobo and it wouldn't save much money either. With modern layouts for PCI-E card slots some users require 2 slots per card so 6 slots just for graphics triple SLI and then one more for any other card/bracket. So in short we loose nothing by having all the slots but gain flexibility.
Which is why I love your 3.5 HDD stack system ;'] One reason I don't use optical media much anymore is because I archive everything to HDD since it tends to be cheaper (Thai floods excepted) and is more convenient for me, and I backup religiously. So I currently have 8 drives in my case (one 2.5 SDD, 2 hot/fast HDD and 5 slow/cool HDD) and would love better drive management.
Edward
Grok42 - Tuesday, July 3, 2012 - link
If you put an mini-itx board in this case and try to stuff it full of drives, there is an awkwardly large bit of dead space where the 5 unusable expansion slots are. My basic premiss is that in trying to build a case for everyone, they have built a case that only works well for those building a monster rig. Those building a monster rig would probably pick a different case and not a mid-range $79 case. Case manufactures need to quit pandering to a small number of outliers and remove some less used features and improve those that are most commonly wanted. Large number of 3.5" and 2.5" drives, room for large power supplies and smaller form factors.ggathagan - Friday, June 29, 2012 - link
While I understand your point, I think you look at design from the opposite viewpoint of a case maker.Consider this:
How does it benefit a company to only provide one or two functional expansion port openings if the space where the additional 1-4 slots would be still has to exist?
In doing so, you've just eliminated that case from consideration by thousands of users who DO want 3-7 useable expansion slots.
The case has to be large enough to fit the board and a standard power supply, so it's not as if you can somehow eliminate that area on the back of the case.
The same holds true with the front of the case.
Modifying the drive bay area to allow for only 3.5" or 2.5" drives would give you, at most, enough space for 1 additional drive.
In doing so, however, you've just eliminated that case from consideration by thousands of users who DO want a 5.25" bay.
Neither of those are wise business decisions and the bottom line IS business.
What you describe in a desired case is what SFF cases try to achieve, but that involves eliminating drive bays, since that's the one area of case design that *is* flexible.
Grok42 - Tuesday, July 3, 2012 - link
What is the most number of expansion slots you have ever used in a build? I've been building rigs for almost 20 years and the most I used was eight but that was a crazy fax server. In a personal case the most I had was Sound Card, Video Card, SCSI controller and Nic. But that was 10 years ago. I haven't put a Sound Card or Nic in a box since and just use the on-board versions. These days you put a single double slot video card and you are done. Most ATX motherboards don't even support more than 4 expansion slots.Maybe I should have included in my argument who needs ATX motherboards anymore? This would have cleared up some of the confusion.
jeffkro - Tuesday, July 3, 2012 - link
dont forget tv cardOlaf van der Spek - Saturday, June 30, 2012 - link
Have a look at the BitFenix Prodigy.That said, you're right, we need more mATX/ITX cases with less drive bays and shorter depth. Not every case has to support every configuration.
Grok42 - Tuesday, July 3, 2012 - link
On my short list with the FT03. All the mATX/ITX cases have pretty severe shortcomings. Not in features but with trying to do everything an ATX case can do. The FT03 has a 5.25" external slimline drive bay for some inscrutable reason which is just wasted space and complicates assembly. The BitFenix would be a hands down winner if not for the external 5.25" bay that more than anything ruins the look of the case in my opinion. The 5.25" bay also forced them to squeeze the power supply bay down in size so the top drive racks wouldn't interfear with the MB.rickon66 - Saturday, June 30, 2012 - link
In the first part of your post you want to abolish all external drive bays and then later you just want one decent case for the 90% of us. You make a lot of assumptions that 90% or 99% do this or want that based on what data? I can only speak for myself, not 90% or 99% of people-but I need a DVD/CD drive to access the dozens of disks that have accumilated over the years. Sure you can have external drives, but that means more wires and often another power brick. I would not buy a case without two or three external drive bays and if I don't want to use them, leave the covers in place. There are many uses for the external drive bays, card readers, fan controllers, I installed Antec easy sata bays in several of my compuers.