Corsair Obsidian 350D Case Review
by Dustin Sklavos on April 25, 2013 11:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Cases/Cooling/PSUs
- Corsair
- MicroATX
Noise and Thermal Testing
If the noise and thermal testing bordered on being academic for the Fractal Design Define Mini, it's even more out of place with the Corsair Obsidian 350D. The Define Mini lends itself well to liquid cooling, but the 350D was outright designed for it, and that substantially reduces the importance of air cooling performance. As a result, our conventional testing isn't just beneath the 350D's pay grade, it's not even at the same place of business.
With all that said, though, there are still a few things to learn here. Remember that the 350D starts at $99, making it an affordable enough starting point for the end user who just wants a classy, easy-to-build chassis.
Ambient temperature during testing was around 22C.
Thermally the Obsidian 350D puts in a fairly healthy performance. Competitive without being spectacular, it mostly suffers from being an offshoot of the basic ATX case design. Air cooling thermals have never been Corsair's strong suit, but they've always been workable, and the 350D continues that trend.
Because the 350D is able to keep thermals reasonably low, noise stays low as well. The vanilla testbed is nowhere near stressful enough to really work the 350D.
When you add even a modest dedicated graphics card, Corsair starts playing that old familiar song. The plastic "cage" used for the SSD doesn't seem to be particularly detrimental to its temperatures, but even the direct airflow from the front fan onto the GTS 450 Eco isn't really adequate. CPU thermals remain solid, though.
Idle noise continues to be a non-issue. Load noise isn't terrible, but it's not very impressive, either. While Fractal Design's case has a lot of acoustic padding and is built with heavy steel to help insulate noise, the 350D has no such allowances, and noise becomes entirely dependent on the efficiency of the cooling system.
Adding a more robust video card only reinforces what we've already learned. CPU cooling performance is above average, but GPU cooling performance continues to be middling. These cards are using open air coolers that will tax the case's cooling system, and the middling stock cooling (one 140mm intake and one 120mm exhaust in their typical ATX locations) doesn't do the 350D any favors.
Noise levels are reasonable. The cooler on our GTX 560 Ti can be pretty rough on any enclosure (and is outright hostile when the 560 is overclocked), but at least the 350D isn't getting overwhelmed.
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Grok42 - Saturday, April 27, 2013 - link
USB card readers are cheap and way more flexible and usable unless you somehow don't have USB ports close. The only USB device I own is a trackball and a DVD drive that lives in the closet. Despite having almost no need for USB, I have 16 USB ports within 12" of my hands when I'm typing. I can't imagine you don't have at least one. If you don't want an actual USB reader you can get USB converters which are the size of quarters that will convert a card to a USB stick. One of these options should work easily for you.okron1k - Friday, April 26, 2013 - link
i'm curious what you mean by hinged panels? i'm picturing the doors opening similar to the cosmos 2, but that doesn't seem to be the case.mmenart - Friday, April 26, 2013 - link
It's pretty heinous that TJ08B-E test results went away with the new test bed. I'd love to see these cases put head-to-head in thermals and noise. Anyone feel like donating to Anandtech?bmaltz - Saturday, April 27, 2013 - link
nice soup bowl...Grok42 - Saturday, April 27, 2013 - link
This is one of the better looking cases I've seen recently. I really like how the feet are done and how there is a large gap all the way around the case in the front view that creates a bold shadow line. Really top notch industrial design.I'm also really excited to see *any* case acknowledge the rising role 2.5" drives will have in the future. At some point the 2.5" magnetic drives will break free of their "laptop drive" stigma and all our drives can be the same 2.5" form factor. Sure you will always be able to get more storage in a 3.5" format at a lower cost per GB but the same was true of 5.25" and double height 3.5" drives and those are all gone. If all the drives where 2.5" and there was an open rail system for drives cases could be so much better.
If they really wanted to push forward they would have dropped all the 5.25" bays. Most computers sold don't include any optical drives anymore. Why are the smallest cases still including bays for 2 of them? I'm not saying no one has a need, but there are a lot who want a case with none and no one is acknowledging this fact and proving products for it. I certainly think the overall sales numbers for this case would have been improved by removing one of the 5.25" bays and having 2 additional internal 3.5" bays.
karasaj - Sunday, April 28, 2013 - link
I might be too late to comment, but please review the Arc Midi R2!Alvar - Monday, April 29, 2013 - link
The Obsidian Series 650D is manufactured with strong, stamped steel parts for increased rigidity, and coated in a black textured paint. The front panel features a beautiful black brushed aluminum faceplate to bring a subtle elegance to your next build... more details :- http://tinyurl.com/c5czh4bBoloMKXXVIII - Monday, April 29, 2013 - link
I think Dustin and the 350D need to get a room. ;-)CloudFire - Friday, May 3, 2013 - link
I'm still waiting on a mini-itx case from Corsair, this is an excellent offering nontheless but I'm wishing for a case layout similar to the Bitfenix Prodigy (with Corsair quality/style/finish) where the motherboard is laid out flat instead of on its side, that way there is no pressure/sag from gravity on heavy graphic cards.shadess - Friday, May 17, 2013 - link
http://www.anandtech.com/Show/Index/6917?cPage=6&a...