Corsair Carbide Air 540 Case Review
by Dustin Sklavos on July 3, 2013 12:00 PM EST- Posted in
- Cases/Cooling/PSUs
- Corsair
- ATX
Noise and Thermal Testing
It's reasonable to expect the Corsair Carbide Air 540 to provide excellent thermal results, and you'll see it definitely delivers. Where we do make a sacrifice is in acoustics; Corsair is using three very powerful 140mm fans, and while they're not especially noisy, they're not silent either.
What I think Corsair does have a lot of with the Air 540 is play. Similar to the much larger Obsidian 900D, the Air 540 really seems like a case that demands some experimentation. I couldn't resist experimenting with the case a bit and tried to see if I could match stock performance with a stack of silent aftermarket fans. With three 120mm be quiet! fans in the front as intakes and three 140mm ones in the top and back as exhausts, all running at 7V, I was able to get idle noise down to sub-30dB and load temperatures only increased about 3C. This is anecdotal and by no means conclusive, but something to keep in mind.
Stock thermal performance is pretty excellent, with only the powerful Rosewill Armor EVO really competing. But the Armor EVO has build quality issues that the Air 540 doesn't share.
The Air 540 is also, unsurprisingly, louder than most of the competition. Our stock testing configuration is actually the worst scenario for the Air 540; this is swatting a fly with a Buick. The stock cooling of the 540 wasn't designed to handle this light a workload.
Switch to our overclocked system configuration and the Corsair Carbide Air 540 continues to be extremely competitive and near the top of all of the charts.
Now that we're dealing with an overclocked system, suddenly the Air 540's noise levels aren't as bad as they used to be. Idle noise is still unpleasant, but at least the character of it continues to be a low, hollow whoosh that's far less irritating than the sound of several smaller fans.
Before getting into full fat testing, it's important to point out that while other cases are tested with three 3.5" drives, the Air 540 only technically supports two. While I could theoretically have installed a third in the second 5.25" drive bay, I didn't feel like it would have any relevant impact on the case's overall performance. The 3.5" drives sit at the bottom of the primary chamber and receive modest airflow, but they don't impede airflow in any way the way they would in a traditional ATX enclosure.
While you could argue the Air 540 isn't operating on a completely level playing field, I don't personally think adding the third drive into the second 5.25" bay would have any tangible impact on the case's performance.
The drives aren't running especially cool, but they're nowhere close to hitting spec either. In exchange, you get absolutely stellar cooling performance in the primary chamber on all of your major heat-generating components.
The NZXT H630 is able to provide better noise suppression, but it sacrifices thermal performance to get there. Our full fat testbed is an absolute beating, though, and so far the only case I've seen get halfway decent noise levels under load has been the SilverStone Raven RV-04.
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Tulatin - Thursday, July 4, 2013 - link
Out of curiosity, how deep is the back chamber from tray to panel? This case has a lot of potential as a little fileserver cube - it just needs some mods to do it.bobbozzo - Thursday, July 4, 2013 - link
Hi, it would be nice to know the total power draw (at the wall is fine) for the 'Full Fat' system.Thanks for the review!
bobbozzo - Thursday, July 4, 2013 - link
Also, it would be nice to know, in all case reviews, if the stock fans will work with a PWM motherboard fan controller.Grok42 - Thursday, July 4, 2013 - link
Excellent case and a great review. The case looks great and I'm I really like the design of separating the components. This case will certainly be in my list of cases to consider with my next build even though I can't imagine what build it would make sense for. I hope to see more cases pushing the design envelope like this one and I will try very hard to purchase such designs when I can.That said, who will use this case? It isn't a file server as much as the comments here want it to be. The drive bay isn't actively cooled and there aren't enough internal bays for it. It can certainly be a gaming system but it's a bit overkill for that given that 90% of the right bay would be empty.
This case seems perfect for a high end gaming show rig. The two separate bays makes the main bay very clean and gives plenty of room for doing about anything you want. All the extra space in the right bay could be used to hide everything that's needed to trick the visible side out. Unfortunately for me, I'm not into this but it's going to make some very nice rigs.
Grok42 - Thursday, July 4, 2013 - link
For all those wanting this to be a file server, think about this. This case is obviously for building a high-end show rig probably with water cooling and multiple graphics cards. It makes no sense to also press a $2k-$4k rig like this into menial file server as well. Sure, like Dustin, some of you have space challenges but for most it makes a *lot* more sense to build a separate file server.Aside from the space it takes up in a room, the "overhead" of building a separate file server is about $400. This gets you a Large Case, PSU, MB and RAM. Some of this extra cost can be recovered because you will need less costly components in your primary machine but if you're like me you won't save anything but your primary machine will be perfect for what it does rather than be a compromise between two major functions.
This machine will serve you well for years longer than you'll keep your main system. I keep everything on my server so when I get a new machine there is no backup to be done, just drop in the new box and tell steam to download the games I'm currently still playing. My kids watch their movies from this box, we watch our movies on our TV, our phones automatically upload pictures and video to it. This is the benefit of having a machine that is always running and dedicated to being stable and working 24/7 for years.
rchris - Thursday, July 4, 2013 - link
Thanks for the review. Interesting design, but not for me. You mentioned that you "feel like I'm looking at the next BitFenix Prodigy." Well, I've seen a few peeks at the upcoming Prodigy M and it looks much better than this (although not as versatile with MB sizes). That's the one I hope you can review soon.Impulses - Thursday, July 4, 2013 - link
I feel like they need to either go larger or smaller, it's current size leaves that side chamber in no man's land... You can't use it as a dual purpose server/enthusiast rig, but you end up with a lot of wasted space for the typical enthusiast rig. Side chamber should only be as wide as the PSU/external bays, shave off a couple inches and simplify the HDD/SSD caddy space.Twoboxer - Friday, July 5, 2013 - link
Shrunk to ITX specs and sans the space for the radiator, the side bay space would be well used and it might make a great single-vidcard gaming case. As is, there are some corner desk applications where the shorter length is an asset too.adamdz - Friday, July 5, 2013 - link
My biggest issue is that there are no fans on the right side. It needs at least one 120mm fan there. I like the looks otherwise, but with 4 SSDs and the PS there will be some heat there to be removed.Also, vertically oriented DVD/BD drives are a pain to use.
atragorn - Friday, July 5, 2013 - link
You know what all these comments really say ?“You can please some of the people some of the time all of the people some of the time some of the people all of the time but you can never please all of the people all of the time.”
You all want to make this thing into something it clearly is not. Personally i like it, i think im going to build my next water cooling rig in this box. It either works for you or it doesnt.