Corsair Obsidian 250D Case Review
by E. Fylladitakis on January 21, 2014 12:00 PM EST- Posted in
- Cases/Cooling/PSUs
- Corsair
- Mini ITX
- Case
Final Words
Corsair says, "if you want to build a Mini ITX system without sacrificing expansion, flexibility, or performance, the Obsidian Series 250D is your answer". Although that may be the case, the Obsidian 250D does sacrifice one thing: compactness. The volume of the case is by no means small, meaning that the Obsidian 250D is not meant to be a small system to be hidden away. As a matter of fact, it would be more accurate to call the Obsidian 250D a mini version of the Carbide 540 Air. The large volume and cubic design also make the Obsidian 250D a not so friendly case for frequent LAN party attenders, as it is inconvenient to carry around, regardless of its lightweight construction.
When compared to Mini-ITX cases designed with compactness in mind, for living rooms and narrow spaces, the volume difference is vast. For example, the Obsidian 250D requires four times more volume than the Silverstone Milo ML05, a case designed for HTPC builds (0.028 vs 0.007 cubic meters). The Obsidian 250D however is not a case designed for HTPC builds or for anyone seeking to build a system smaller than the size of an average shoebox.
Corsair created the Obsidian 250D for enthusiasts who want to create a fully featured, powerful gaming system in compact dimensions. As such, the Obsidian 250D feels perfectly balanced. The two 2.5" slots for SSDs allow the use of either a single drive or a fast RAID array and up to two 3.5" HDD slots provide for high capacity drives and are more than enough for most users -- not to mention very few Mini-ITX motherboards have more than four SATA connectors anyway. (Do not forget that the optical drive, if installed, will need one SATA connector as well.) There is also enough space to house a powerful GFX card and room to install liquid cooling solutions; these are what the vast majority of enthusiasts will ever ask for.
However, we do not feel that the Corsair Obsidian 250D is for gamers and enthusiasts alone. As it is an aesthetically appealing product and selling for a fair price, it can easily attract the attention of typical home users as well. Home users require a balance between a good appearance, silent operation, some expandability and good value for money, the combination of which can be easily used to describe the Obsidian 250D. Especially considering that modern Mini-ITX motherboards come with just about everything onboard, very few home users will require any expansion cards. A typical Mini-ITX board paired with a mainstream CPU (or with an integrated CPU/APU), a couple of HDDs for storage, a single SSD for the OS and perhaps a good GFX card are more than enough to please most home users and casual gamers, all of which can easily fit inside the Obsidian 250D.
While designing the Obsidian 250D, Corsair made some very good and some not so good selections. The slow, narrow bladed fans are one of the very good selections. Narrow blades tend to be noisier at high RPM and reduce the static pressure of a fan, but on the other hand they make no audible difference at low RPM and have greater free-delivery CFM ratings. Case fans are almost entirely unobstructed and typically perform better with high free-flow CFM ratings, while static pressure ratings are unimportant. Filling the case with cable tie mounting points also was a very good idea, as they really do help with the cable management in such a design. The opening beneath the motherboard not only is practical but also helpful to overclockers, even though that may not have been one of the original intentions.
Moving to the other side of the coin, installing USB 3.0 only front panel ports without providing an adapter for USB 2.0 motherboard headers is a bad call, as very few Mini-ITX motherboards have a USB 3.0 header. An adapter will be required by most users, especially those who will go with value and mainstream range motherboards, in order to convert the front USB 3.0 ports to USB 2.0 ports. Optional improvements could be the modification of the optical drive support frame, allowing it to be repurposed if no optical drive is installed rather than making it entirely useless.
To summarize, the Obsidian 250D is a well-made, versatile and fairly priced Mini-ITX high performance case. Its main drawback is that it is not really "mini"; the cubic case is small but hardly less conspicuous than small tower cases. Nevertheless, it can fit very powerful components within relatively compact proportions. Enthusiasts can even go with a full liquid cooled system, using a liquid cooler on the CPU and mount the radiator on the side of the case and another liquid cooler on the GPU (with the aid of NZXT's newly released Kraken G10 bracket, for example) and mount the radiator to the front of the case. For those that want to build a compact and silent yet fully featured and powerful PC, the Obsidian 250D is a fine choice.
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E.Fyll - Tuesday, January 21, 2014 - link
There is no comparison with a real system simply because that would be entirely misleading. Testing a case with a real system is an improper procedure and can lead to greatly misleading results. Real systems are active loads and interact with their environment, which makes every single system unique. Each such system would favor some designs over others, therefore comparisons between systems would have been useless. Even if you build the same exact system, using parts from the exact same OEMs, even a different orientation of a single cooler could yield entirely different results.The synthetic load which we are using emulates the heat dissipation of a system (multiplied a few times) but does not aid the cooling capabilities of the case in any way. Therefore, we can assess the true stock thermal performance of the case, regardless of the system that will be used or any modification that the user will perform.
sleepytea - Tuesday, January 21, 2014 - link
I was really looking forward to this review, but it turned out to be a big disappointment for two reasons. First, the review format completely breaks the mold and makes no direct comparison to previous mini-itx builds. I want to see this case compared against it competitors, especially the ones that have been reviewed here in the past. The only other case mentioned is a HTPC case by silverstone which is completely irrelevant. The Sugo sg08 has an excellent review and would be a much more relevant comparison point.Second, the writing is flat and uninteresting. Dustin Sklavos has been the man for the job up to this point and I'm not sure if he is no longer on staff here, but he had a history with these mini-itx builds and the combination of his writing talent, personal interest in the form factor, and experience testing SFF builds made for excellent and trust worthy reviews.
Egg - Tuesday, January 21, 2014 - link
Corsair hired him, you can look up his twitter at @DTheSleeplesslmcd - Tuesday, January 21, 2014 - link
I was confused about Dustin's no-show, and the "About Anandtech" hasn't been updated with the info.And while the writing was flat, there's no question that we now have a new writer and Anandtech community member who I'm sure will become more personable as we batter him to bits down here ;)
thesavvymage - Tuesday, January 21, 2014 - link
according to another commenter here, corsair hired him. his twitter handle is @dthesleeplessDustin Sklavos - Wednesday, January 22, 2014 - link
Aw, it's nice to be missed. I'm still doing system reviews here and there for AT, but yeah, Corsair occupies my time now. I'm writing for their blog now and doing a lot of in-house testing, I'm also part of the development process for products you'll be seeing towards the end of this year and into next year. :)E. came highly recommended and I think once he gets situated, his voice will become more apparent. My early stuff at AT was much more formal and academic the way his is here. Frankly I think his testing methodology here is more scientific and reliable than mine was. It's good work all around that I'd only expect to improve, and he's definitely AnandTech material.
sleepytea - Wednesday, January 22, 2014 - link
That's all great to hear and I do look forward to seeing what comes from Corsair and mr. Fylladitakis in the future. Cheers!CloudFire - Tuesday, January 21, 2014 - link
I would think it'll be so awesome if you guys did video reviews of computer products on youtube similar to how Hardware Canucks does, seeing a video presentation of the review would be something I'd love to see from anandtech.spidey81 - Tuesday, January 21, 2014 - link
"Corsair created the Obsidian 250D for enthusiasts who want to create a fully featured, powerful gaming system in compact dimensions.""...installing USB 3.0 only front panel ports without providing an adapter for USB 2.0 motherboard headers is a bad call, as very few Mini-ITX motherboards have a USB 3.0 header."
I'm not sure what you're trying to say here, but after doing a quick search on the Egg for Z77/Z87 M-ITX motherboards (most likely the choice of chipset for gamers/enthusiasts aka the target audience) ALL of the 8 motherboards that came up had USB 3.0 front panel headers. Even the comparable AMD boards were equipped with them. It's only when you start entering budget and lower mainstream boards that you see USB 3.0 front header being left off. And per your quote, that's not the target audience for this case.
E.Fyll - Tuesday, January 21, 2014 - link
Indeed, per my quote, Corsair's target audience is that of gamers and enthusiasts. However, many mainstream and lower budget boards do not have an USB 3.0 header. As you said, a high performance board which has an USB 3.0 would "likely be the choice" of the target audience. That however is a hypothesis; someone could easily want to install an Asus asus c8hm70-i/hdmi and use it as a HTPC. It could become an issue for some users, therefore I had to mention it.