Corsair Graphite Series 600T: Cool and Quiet
by Dustin Sklavos on November 26, 2010 2:25 AM EST- Posted in
- Cases/Cooling/PSUs
- Corsair
- 600T
Inside the 600T
When you pop those side panels off of Corsair's 600T, you find an extremely well thought out internal design that's almost entirely tool-less and extremely spacious.
The motherboard tray is the only part where you can't get away from needing a screwdriver: you're still going to have to screw in the board, but the standoffs come built into the tray, and there's a large cutout for heatsinks that need to be secured on the back of the motherboard. That said, I still found popping the I/O shield and motherboard into the case to be far easier than any other case I've used. Surrounding the motherboard tray are a series of rubber-lined holes used for routing cables behind the tray, and these work fantastically: they keep cables in place, and frankly they just look better than the usual routing holes.
Expansion slot covers are ventilated and secured internally with thumbscrews; I've seen other tool-less implementations that have been more complicated and I have to be honest, this seems like one of those places where you're just better off using screws and individual slot covers. You'll probably want to use your standard Philips head screwdriver to secure these screws, but you can do without in a pinch. Again, there's an eighth slot here that makes doing a multi-GPU setup easier, since you can still use a bottom PCIe slot for a dual-slot GPU. Alternatively, you could use the extra slot for additional USB ports or whatever your particular motherboard might include.
Popping in a power supply is remarkably simple; my 750HX snapped into place securely enough that you could probably get away with not screwing it in on the back of the case. There are adjustable grips on the inside of the case that help hold the PSU in place regardless of size.
When you get to the drive bays, you start to really see some of the more innovative design choices Corsair made with the 600T. The panels covering the 5.25" drive bays don't require any force to pop out; you squeeze the sides inside the case and they come out easily. From there, just push the drive into the bay and a lever-based system locks it into place. Push the lever down and you can eject the drive again. It feels a little bit loose but has proven to be secure enough in practice. You can also screw the drive in on the opposite side, but it's not really necessary.
Below the 5.25" bays are the two internal drive cages that support three drives apiece. These are also completely tool-less. The drive trays snap in and out of the cages easily, and have pins in place on the sides. To install a drive, you just remove a tray, insert the pins into the side of the drive, then flex the other side to snap in the other pair of pins. One of the nicer features about these trays is that they're all designed to accommodate 2.5" drives, too, though this requires you to use screws to mount the drive to the tray. To do it, pop out one of the pins and then screw the drive into place in the tray: no adapters required. The trays are also designed to point the ports on the drives to the back of the case, behind the motherboard tray, for easy cable routing.
Here's where we get really slick: of the two drive cages, the top one can actually be removed and then replaced adjacent to the bottom one. It's a very cool idea for cases that are going to need to support extra-long video cards, although I have to be honest here...I'm not really sure they even make video cards long enough to require you to do that. My stock Radeon HD 5870 still has a heck of a lot of elbow room and I can say with certainty that the 5970 would too.
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kenyee - Saturday, November 27, 2010 - link
Dustin:I noticed you mentioned you used an SSD and then said the case is quiet. Does it quiet down the track seeking noises of hard drives or fan noises of graphics cards? It looks like a very open case for airflow and open generally means you hear everything going on inside the case :-P
And it doesn't look like the intakes are covered by dust filters as another poster mentioned. Did you ask Corsair why they didn't do that?
Seems like those are the only things missing except maybe a size comparison w/ your P182 case. This sounds like a great case overall except for the filters and positive air pressure...
Dustin Sklavos - Saturday, November 27, 2010 - link
The removable grates basically fill the role of "dust filters."I have four hard disks in there in addition to the SSD along with a Radeon HD 5870. At this point I'd like to mention that reviews have cited the 5870 as being a little loudish, but I've never had a problem with it. The case masks sound very well, and airflow seems good enough - even with the intake fan blowing through four hard drives and the SSD - to keep the 5870 running very cool so the fan never spins up.
As I mentioned in an earlier comment, I actually tried running two 5870s and there was very little appreciable difference in noise, both at idle and under load.
strikeback03 - Monday, November 29, 2010 - link
Maybe I'm blind, but where are the power and reset buttons? They don't appear to be with the ports and fan controller.Also, I personally prefer the front panel stuff to be at the top but facing forward not up, as I have a shelf in my desk above the tower area.
ehpexs - Monday, November 29, 2010 - link
You guys should do a review of the Fractal Define R3. It would stack up very well to this case.Mephi5to - Friday, January 7, 2011 - link
Rectal Defiler R3 ? :)C'DaleRider - Tuesday, November 30, 2010 - link
"They've moved into Solid State Disks, power supplies, enclosures, and even brought their first gaming headset to market just this year. Each entry has met with some success...."I laughed so hard when I read "met with some success" that coffee came out my nose.
Corsair's entry into power supplies was met with a bit more than "some success", and some people credit Corsair for making enthusiast power supplies (high quality assembly, excellent performance) more affordable. Prior to Corsair's entry into power supplies, you had Antec as the everyman units, uninspiring and many times horrid, or PCP&C and Enermax.....both fine power supply lines but both more expensive than need be. Corsair moved the price point down without sacrificing any performance or quality.
Cannyone - Saturday, December 4, 2010 - link
I bought this case just a few weeks ago. The system I installed in it was an Asus Rampage III Formula with a Core i7 930, and two EVGA GTX-470s in SLI. At first I used a Prolimatech Megahalems cooler, but then switched to a Swiftech H2O-X20 Edge cooler.The Swiftech really helped my CPU Temps. But because I connect two displays, the video cards don't down-clock to 2D mode they just drop down to "low power 3D mode". This meant my #1 card was running at just less than 70°C while Idling at the desktop.
The end result was that the case was neither cool nor quiet.
I tried to upgrade the fans. But without at least one 120mm fan supplying the GPU area with cool air (from the side panel would be ideal), I doubt this case will be able to work with even 1 high powered Nvidia card. I felt forced to reinstall my system in my old HAF 932 case. :(
KaosFaction - Monday, December 6, 2010 - link
Did I miss something, or is this basically a reboxing (slight slight changes) of the Cooler Master Storm Sniper Black?gtech50 - Thursday, March 17, 2011 - link
Quote -"The power supply's cooling is essentially completely cut off from the rest of the system, and there's a vent in the bottom of the case (with a removable filter) for the power supply's fan. This isn't a problem either; the case is built on a raised base that keeps all but the shaggiest of carpeting from clogging up the vent"RAISED BASE???? What raised base?
There is barely 1/8" clearance from the filter to the floor I have cut pile carpeting and it clogs the filter.
I'm returning the case because of this simple overloooked MAJOR design flaw.