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
Conclusion: Not Perfect, but Very Close!
When all is said and done, I'm left with an extremely positive impression of the Corsair Graphite Series 600T. I was skeptical at first; the Antec P182 has panels that are insulated to reduce sound, and the construction of the 600T admittedly felt cheaper, with steel and plastic everywhere. In practice, though, the 600T wound up being at least subjectively quieter than my P182 with its four Tri-cool fans.
So, the good stuff: the 600T is, as the headline says, cool and quiet. Getting a system installed in this case and then periodically tweaking it is an absolute breeze. The 600T's internals are spacious, and the largely tool-less design means not having to keep spare screws around or trying to remember where you put the other drive rails. A modular power supply makes installation that much easier, letting you install parts in phases and gradually try to keep everything orderly. The motherboard tray has a cut-out in the back for mounting larger heatsinks that require a backplate, the top of the tower has an impressive four USB 2.0 ports, and the case is even designed to hold a water-cooling system. My P182 felt positively antiquated compared to the 600T.
And the bad stuff: I'd say the pricetag is probably justifiable, but $159 isn't cheap. You get an awesome, easy-to-work-in case with excellent cooling, but $159 is still $159. I was also disappointed to see how easily the right side panel (the one that hides the cable spaghetti) bows. It's good that the panel is flexible enough, but it's unattractive. This is a minor complaint unless the case is going to be at eye level. The fan controller also doesn't seem to do a whole lot, and I can see how people would be irritated by the white LEDs in the fans. You can't disable those lights either.
At the end of the day, the Corsair Graphite Series 600T is a fantastic case and is absolutely worthy of our Bronze Editors' Choice award. Why not better? The bowing side panel is an unsightly blemish on an otherwise attractive case, the white LEDs could be annoying for some, and the fan controller doesn't actually appear to do much. These issues are all pretty minor in the grand scheme of things, though. They're worth putting up with in exchange for the excellent noise and thermal qualities (I actually tested the case with CrossFired 5870s at one point and found the difference in noise and temperatures to be fairly low), and the case is really an absolute joy to work in. $159 may seem a bit steep, but in our opinion, it's worth it. The 600T is a hell of a case.
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philosofa - Friday, November 26, 2010 - link
I like this case (albeit that I'm a bit of a side-window whore). But honestly.... as a man whose maleness was unaltered at birth... it reminds me of said personal 'maleness'. Seriously... the 600T appears to have a foreskin lol. Assuming this isn't some kind of Freudian thing, why on earth did they design the case in such a way?Ahh well... my search for a reasonably sized case with good cable routing, a side window, top-notch construction and cooling, good GPU clearance and good looks continues.
MeanBruce - Friday, November 26, 2010 - link
Side window, black powdercoat interior tool-less bays, multiple hdd and ssd configs, two 200mm fans, amazing airflow, room for my Noctua NH-D14, and 180mm Corsair HX-850 psu 4 optical bays for $99. Cooler Master HAF 912 Advanced, available in US from the Cooler Master Store! Nothing like beautiful hardware through a window, Yeah Baby!dirtrat - Friday, November 26, 2010 - link
Dude, who cares! This isn't a review about your Cool Master case. What an idiotic post!MeanBruce - Friday, November 26, 2010 - link
It wasn't an initial post, it was a response to philosofa, who said he was still searching for a case. The HAF Advanced might be what he is looking for. Try reading the above before shouting out dumbass, and if it doesn't concern you move along, what are you twelve?glad2meetu - Friday, November 26, 2010 - link
The low cost of the Cooler Master case is offset by your need to add fans to address sound suppression issues. Many other cases also have fan related issues. A Noctura fan is $25+ dollars, which raises the system costs dramatically for a case. Some of the Cooler Master cases are also relatively ugly in appearance in my opinion. For the cost, there are a couple of Lian Li cases on sites such as Newegg which offer a better value, including some aluminum cases. For example, a Lian Li PC-P50WB for $190. Steel cases tend to be rather heavy, so I prefer aluminum if the price is not too high. I thought about this Corsair case, but the large fans in it do not provide enough air flow. I consider it to be one of the main problems with this case. I also have concerns about the Antec cases that generally get good recommendations on Anandtech since they have better airflow than this Corsair 600T case and reasonable sound suppression. My concern with Antec is multiple users have complained about poor ground connections leading to electrical shorts. I currently have a now outdated Antec case in a desktop system that I will be replacing with Sandy Bridge. This time I decided to go with Lian Li.USB 3.0 is still relatively early. I think it is going to be very successful over the next few years with a high adoption rate. Intel screwed up big time with USB 3.0. Luckily other tech companies are filling in the gaps for their screw up. I will probably go with AMD when Intel brings out their high cost light bridge systems in the future. I'm hoping AMD will be able to reduce their power consumption more in the future. I am also interested at looking at their merged CPU and GPU systems.
MeanBruce - Friday, November 26, 2010 - link
Corsair memory and PSUs are top shelf, but they are far behind in case design at least for air. If you can enjoy the rugged looks of the HAF 912 Advanced Edition there is no better air case on the market now. Air flow is so good I am running the extra large Noctua NH-D14 passively which looks amazing thru the window. I put 2 Noctua uln fans up front replacing the red led 200mm, Noctua 140mm in the psu, another uln for rear exhaust and attenuated the top Cooler Master 200mm black fan down to an 8db level using a blue in-line Noctua resistor. Left all the dust filters in place. Super quiet, super temps, super fast! $99, they said they were only getting 200 in for the US and Canada, I got number 4. And they will be offering a USB 3.0 module in a few months, right now the add on module is Asia-only. Hope this helps!bigboxes - Friday, November 26, 2010 - link
Fanboi much?abbeytim - Sunday, November 28, 2010 - link
try a nzxt tempest evophilosofa - Friday, November 26, 2010 - link
Forgot to say cheers for the review Dustin, top notch work :)semo - Friday, November 26, 2010 - link
What's with all the USB 2.0 ports? Stopped reading right there. Why would I spend premium price on a case that is already outdated?