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
Installation and Cable Routing
I love my Antec P182, but working in that case proved to be a very special kind of hell. If you have a graphics card as long as the Radeon HD 5870 or longer, you pretty much have to remove the top drive cage, which means you're stuck using the bottom cage, which orients the drives in the worst way possible. I have small hands and it was still a nightmare to cable up and install drives. God help me when I have to replace a drive.
The 600T, on the other hand, was freakishly easy to get everything set up in. It helps to have a power supply with modular cabling (and if you're considering spending $160 on a case, you may want to go ahead and step that up too) because it allows you to do the installation in steps.
My first step was installing the motherboard. I already had the heatsink (a Xigmatek Dark Knight S1283) mounted to the board, and popping the I/O shield and then motherboard in proved reasonably easy. Corsair provides enough space above the motherboard proper to route cables, but you can also install a liquid cooling system with dual 120mm fans on the radiator if you are so inclined. Suffice it to say, getting the 8-pin auxiliary power cable routed behind the board and plugged in was about as easy as I could ask.
From there, everything else was just as simple. Pop out two drive panels and slide the optical drives in, and they snap and lock into place. Installing the hard drives was also easy, although if you have a 2.5" SSD like I did you'll have to futz around with trying to pop one of the pins out of the drive tray to get it installed. Installing the SSD was probably the most confused I got during the entire operation; Corsair doesn't include very useful instructions with the case and while most of it is self-explanatory, documentation that's a little more thorough wouldn't hurt.
Where I did run into trouble was in routing cables. While they do route to the back of the tray very nicely and easily, that whole region is going to turn into spaghetti in short order. Corsair includes zip ties, but they aren't reusable like the ties in the back of the P182's tray are. As usual the most egregious offender is the main power cable from the power supply. Unfortunately, while the side panels are flexible and designed to bow a little bit to give you some breathing room, this means that they bow out at the bottom corners when cables are cramped in the back. I imagine a cleaner cabling job could probably be done to alleviate this, but nonetheless just a touch more space in the back really wouldn't have hurt this case.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
69 Comments
View All Comments
Dustin Sklavos - Friday, November 26, 2010 - link
Seriously? If the USB 2.0 ports bother you, enjoy your uh...fictional case that doesn't actually exist. The case has a USB 3.0 port, how many 3.0 peripherals do you even have?I, on the other hand, enjoy having that many USB ports handy.
semo - Friday, November 26, 2010 - link
You talk as if USB 3.0 won't become the defacto peripheral standard in the near future. The standard has been out for a while and cases don't see hardware revisions often, so this case will seem outdated once USB 3.0 drives and peripherals become more common.The_Assimilator - Friday, November 26, 2010 - link
How many current motherboard chipsets integrate USB3 controllers? That's right, none. How many upcoming chipsets will integrate USB3? Also none.There's a good reason for this, and it's called Light Peak.
And if you're complaining about PC parts becoming outdated... then you should really stick to consoles. USB ports don't make a case, although I would like to have seen the 60T space the front ones out a bit more to accommodate extra-thick USB flash drives, like Corsair's own Flash Voyager series.
thrust2night - Friday, November 26, 2010 - link
Looks like you've assimilated your ass with your brain.There are motherboards which have more than one onboard USB 3 ports. And if USB ports don't make a case, neither does Light Peak. And since you are obviously not aware that Intel will be releasing motherboards with their own onboard USB 3 controllers in 2012, you made yourself look more like that idiot you are.
USB 3 is here to stay and there is no point in buying a case that offers only one front USB 3 port. If you are right, why would companies even give you a USB 2 port, they could save money and stick with USB 1.1 coz like you said, Light Peak is coming.
semo - Saturday, November 27, 2010 - link
I can't believe USB 3.0 is such a taboo subject on IT sites... it just boggles the mind. We should all be looking forward to it rather and not find merrits with USB 2.0...Anyway, @The_Assimilator I think you should look deeper into Light Peak. It is only an interface and not a bus. You can aggregate USB 3.0 traffic onto Light Peak if you want to but for the immidiate future we need USB 3.0 (spare me the "10 MB/s for my USB stick is enough, I can wait" crap)
LancerVI - Sunday, November 28, 2010 - link
No USB 3.0? No Purchase!The question of USB 3.0 and this cases lack thereof is a valid and good question.
And there are plenty of motherboards with USB 3.0 onboard.
Dear The_Assimilator,
It's better to be thought of as a fool then to open your mouth and remove all doubt.
Lancer VI
thrust2night - Friday, November 26, 2010 - link
So you're saying people should by a case based on the number peripherals they have?And what nerve to contradict your own statement by saying you would enjoy having that many USB ports handy, implying you don't have enough peripherals to use all the USB ports.
He still has a point. If you're paying a high price for a computer case, which you would probably keep for a few years, if not indefinitely, why would you buy one with only one USB 3 port in the front? It's just plain stupid and the worse part is, idiots like you don't even see it.
SandmanWN - Monday, November 29, 2010 - link
Kinda pointless argument. The only thing that can utilize USB3 to its potential is external SSD enclosures. Most people don't even have one of those around. All mouse/keyboards/printers/etc have not use for it.Even the high end user argument is bunk. It will be years before USB3 devices are even common place and by the an enthusiast should have upgraded already.
philosofa - Friday, November 26, 2010 - link
Whilst the USB 2.0 connectors themselves are backwards compatible (i.e. you can fit 2.0 devices into 3.0 ports) the USB 3.0 connectors that connect to the mobo are completely different - afaik there's no way of connecting a USB 3.0 cable conenctor to a USB 2.0 mobo header. As a result the reality of the current situation is that any current case will by necessity have a mix of USB 3.0 and 2.0 connectors, given that a (currently tiny) minority of boards have USB 3.0 headers at all. It's a bit unfair to expect Corsair to exclude the majority of their customers.I suppose some kind of switching system would be possible, but TBH that's probably an excessive expectation on our part- thus I have to applaud the fact that Corsair fitted at least a single USB 3.0 front panel connector; as Dustin says realistically how many USB 3.0 devices will you connect to the front panel (for me it'd just be a USB 3.0 pen drive)?
thrust2night - Friday, November 26, 2010 - link
But on the same note, how many USB 2 peripherals are you connecting to your computer. I would even go as far as to ask if you are actually using the USB 2 ports on the front panel 24x7. Because if you are not, then just having one USB 2 port and the rest as USB 3 would be better.Or, it would have been good to have 2 USB 2.0 and 3 USB 3.0 ports on the front, since the number of motherboards with onboard USB 3 will actually increase making the case future proof. There are some motherboards like AsRock that provide 2 onboard USB 3 ports.