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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kevith - Friday, November 26, 2010 - link
The review I was thinking of is actually this, from Phoenixlights post earlier:http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/cases/2010/09/23/...
It is however some very stiff competition the 600T is up against in that review, and the coolest results are achieved with all fans at full speed, which is a bit noisier than I prefer. I use my machine mainly for pre-studio music recording, so although I´m not requiring total silence, a certain upper level of noise is important.
And since You can run that kind of hardware, my Athlon II X2 and HD 4770 will probably have real good chances of staying both frosty and whispering.
So I think I will in fact do it. My old Zalman GS1000 is a bit big, has no dust filters, and I´ve really had to tinker to get the noise down.
And there is nothing like a new affair, is there...?
Thanks for the reply and all the great articles over the years.
Phoenixlight - Friday, November 26, 2010 - link
Just as an alternative the Fractal Design Define R3 is a quieter case with better cooling and is considerably cheaper whilst retaining excelllent cable management.kevith - Saturday, November 27, 2010 - link
Welll, after checking out reviews - and comparisons - one more time, I can see your point. And one case, that also have given me dreams of love affairs, the Raven RV02, is also considered a better buy in terms of both cooling and noise.It really is a jungle out there, and it´s not all that easy being Tarzan with all those Jane´s around
I still consider the 600T by far the prettiest to my taste, but looks aren´t everything.
Thanks for the inputs
Phoenixlight - Saturday, November 27, 2010 - link
Yeah the RV02 is a good case and has been recently upgraded by Silverstone with Air Penetrator 181 fans which cool about 4*C better but it's slightly more expensive now and is a very deep case.King Crimson - Friday, November 26, 2010 - link
Fuck Martha Stewart. :-)Conficio - Friday, November 26, 2010 - link
I really like the USB ports at the top of a case. My Lian Li 60 has a small flap at teh bottom, which lasted about a year and then broke. Anything put in there is in danger of brakage sooner or later.That said, looking at the USB port panel, it is far from ideal:
* The ports are very close together. It become shard manage multiple USB drives in those ports.
* Now I have ports but a fan grill and roundes surfaces (if I look at the pictures right). Would it be not much more practical to have a flat surface? Preferrably flat surfaces with an anti skid coating, so that I can place my external hard drive, iPod, Sports GPS, ... right on that surface.
* Also give me some clips or ties on that top surface (velcro?) so that I can manage the cables (USB in the front and power from the back) right there. Or may be some similar double layer panel with rubber grommets to hide the cables even more.
Other than that this looks like a great case.
boe - Friday, November 26, 2010 - link
I love the fact that finally some case makers are making cases for people who have long video cards! I can tell you many of the things I like but there is only one thing that really bugs me about this case. I wish it had an optional mounting for a 120mm fan to improve airlfow are around the slots.My video card generates a great deal of heat but so do SSD PCIe cards and sound cards. If you SLI or CF your video cards the cards tend to be tight together making adequate airflow challenging. I'm not saying they need to include a side 120mm fan but it would be nice if I didn't have to take a dremel to a new case just to make it have better airflow for a heavily loaded system.
poohbear - Saturday, November 27, 2010 - link
really need to buy corsair stocks, this company is so on the ball in every segment they enter, premium stuff that is done so keenly.Definitely gonna buy this case, so convenient and user friendly, and gorgeous to boot!
dubyadubya - Saturday, November 27, 2010 - link
The 600T is a nice case but Corsair fails in one important area as do all other brands as far as I know. Computer cases should have more intake CFM than exhaust CFM. This creates a positive case pressure. In a positive pressure case dust is not pulled though optical drives and every other opening in the case. USB ports, audio ports etc. Easily cleanable low restriction air filters should also be included and engineered into the design of the case. Because no company seems to do it right I tend to by cheap cases and mod the piss out of them to create a positive pressure case myself.hangfirew8 - Monday, November 29, 2010 - link
I sort of agree, though I shoot for neutral pressure, either way the 600T needs a lot more input area than it, or most any case provides.While I agree with deleting the case side fan for the sake of quiet, what we are left with makes no sense at all. Other than CPU, where does most of the heat come from in a big gaming case. The big Video card or cards. Where are all the fans on this case? Up near the CPU, which has more than twice as much exhaust as it needs. The video cards have the front fan sort of blowing on them, through drive cages, and if we flip the P/S fan right-side-up we get to roast the power supply in Video Heat juices.
Sooner or later SOMEONE will get it right. We need a Rear Exhaust fan near the video cards. Both sound and heat go out the back and away from the user, quietly. That might mean moving the P/S back up top, or just making a taller case.
In the mean time, people will have to do things that seem to make no sense- like setting all fans to input- because any change is better than what we are getting from our current crop of silent gaming cases, which is to say roasted video cards and power supplies.