Hardware Corsair Carbide Series Air 240 Review

The Want is strong with this one, although I'll prob go for the white one.

 

That is a nice looking case

 

Nice review but I am more excited about the 380t, any chance of a preview/review soon?

 

I think it's as ugly as hell the "traditional" way up, but I'd like to see what happens to the thermals if you flip it so that the window is on top, I think it looks much nicer like that!

 

That leads to just one problem, the front usb ports end up at the bottom, so its only an option if you place the case on top of something.



Pic from the Corsair site.

 

I must say this is an interesting case, but with a half height rad+fans in the front what is the absolute max length of card you can have? Could you fit narrower fans to gain space (or do the half-height rads come with those already)?

 

It says 290mm max graphicscard length in both the review and on corsair site, however neither of them mention if that 290mm is measured when there are fans in the front or not.

So you have to assume the worst case, which means with a fan in the front you loose 25mm reducing the max length for the graphicscard to 265mm.
Then you loose 38mm for a rad.

So its 227mm max.

Meaning the Asus GTX760-DC2-2GD5 (not to be confused with other Asus GTX760 Cards) is the highest end Gpu that can be fitted if you want a 240 rad in the front. Luckily you can fit two of them (if you use a matx board) which leaves you with enough performance to run recent games at resolutions slightly above 1080p.

 

Did you go to the Corsair site?

Did you look at the gallery for the Air 240?

Didn't spot the GTX 780 installed alongside a H100i with push/pull fans, which still had around 15mm-20mm clearance?

 

Of course I did go to the Corsair website.

However as I said, it is not declared if there was anything installed in the front when the 290mm max graphicscard length was measured.

If you deduct the 2 x 25mm for push pull fans and the 27mm rad thickness (based on the extra slim rad of the H100i) from the 290mm max graphicscard length you'll find there is no room for a 780ti (based on reference design or bigger).

A 780ti is 263mm long according to the MSI Website: http://uk.msi.com/product/vga/GTX_780Ti_3GD5.html#hero-specification

 

Why are you deducting from the 290mm? I get that it doesn't state if the max length accounts for a rad and fan width, but it clearly does accommodate cards of that length - the reference versions of the 780, the 780Ti and the Titan are all the same length - 267mm

Add 50mm for the two fans in that pic, and 27mm for the H100i rad, plus (let's be conservative) 10mm clearance in that pic. Thats 354mm.

Knock off 25mm for a fan and 38mm for a thicker rad and you're left with a maximum of 291mm.

 

What fuss? It's a discussion forum, and I believe we were discussing something.

But thanks for stepping in to resolve the "fuss that never was"

 

Ahh, so you did actually understand what I posted, yes that was precisely the reason why I deducted it, too many case manufacturers make fake claims about rad compability, so I'm always on the side of caution.
Happy I was wrong in this case (excuse the pun), cause that means my old long graphicscard will fit when overclockers eventually get around to shipping my case at the end of sept lol.

 

It was a toss-up between the Air 240 and the Fractal Node 804 - I went for the latter in the end, simply because it looks less "gamer case" and a little bit more understated. Plus a brushed metal vs ribbed plastic front panel.