Corsair Carbide 270R Review

PC Cases and Modding 227 Page 9 of 9 Published by

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Final Words & Conclusion

Conclusion

For a mid-tower chassis this SKU feels compact, yet houses everything you need and feels spacious inside. I like that. Next to that, I think Corsair hit the nail on the head on the overall looks (as subjective as that is of course). The 270R feels very 2016 in design and offers the features that fit the time-line. At 59 USD for the closed and 69 USD for the unit as tested today with see-through side panel we feel the product makes perfect sense. The Carbide stays true to its bigger and small brothers and sisters. I would have liked to have seen a white LED fan though, opposed to a red LED one, but as always I am nitpicking a bit here. Other than that there is little to complain about really, it definitely is a very good example of what a chassis should look like. Next to that, being a Corsair product it has been fitted with the hippest features. It comes with a near tool-free design, proper looking front bezel, can house a fair amount of HDDs and SSDs. The Carbide 270R can even house very large graphics card as well as up-to 280mm liquid cooling kits. Not bad, eh?


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The Exterior

I must admit that when you look at a photo of the chassis, you could end up frowning a little about its aesthetics. The chassis is very dark - black on the outside and black in the inside. It's perfect for dark-colored high-end gear like motherboards and graphics cards. The side panel window will definitely show you all the ATX, Micro ATX and Mini ITX goods you install in a very tasteful manner. Tastefully done I guess is the better keyword here, as the chassis is not screaming with logos and flickering RGB LEDs. Taste, however, is a difficult thing to objectively write about, we love it, you might hate it of course. I would again like to mention that this chassis needs some sort of LED lighting. The overall looks I find to be OK, nothing out of the ordinary though.


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Low Noise

I can confirm that a big plus is the sound level this chassis produces, well the lack of it really. Now, it's not 100% silent with the two fans, but realistically with two 120mm fans set at 600 rpm you will still have decent airflow, with a measured 35~36 dBA in a silent room. I'm quite picky when it comes to computers and computer parts making noises. But overall yeah, it's fine really. Again, it depends on how you configure them RPM wise.

The Innards

Keep in mind that only up-to ATX sized motherboards will fit, thus EATX and XL-ATX are not an option. There's enough space to maneuver in which will make component installation a breeze really. Cable management options are good. Once you mount the PSU you will realize that you have heaps of space. Good to notice are the lacking rubberized grommet holes, a bit of a miss as we feel these are excellent for hiding all cabling from eye-sight. The HDD/SSD drive trays work simply enough, though you do need screws to secure the actual HDDs, installation otherwise is easy. We like the fact that you can hide all these storage units at the back side. The looks are quite nice and, with the side panel window, you can peek at your hardware as well. It surely is a complete chassis for its size alright and with the side window it offers very clean looks. We can only acknowledge that the product is very feature rich for a chassis in this segment of the market. The removable HDD/SSD trays, decent cable management options inside the PC itself. Missing is a 5.25" drive bay. We like the two 2.5/3.5" bays + dual 2.5" SSD slots and seven PCI expansion slots. For the liquid cooling aficionados, you can still fit a radiator in the chassis including an up-to 280 mm one, that is pretty nice for this form factor chassis, we think.


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Final Words

The Carbide 270R from Corsair is a lovely product. It looks nice and comes with features that you typically only find starting at the more high-end mid-towers. Next to that, the build quality is rather good as well, very sturdy alright. You are of course restricted to an up-to ATX form factor motherboard, but the end result can be a super-duper-hyper-fast PC if you choose your components well. While we do miss a fan controller in this price range we also understand that most people simply connect their fans to a FAN controller. Combined with the space and options available you could even install four SSDs whilst installing a nice Radeon RX 490 or GeForce GTX 1080 Ti (I am thinking ahead of time ;)) inside the chassis connected to your kilowatt PSU as that one fits as well. You can build a PC that is massive in performance whilst being nice and small in size. Combine that with plenty of airflow, the option for liquid cooling and a warranty of two years, well that's just golden in my book really. Pricing, you don't need to think 150 USD like price levels, no Sir, it’s give or take $59~69 USD depending on the model you opt for with the windowed version being a tenner more expensive. The chassis is feature rich with a removable dust filter at the bottom, we do miss one at the top though. The casing has pretty okay airflow with its two 120mm fans, no complaints there either. So concluding, we are impressed with the Carbide 270R as it offers a lot of space for such a small form factor, it has great features and for the small form factor it looks downright lovely, nice job Corsair. Very much recommended, heck yeah!

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