Product Showcase
When we jump on top we see a PHM, a pretty huge mesh. Good for top side exhaust ventilation. Realistically you can mount up to six 120mm or five 140mm fans, or install a 240mm or 280mm top radiator and a 240mm, 280mm, or even 360mm radiator on the front panel. And we can only assume the new LCS units from Corsair will look great.
We do think that if you install all these fans you could use the unit as aa Parrot AA drone just as well ;)
At the front side at the to middle right we see the power on switch and LED activity. Connectors wise you'll have USB 3.0 x2, MIC/Headphones. It is nice to see USB 3.0 implemented here, albeit a pair of 2.0 would have been nice as well.
Check that out, remove some thumbscrews and you gain easy access, low-restriction dust filters are easy to maintain. Also handy and a great option if you have a 'dislike' to small children. My personaal Pavlov theory says they'll never tough the PC again.
Here we have the left side panel. The Carbide Series Air 540 includes 140mm Corsair Air Series AF140L intake and exhaust fans. The AF140L is based on the AF140 and provides great airflow performance at lower noise levels than typical case fans. We tested the fans, and yes ... I'm a fan :P Quite silent. A bit of a miss however is the lack of a fan controller. I have this theory that all chassis above 1100 bucks should have some sort of fan control.
Internals then, since the photos are dark, bear with me. First impression, that's a extraordinary decent amount of room to work in alright, going deep is the word here. The second thought would be the all black design, including cables and connectors. Great to see are grommet holes or more specifically the black rubber inlays accompanying them to hide cabling, but overall you can make it all really clean and tidy if you use dark wiring. A good and popular trend these days is to make a big gaping hole in the motherboard tray. This actually is a CPU backplate cutout which allows you to remove and install a new CPU cooler much easier. Typically you'd need to take out the motherboard to install a new cooler, now you can access it from both sides without that unpleasant experience of removing a motherboard from the chassis. The design of Carbide Series Air 540 is unusual in the sense that it has dual chambers. That on its end has a positive side effect as it will deliver cooler air to your CPU, graphics cards, motherboard, and memory without your drives or power supply getting in the way.
