Final words and conclusion
Final words and conclusion
Alright, I admit it, I do have a soft spot for them cubist cases that Corsair offer! With the new Carbide Series 740 Air I can feel it, Corsair continues on with the trend that is square, offers airflow and yeah, simply is a damn good chassis. Admittedly, once I saw the first photos I had to get used to the new look, especially the air intakes on the front and top side of the chassis are a little more extreme. Once I unpacked the chassis however it all made sense as, in a real-world situation, the chassis does add to that x-factor opposed to just photos. Next to sheer aesthetics the chassis makes sense from A to Z. The two compartments work well here, again for looks yet also keeping two chambers separated helps your cooling overall.
Features
Now, I do miss a fan controller though but that's where I run out of anything negative. Oh yes, and you can argue that with all the space in the backside compartment they could have offered more HDD/SSD space. But is anybody really using more than 3 HDDs and 4 SSDs these days? The only thing it would do is add more to production costs and thus on that end it would increase the price of this chassis, so I am savvy with the choice. The chassis comes with many grommet holes and rubberized inserts, you'll have plenty of liquid-cooling options as well. So yeah, once again it is just rather hard to NOT like a Corsair chassis these days. The Carbide Air 740 is unusual and in that sense is bound to intrigue regardless. The two compartment design is unique, effective and does give the chassis a little more toosh, but not once did I have the feeling that the chassis is too big in any way or form. For the 149 bucks (MSRP) you receive a nice all-black design chassis with mainstream features. There's enough storage space, it is tool free, you can do some seriously freaky stuff with cable management. Though I have yet to spot graphics cards larger than 32cm, any graphics card fits. The overall build quality is decent and the features offered will give the average PC aficionado plenty to work with. The side panel door is a little 'bendy' though due to the nature of plexiglass.
Functionality
The room to work with inside is just excellent thanks to the two big compartment of course. You gain easy access to pretty much anything and, with 8 expansion slots, there is plenty room for even four graphics cards. Albeit, these days for GPU reasons we strongly recommend you to stick to two cards max. The all-black interior looks cool, the CPU back-plate cutout is huge and handy for easy installation/replacement of CPU-coolers and overall it offers features that belong in the enthusiast segment. There are plenty of grommet holes that have been rubberized. A big plus is the massive space behind the motherboard (2nd compartment) for extensive cable management, PSU and storage units, and then there are the multiple fan mounts throughout the case. The fans, we do recommend you to run the fans from the motherboard headers as there is no fan controller. Running them at 40~50% RPM would be silent. But if you hook them up at full power, things can become noisy.
Final Words
The Corsair Carbide Series Air 740 is a different and more unique revision compared to any ordinary chassis these days. The design, build quality and features are grand. The one thing I feel is lacking is a simple fan controller, other than that Corsair might want to look at tempered glass panels as well, as it is a strong trend they seem to be carefully skipping. Tempered glass does give a chassis a nicer and better aesthetic feel (imho). The Air 740 is a winner though, the two compartments and the fact that you can hide your PSU and storage units are just fantastic for the overall looks with the see-through side panel slash door. Due to its refreshed design the chassis does look a bit different as it's not just a square box anymore, but that is a good thing. Overall we think the Carbide Air 740 is a unique chassis now with a bit of an industrial feel. At an MSRP of 149 EURO/USD the chassis however is not cheap. But that price does seem fair enough as personally it is a sum of money I would pay for it. Features wise the Air 740 matches the competition out there and ticks most boxes, it has a nice black design up-to and including the cabling. It's tool-free and offers enough storage space. Inside there is plenty of room to work in and grand space to manage your cabling. There are lots of meshes and additional cooling options. As far as build quality goes, I don't have anything to complain about aside from the side door panel comments I already made. We will recommend the Carbide Air 740 as a unique chassis that offers nice features and mystifying looks. It's the kind of product that will bedazzle your friends as your eyes will continuously point at that chassis. Again, the MSRP of 149 bucks I feel is a bit steep, I however do expect that the actual street prices will be a notch lower. All-in-all the Air 740 will offer terrific airflow and some awesome options for your water-cooling build as well. Great to see is the new side panel door, something that the predecessors lacked. For us, it ticks all the proper boxes, but looks are obviously subject to personal preference. If you like it, you might have found the chassis for your next build, highly recommended and worthy of our top pick award.
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