Corsair Carbide Air 740 review - Product Showcase

 
So, once unboxed we can understand the looks and appeal a little more. New is the, let's call it, more industrial look giving the Air 740 a bit more oomph to look at. I have to say that looking at it in a real-world situation opposed to a photo does make a difference. The real thing is incredibly appealing to the eyes. 

 
It is a first for the AIR series, but the Air 740 comes with a proper door that has been fitted with nice matte plexiglass. Though not the sturdiest material, as the door is a little bendy, it does give you very easy access to your PC components and the big window of course haulz da proverbial booteeeh.

 
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 120mm or 140mm fans, or install a 240mm or 280mm top radiator. The front side can actually hold a 280mm, or even 360mm radiator behind that front panel. At the rear exhaust obviously a 120/140mm unit can be fitted.
  

 
At the front side, to the middle right we see the power on switch and activity LED. Connectors wise you'll have USB 3.0 x2, MIC/Headphones. It is nice to see USB 3.0 implemented here, albeit an extra pair of 2.0 would have been nice as well.
  

Here we have the left side panel, it hangs on two hinges and can be nicely opened and closed, a huge improvement over the previous models really (which were just panels). The Carbide Series Air 740 includes 140mm Corsair Air Series AF140L intake(x2) and exhaust(x1) fans. The AF140L is based on the AF140 and provides great airflow performance at lower noise levels than typical case fans. A bit of a miss however is the lack of a fan controller. I have this theory that all chassis above 100 bucks should have some sort of fan control, then again I am a wishful thinker.

Internals then, since the photos are dark, hang in there with me. First impression, that's an extraordinarily 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 the many 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 the Carbide Series Air 740 is unusual in the sense that it has two 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. So, behind this motherboard compartment we house the HDD/SSDs and power supply.