Corsair Obsidian 350D review - Final Words & Conclusion

The Verdict

We had to wait on the 900D for a loooooong time, and right after that launch... boom there's the 350D already. Admittedly, I really do like it. Building small form factor PCs is hip and trendy these days, even last week I was building a new FCAT test system based on a microATX form factor. Guess where that system is going to be housed in? That aside, overall the Obsidian Series 350D is a product that is teasing to the eyes, has some clever features and simply put a great design. 

Aesthetics

The looks first; well that's always subjective as heck of course. Being a Guru3D reader you probably like if not love the design. I must admit that when you look at a photo of the chassis, you could end up frowning a little about its aesthetics but trust me when I say that once you see the 350D for real and not in a photo, then it all starts to make sense. That was similar to the 900D actually, which has the same feel. The chassis has that nice matte black finish, black from the inside out. It's perfect for dark-colored high-end gear like motherboards and graphics cards and the side panel window will definitely show you all the goods you install in a very tasteful manner. Yeah, that's the word I was looking for tasteful. Tasteful, not screaming with logos and flickering LEDs. However taste is a difficult thing to objectively write about, we love it, you might hate it of course. 

Features

Features wise we do miss out some of the nice stuff located on the 900D. The extra compartments, top side fan filter and perhaps a secondary fan located in the front of the HDD cages would have been nice. Other then that we can only acknowledge that the product is very feature rich for a chassis in this segment of the market. The removable HDD/SDD trays, the grommet holes with rubber inlays for managing your wiring, decent cable management options on the backside of the PC itself. Then there is the duo 5.25" drive bays, the two 2.5/3.5" bays and 5 PCI expansion slots. Very cool I find to be the SSD bracket that can hold three of these bad boys, slide them in until you hear and feel a click, and your SSDs are locked and loaded to arm that PC of yours. For the liquid cooling afficonado's, you still can fit two radiators in the chassis including an up-to 280 mm one, that is pretty rare for a mATX chassis alright.

Final Words

It is time to wrap things up. We feel that the 350D is a very nice product. It just looks great oozes with features and seems to be of nice build quality. You are of course restricted to the smaller form factor motherboards, but the end result can be a super-duper-hyper-fast PC if you choose your components well. Think Z77 / Core i7 and perhaps three SSDs in RAID 5 whilst installing two R7970 or GeForce GTX Titan cards connected through a kilowatt PSU. See that's what I am trying to say, the small form factor really does not need to be a restriction. Contrary you can build a PC that is massive in performance whilst being small in size. Combine that with plenty of airflow, the option for liquid cooling and a warranty of two years, well... it's just hard to go wrong with the 350D I think.

Another good thing is pricing, you don't need to think 300~400 USD like the 900D, no Sir it’s $99.99 for the version with a solid side-panel, and $109.99 (USD) for windowed panel. EURO prioces should be a notch lower and let me also state that these are suggest retail prices. In a few weeks you can easily shave off another 10 to 20% if you look around in (r)etail a little. This a very appealing product to opt for or at the very least think about if are in the market for a small form factor PC that kicks ass. Very much recommended.

• Sign up to receive a notice when we publish a new article
• Or go back to Guru3D's front page.