Corsair Carbide 300R Mid Tower Case Review

The idea of a “Sleeper”

We at TechwareLabs have  always been a big fan of the Sleeper: a Car or Computer case that seems stock but under the hood hides some serious muscle.  So when we laid our hands on the Corsair Carbide 300R Mid-Tower Chassis we excited to put it through the labs.  Before we set our criteria for looking at this case, lets look at a quote from Corsair:

 Great systems start with a great case, and Carbide Series 300R provides a remarkable number of features in a compact chassis. Easy access, lots of room for expansion, and superior cooling make the 300R a great choice for building powerful PCs that don’t take up a lot of room.

From Corsairs’ website they pride the case on 3 critera: “Serious Cooling Potential”, “It’s big where it counts”, and “Build Quality”.  Let these be the overall theme of our review.  Lets move on to Specifications and see how Corsair has done.

Immediatly we get an answer to one of our themes “Serious Cooling Potential”: although the case only comes with 2x 120mm fans (which is plenty for a mid range setup), the case has 5x more mounts for fans.  7 Total fan mounts for a mid-tower case is quite impressive and well over the average for other cases in this size/price range.  We also get another hint to our theme of Build Quality: Steel case with ABS accents.  We’ll delve more into this later though.

Some other thoughts include the integration of USB 3.0 but a lack of USB 2.0 ports on the front of the case.  This gives it a clean look which we’ll see in our Exterior section.  3x 5.25″ and 4x 2.5″/3.5″ bays isn’t anything extraordinary but is plenty for the average user.

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The exterior of the Carbide 300R is simple and classy.  A flat black theme with accents and grates for airflow.  Lets talk about each picture explicitly:

1. Again, simple flat black steel exterior.  2x USB 3.0 and HD Audio make for a simple front I/O and are accompanied by the Power and Reset switches.  The front panel itself pulls off to reveal 1x 120mm fan, a spot for another 120mm/140mm fan, and a dust filter (which we see in (8)).  We also see 2x more side fan mounts for 120mm/140mm fans without dust filters.  Finishing off our theme of build quality the whole exterior is steel except for the front panel which is ABS plastic giving it a nice finish.
2. The other side of the case shows the obviousness of fingerprints and finger oil on a flat black finish.  Keep a rag handy.
3. Front of the case showing all case accents.
4. Moving to the back of our case we see our other included 120mm fan, 7x PCI expansion slots, bottom mounted PSU, and thumb screws holding both side panels and PCI guards in place.
5. The top has another 2x 120mm/140mm fan mounts which can either house 2x fans or a 240mm/280mm radiator.  We do not have dust filters here but the top should be an exhaust anyways.
6. The bottom has a dust filter for the PSU fan which is removable through the back of the case (seen in (4))
7. The bottom also has modified feet raising the bottom of the case off of the ground for better airflow to the PSU.  This also means that the case can be put on carpet without the worry of seizing the PSU fan with carpet fibers.
8. Removing the front panel we see the input 120mm fan with a mount for another 120mm fan to blow fan directly over the HDDs.

Overall an excellent exterior.  We see nothing that could be improved or needs to be changed.

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Again we see the simple flat black interor with a completely tool less design and an oversized motherboard cut out.  Lets look at each section individually:

1. Nothing out of the ordinary that hasn’t been stated: bottom mounted PSU, Tool less design (which we will go over in other pictures).  The front fan blows air directly over PCI slots 1-4.  We also have 4 holes for cable management with rolled edges to prevent cable wear.  This case can support video cards of 400mm in length and coolers of 170mm in height.  We also see space for a resivior next to the PSU.
2. Here we see our 4x SSD/HDD bays which are removed by a simple pinch of the tray.  Since the trays are both 2.5″ and 3.5″ compatible you will not need a SSD adapter for this case.  The front-bottom fan mount (if utilized) will push air over the drives for better cooling.
3. Moving on to the 3x 5.25″ bays we see more tool less design.  The drives are locked and removed by a simple flick of the latch.
4. Over to the top-left we have our 120mm exhaust fan, 3x water cooling holes, and clearence for our radiator.  Unfortuantly because of the design of the motherboard tray and its connection to the rest of the case, cables cannot be run between the top of the case and the top of the motherboard tray.  Hardly something to make a big stink about but worth mentioning.
5. Down to the 7x PCI expansion slots we have thumb screws holding them in place.
6. Around to the back of the motherboard tray we see our large cooler cutout and rolled edges on cable management cutouts.
7. Cable management is a great way to reduce the temperature in a case by increasing airflow and general good looks.  Corsair has included almost an inch between the motherboard tray and back panel: more than enough for quality cable management.

Hitting our final theme of “It’s big where it counts”, the interior has a good amount of space for a mid tower case.  Not only in cooling but in cable management, Video card space, and CPU Cooler space this case is on par with what I would expect out of a quality case.  Corsair has not disappointed.

Final Thoughts
If I was in the market for a “sleeper” mid-tower case that looks classy and sleek instead of gawdy the Corsair Carbide 300R would definately be on my shopping list.  I love that the case comes stock ready for nearly anything that you want to put into it but also that it can stand the test of time by upgradable cooling.  The only place I can see this case falling short is with someone who wants internal RAID: with only 4x HDD/SSD bays you’re somewhat limited with expansion.  With that being the only con I see and an $80 price tag, I am awarding the Corsair 300R Mid Tower Case our Awesome Hardware Award.

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