Gadgetory

this video is brought to you by the intel core i7 4770k unlocked processor if you're a speed freak added until 3500 series SSD to your Haswell system for a truly enthusiast class experience welcome folks to my unboxing of the Corsair air 540 this is part of their Carbide series go ahead and open this bad boy up and let's see what Corsair has to say for themselves first and foremost I would stand in cooling and quieter operation I don't know about the quieter operation because it's quite messy but definitely outstanding cooling more on that in a moment included AF 140 L fans lower striction fan covers and dust filters ideal for advanced air cooling with support for 280 or 240 millimeters in the top 280 or up to 360 millimetre front rads and built for Brewers so that either means that it's built for people who make their own beer at home or it's built for fans of the Milwaukee Brewers I'm not sure which of those things is the case but what I think we can be sure about is that if any of those people happen to be PC enthusiasts then this case was built for them regardless of what baseball team they follow alright so there goes the box and whoa look at that the statics making the hair on my arm stand up see check that out that's why you should discharge a case before you ow all that got me really good ok before you can build a system in it so it uses a closed cell hard foam not my favorite as you guys probably know but I understand why manufacturers do it from a cost-saving standpoint the good news about this case is it does come in a nice double thick corrugated box so hopefully we won't have any trouble I know Corsair has been pretty good about their packaging in the past in fact with their ax 1200 eye power supply we threw it out of a moving car to simulate what will likely happen to it and shipping and it did not break so there was that all right so now time for the case itself we've got a manual which I of course won't look at and then we've got the air 540 I like cube cases but not when they're over-the-top I thought about getting a mountain mods case at one point I ended up not doing it but basically the point I'm trying to make with all this is I like a belt then that they're shorter but I don't necessarily like about them that the footprint is wider and that's been the thing that has made me not get them for time and time again when I've considered them so the front of this case has a very unique sort of layout to it it has two vertically mounted five and a quarter inch base it also has your reset power harddrive indicator LED microphone headphone and two USB 3.0 Jack's other than that is completely clean on the right side and there's a reason for that there's not really much back there then here we've got up to a two to one to 140 ml fans or three 120mm fans behind a nice open grill with fan filters as well as a nice little coarser emblem kind of a soft no it's not soft touch but it's a matte plastic finish that actually looks quite sharp in person and seems to be reasonably fingerprint resistant which is definitely a positive thing for a computer case because even building in one the first time there are ones that you can stain to the point where you can't even use them anymore well you could use them but it would bother you if you have obsessive-compulsive disorder like me um self diagnosed I'm not actually obsessive compulsive or maybe I am either way I have to finish this sentence in a way that will be satisfying okay so we've got an air intake right here next to oh what's that that's where the power supply now that's kind of funny and we can also look at the case from the back because this gives us a better idea of what's actually going on inside so lots of ventilation holes here here here and here as well as our i/o and one two three four five six seven eight PCI slots so those will give us support for ATX motherboards but not necessarily XL ATX but we could if it's an XL ATX eight slot board up here on the top we are have support for to 120 or to 140 millimeter fans and then we also have the ability am using these thumb screws on the top there we go to pull this off so go ahead take a step back mister camera operator b-roll sir and we can pull that off just like that so that gives us a better look at the way that the mounting mechanism works for those fans and/or radiators that you want to mount up there on the top and check this out you can also pull off the front just like that so that's where we get access to our fan filters as well as you can actually bolt this down if you want so normally it's just secured by the top piece but there's two spots for thumb screws right here and right here that will allow you to secure that in transit or whatever else now we also get access to our front removable fan filter which I have no idea how to actually remove but I'm sure there's a way look at that that was easy it's magnetic very nice and it goes on low yeah that gives us a closer view of what's going on in there so there's those AF 140 L fans those are the low-speed variant of their AFM's compared to the retail versions you do not get the rubber isolating mounts as well as the color rings that let you change the look of them so they will look just like that forever and ever and ever we've got a nice big side panel window and there's a good reason for this because you can see pretty much all of the important guts on the inside of your system through this side panel it is basically enough room in here for a motherboard room that is all because the motherboard goes here why don't I grab a motherboard we'll make this simple on ourselves why won't I get running boards where they go just get one there you go so the motherboard goes right there which leaves you room for a couple of drives down in the bottom so here I'm going to point it those down here you can see all the accessories are included in this little box and one of the drive cages so you can put either three and a half or two and a half inch drives down there using the included holes for two and a half inch drives okay those are over so those are hot spot check that out so you can swap those in down there no problem you also have room to install lots of thick radiators here and thick radiators here and then that is pretty much it on the side look at all these cable management holes though remember these debuted with the 800 D and we are still seeing the use for them today because everything else needs to go on the other side of the case which means it needs a way to get over to the motherboard so let's move over to the other side I'm just going to pull off two more thumb screws here which are all we need to do the whole case is coming apart without any tools a lot of the time even cases with thumb screw screws need a screwdriver to take them apart because they factory tighten them too tight and I can't get them apart on my own so we've got tooless two and a half inch drive mounts here well that's kind of clever the clip to go I didn't even know that about these go ahead and look at you can pop on or off as many as you want in fact that would allow you to mount them and then install them so there there's a stack of four of them and then the way that they clip into place is just in here so you can they have a tension mount at the back see right there that will pop them out as soon as you move this away and allow you to easily install and uninstall two and a half inch drives that's kind of cool as well as your two five and a quarter inch bays right here and then that is pretty much it for drive installation options so you get the two three and a half inch hot-swap ones with the included black cables right here so you run these to your power supply which happens to be located like right here for very very short cable runs there we go so power supply goes here you run these to the front of your motherboard through here and then that's it for two and a half to three and a half but you've got a lot of empty space up here that you could probably sort of mod something maybe you put your pump up here or you'd like your reservoir or whatever else but you little rez down here all the included cables are black not quite down to the individual wire so you can see the HD audio cable right there has a little bit of color to it but yeah you can have a closer look at that if you want but honestly it's not that bad there's the included USB free wire here's the tool is five and a quarter inch Bay mounting and I think that pretty much covers it so what does it come down to with this guy if you already know that you need an air 540 then you already know you need an air 540 it does cool better there is a direct path for airflow right from these fans to the graphics cards which are going to be sitting like right here where my hand is that here I'm going to show you I'm gonna grab a brackets part two that my friends is where your graphics card will be right next to the fans in fact longer graphics cards will be even closer to the fans right there so if you want the best possible cooling and you want to get all that stuff all those drive cages all that random junk out of the way of your cooling this will work for you if you want something that's super compact and has a smaller footprint then maybe it won't thank you for checking out my unboxing and first look at the air 540 carbide series case from Corsair leave me a comment tell me if you prefer a narrower foot or if you prefer something that has more of a more of a cubish sort of shape to it if there's a practical reason for doing so and as always guys don't forget to like the video and subscribe for more unboxings reviews and other computer videos