with its factory tuning and data center
DNA and Intel 730 series SSD is an
amazing choice for gamers and
performance enthusiasts let me open this
video by saying I've got an email thread
that's about a mile long with George
from Corsair about this case and I do
have a number of complaints about it but
his response of well what else can you
get at this price that's this easy to
build in and has these features is
pretty fair the 450d if you don't feel
like skipping to the end to hear the
conclusion delivers great features at a
great price with great airflow and in my
opinion very good looks which isn't to
say that I'm going to completely let
them off the hook but packing material
is not the best hard foam I've ever seen
but it's not really a concern unless
you're having someone else build your
system for you and then ship it to you
alright so once it's out of the box this
is a bit of an unusual look for an
obsidian instead of going for a very
plain look with simple straight lines
Corsair has in my mind done a great job
of delivering solid cooling performance
and still having it look pretty clean
out of the box with the included AF 140
L fans it still maintains a professional
front bezel look but because the front
design with its removable fan filter is
so open throwing some LED fans in there
would be a super easy way to give your
system some gamer bling I think it's a
great balance speaking of great balance
the top fan filter is pretty much
brilliant they're flexible mesh and
magnet solution to dust filtration is
inexpensive aesthetically pleasing and
convenient the bottom fan filter ain't
half bad either it's much easier to
remove and replace without being able to
see it because it uses a rigid plastic
frame and a few magnets around the edges
to make it very easy to position now I
guess I glossed over the front i/o when
I was talking about the front there's
nothing too special here 2 USB 3 ports a
headphone and microphone jack a recessed
reset switch and a large power switch
the power and drive activity LEDs are
built into the power button the side
window is great - a nice large side
panel window looks great on these
smaller cases as long as cable
management inside is good
and the 450d is almost as good as other
obsidian cases in terms of cable routing
options finally at the back we find
seven PCI slots some water cooling
tubing holes that Corsair has given up
even pretending that people use note
that they don't even bother including
rubber grommets for them anymore and an
included 120 millimeter series RAF
series fan i graped it George about not
putting in eight PCI slots when it
really looks like there was room for an
additional one and his response here was
also pretty fair and that's that no one
should be putting four graphics cards in
Quad SLI in a mid tower there's just not
enough room to cool them adequately
unless you do a side intake like on the
Vengeance e70 all right George
fair point opening up the case is done
with four thumb screws at the back there
are no real complaints here but I'd love
to see Corsair implement the
self-retaining side panel screws that
NZXT has put on the aged 440 it doesn't
cost much and is a great hassle saver
for the user now that the case is open
the layout will look pretty familiar to
anyone who has seen its little ma TX
brother the 350 d by comparison the 450
d accepts a full sized ATX motherboard
and Corsairs basically just added a
three and a half inch / 2 and a half
inch drive babe sled to utilize the
extra height and move to the super handy
spring loaded SSD mounts to the back of
the motherboard tray a great move since
it frees up space in the front for
either a 240 or 280 millimeter radiator
speaking of radiators the case can
handle rads in up to four spots without
any modification an exceptional feat for
a case this size by my super precise
eyeball measurements it looks like you
could do a 280 or 360 in the top a 120
in the back to 240 s in the front and at
the bottom all at the same time unreal
speaking of radiator support for a case
that is so well liquid cooling optimized
I feel like the top panel was a bit of a
missed opportunity the way that Corsair
allows the grommets to be easily
repositioned so you can mount a dual 120
millimeter radiator in a variety of
places is great for improving
compatibility but I would have liked to
see the holes offset to the side away
from the motherboard to improve
compatible
leti with thicker radiators and the top
eight pin and four pin connectors on
motherboards the recently released H 105
actually doesn't fit in this case with
this motherboard and this
incompatibility was entirely avoidable I
understand that the centered holes do
look a lot better but the magnetic mesh
would have hidden offset holes so guys
let me know in the comments if you
prefer the look of the 450 D with the
mesh or if you prefer the look of the
450 D without the mesh so that will give
me a good idea of whether the offset
holes would have been okay because if
you're going to run it without the mesh
you're not going to want those offset
holes it looks really weird cable
management is a good point for this case
there is ample room in the back for the
24 pin and other bulky connectors and
the included cables for the front panel
actually come pre managed with nice
little you know zip ties tied in place
so you pretty much don't have to move
them but note that I said cable
management is a good point for this case
and not a great one this is one of two
things that made the case feel a little
more like a carbide or a graphite than
an obsidian to me the back of the
motherboard tray has only four cable
management loops on it and when they're
basically free to add I'd like to see a
lot more in addition to that there's no
way to cleanly route the front panel
audio without crossing over at least a
few inches of motherboard down here at
the bottom most cases have a little spot
in the bottom left for that connector
this feels like a bit of an oversight
the last thing that's missing is any
room in the top aside from the hole for
the eight pin connector to route smaller
stuff like CPU fan cables usually we see
a couple gaps up here to facilitate this
but instead we're stuck going between
the motherboard another board tray or
just routing them across the board the
second thing that felt unab Sydney was
the three and a half inch drive cage
it's tool-less which is great and while
I appreciate the flexibility of being
able to hang the cage from the top of
the five and a quarter inch base or sit
it at the bottom it just feels a little
bit flimsier than the rest of the case
in contrast sharply with the motherboard
tray which is very rigid in spite of the
large CPU cut out a second cage would
also been a nice touch since they're
using a modular design that allows you
to simply
in another one to double your harddrive
expansion but if you're targeting a
price point then I guess it makes more
sense to sell that as an upgrade option
rather than charge everyone for a
feature that only a handful of people
are actually going to use it should be
noted that leaving it out also helps
this case achieve fantastic airflow over
the GPU area without the use of ugly
side panel fans so I see why they did it
this way one thing that stood out to me
was that Corsair includes hilariously
few screws in the box basically some fan
screws motherboard screws and two and a
half inch drive screws pretty much
everything else is tooless and while
this is another thing that's probably
only a concern for system integrators
shipping systems around in the 450d I
would have liked to see Corsair include
some hard drive screws so I have the
option to secure things a little bit
better if I want to with those few
complaints out of the way the conclusion
for the 450d is actually pretty positive
if you consider it spooling flexibility
looks and price you're going to have a
hard time finding a better looking bang
for your buck and speaking of paying for
sex my wife actually built the test rig
you're looking at with me looking over
her shoulder so for all my complaints
about little cable management details
an inexperienced builder can still end
up with a damn fine-looking system guys
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