Gadgetory

PC cases are one of those things that come and they go they usually don't really impress me that much there was one case that vastly became my favorite case over time and that was the air 540 and in fact you can see him in the background there he's just sitting down watching me do this review he's actually my best friend Haley little air 540 but what we have right here is the crystal 680 X I'm told by Corsair this is the true successor to the air 540 which was released nearly six years ago back in 2013 and the reason this case became my favorite case was because it had that high airflow it had that aesthetics it had that subtle LEDs with the front on the white version at least with those front two 140 mm fans and their LED lighting and then on the rear you had that 140 mil fan that kept things relatively quiet it was such good airflow to the point where your temperatures of your components inside your case were better than they were if the side panel was off and that's usually an indication of a well-made case not only that had that back component which is amplitudes room for cable management if you would just need a PC building you could go hand with the jungle sandwich and still have a build that looked phenomenal and ladies and gentlemen I am glad to say that the s6 ATX does carry over a lot of the attributes of the air 540 however there are some subtle differences and some big differences so let's go over all of them in today's review welcome back to check es sitting right here the crystal 680 X this is the RGB version it comes with three ll fans 120 mil at the front you've also got an additional fan at the back so you've got four fans in total that come with the quiet mode operation from default now this mode will make your temperatures a little bit worse than the air 540 and in fact when I tested them with NRT X 2080 in both cases with max overclocks we got here the results of 58 degrees versus 56 degrees with the side panel on on the air 540 vs. 62 versus 62 with a side panel on and off with the crystal 680 X so this means it's doing a good job of cooling but it just means that the air 540 simpler design and mesh fronts without any obtrusive meant that it was getting better cooling performance with the side panel on so although a lot of factors considered the noise was considerably lower on the 680 X Judah with lower CFM yet lower rpm fans installed from the get-go we had 45 decibels verses 33 decibels so this thing as you can see I am doing a review right beside it and it's just whisper quiet keep in mind am also using the H 115 i RGB platinum the other specs in this build I'm using a 79 80 XC as well as the Dominator memory and the azuz x2 9 9 deluxe 2 motherboard so this thing's pretty much decked out with the latest and greatest bling in 2019 except for the CPU until lost for the 99 ATX II back and let me keep the 79 80 XC so that was a that was a it was an absolute win but temperatures aside the aesthetics now get tempered glass on the front top and sides this door here has very strong magnets to the point of our field are a lot stronger than the obsidian and so with that when you're walking it won't unnecessarily open or close by accident the top can be taken off and the dust filter for how to critique one thing it was a little bit difficult to get out if you want to take this off and clean it then you'll have to remove your top radiator or whatever you've got at the top with the top plate and then take the dust filter out you can also keep the tempered glass off if you wish to but there are the moments that prevent it from being converted I guess into an air 5:40 with no tempered glass on the top and the front the Front's and bottoms also featured dust filters and in the case of the front just like the top you will have to remove a plate in order to get the dust filter out but with that you can then install your fans and also your radiator easily so I guess it is a double-edged sword one in favor of convenience yet at the same time one also in detriment of convenience now looking through the mounting slots all throughout this case you can mount three 140mm fans at the front or three 120 s or a 360 ml rat if you wish to going down the bottom they've removed the two hard drive cages there were slot ends in the air 540 and they were replaced it with the ability to mount either a 240 or to 80 ml radiator or fans if you wish to going up above that you've got at the back the ability to mount one 120 or one 140 ml fan and then going up the top you've got the option to mount a 280 or again a 240 ml radiator and in this case I chose to mount the h1 59 Platinum which went in smoothly and no problems whatsoever now another difference in 2019 at the front is the ability to vertically mount a GPU however you will need a separate kit in order to do that and if you want to do that make sure you get a kit with a proper riser cable in the past I've tried those cheaper kits and they've given me nothing but headaches where the riser cable doesn't work properly anyway moving over to the back of the case here is where you'll be greeted with the crystal 680 X's in my opinion benefits and this is because it does have that bigger cube shape just like the f5 44 the drive bays you've got a modular system where you can take the whole cage out like I've done here since I am using an ass and an nvme drive or of course you can mount four SSDs and three 3.5 inch mechanical drives the SSD cages can detach from one to four meaning you can take off the cages that you don't need moving through the cable management options here you can just do so much or so little if you wish to if you just wish to chuck a jungle sandwich in there and still have a pretty look on the front or if you wish to cable manage things properly then you can also do that at the rear here's all you'll find the mount for your power supply in abling you to mount even the biggest power supplies in the game if you take off the little bracket at the bottom I chose to mount an RMI one foul an X power supply completely overdone for this build but I picked it up on a hustle deal for a hundred Ozzie dollars anyway the back side panel carries a magnetic dust filter which spends the whole way across the back panel itself and there's some mesh for your drive base so they can breathe easily included with this is the RGB node command and hub so you can install all your RGB bling with no problem so you will be locked into the Corsair ecosystem if you choose to get the 680 X and now the last section of the 680 X is where the power button reset button and also USB ports are located and they've changed it from the front of the case to the top of the case and I must say here that I do prefer personally these buttons and input outputs to be at the front like they were on the air 540 this is because I mount my PC on top of my desk though I'm guessing Corsair figured most people will be mounting these under their desk and hence the change though I do like the fact that they've also put a type C on the front USB 3 and they've got the mic in and audio out port now connected to a hybrid 4 pin and here we are now at crunch time with the air 6 ATX vs. the air 540 and isn't that true successor that you've been waiting for six years in the making and that depends on whether you like RGB and tempered glass I think for the performance of this case we'll get that out of the way with first they've traded that high airflow for the noise and they've really made a good job of making this thing whisper quiet but still performing well in terms of airflow however if you are an airflow maniac and you don't want to change fan speeds or anything like that then the F 540 is still an excellent choice even in 2019 now for that look of RGB it's personally growing on me a lot I actually love Corsairs dominate a memory that h 115 i RGB platinum their light loop fans they look absolutely gorgeous of course you can change the colors around you don't have to have all the rainbow going through you can change everything just to one color and then the next week you can change it to another color or you can just change it to your temperatures which is a very handy function the air 540 didn't have that function but of course it didn't have tempered glass either for me personally I'm not a big fan of tempered glass I think it adds to the weight of the build this thing is pretty heavy it's noticeably heavier than the air 540 despite it only being about 50 mils taller with all the other dimensions roughly the same the temper glass at night although when there's no light shining off it looks gorgeous most the time when there's light shining in you'll get reflections it does fingerprint easy however I really do like what they've done with this door here it does have strong magnets and it does give that premium feel instead of the air 740 which when you open the door it did feel a bit tacky this just feels premium all the way around and just like the f5 40 this thing is an absolute breeze to build in so basically if you like lighting you like glass and you like low noise then this is definitely gonna be the case for you but lastly there's the big elephant in the room to talk about and that is the price this case is going to come in at two hundred and forty nine ninety nine USD so it is significantly more expensive than the f5 forty which is currently for sale from one hundred and seventeen USD to a hundred and fifty and that's the steel silver grey version I never even knew that existed I thought it only came in white and black if you're in Australia currently comes in at 170 Aussie dollars and I do believe the F 540 is still going to be for sale since it is such a good case even in 2019 though as for the Aussie pricing I haven't been told officially what it is yet I will hazard a guess and say it's gonna come around 350 Aussie dollars and you do get the for fans and the lighting control included and you do pay that premium over-the-air 540 as we said before for the glass the better low noise fans and also the controllers so I guess in many ways the crystal 680 X is a successor to the F 540 but in some ways it's not and it does come at a premium and I guess that's why Corsair still have the air 540 for sale and with that said I hope you guys enjoyed this review if you did then be sure to hit that like button and let us know in the comments section below what you think of the 680 x love reading your thoughts and opinions as always as for me personally I mean that air 540 in the back it's it's like it's not the fact that it's any air 540 that that one sitting on the chair is my air 540 we have an attachment it's it's hard to explain anyway I'll catch you guys in the next one if you enjoy the content enough you managed to hit that sub button turn that Bell notification on or check us out on Instagram check yet City where I've got a really cool project coming up you're not gonna want to miss this one and I'll just I'll see you in the next one peace out for now buddy