Corsair Carbide Air 240

[Darksaber]

Corsair has steered clear of the tiny cube chassis, while other companies like BitFenix, Xigmatek, or Aerocool have been duking it out, trying to get the attention of gamers who want a compact chassis with the ability to hold potent hardware. Well, the Carbide Air 240 is about to step into the ring and manages to impress.

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[silapakorn]

How come Air 240 gets three 3.5" drive bays while Air 540 gets only two?
Corsair, I demand a minor-change model. Air 540x, perhaps.

 

[Hilux SSRG]

Good review. I'm pleasantly surprised on the price of this case, I thought it would be in the $110-130 range.

 

[Corsair George]

How come Air 240 gets three 3.5" drive bays while Air 540 gets only two?
Corsair, I demand a minor-change model. Air 540x, perhaps.

Because the Air 540 was released a year ago and the majority of people asked for more 3.5" and less 5.25", so we listened.

If we do a revision of the Air 540 we'll, of course, listen again.

 

[Sp33d Junki3]

the hdd cage blocks the 8pin cpu connection and wont fit properly.
Filters are screwed in, which is not good.
Side 120mm fan was useless and blocked by all the cables.
Would watch the video too see these problems and some others that was missed by review.

 

[Corsair George]

the hdd cage blocks the 8pin cpu connection and wont fit properly.
Filters are screwed in, which is not good.
Side 120mm fan was useless and blocked by all the cables.
Would watch the video too see these problems and some others that was missed by review.

Let me address these one by one:

1) HDD cage does not block the 8pin, that's a user installation error. I have installed multiple systems in this rig, including THIS system, and if you route the cable properly it works fine.

2) Due to the small size, the filters are designed to be cleaned while attached to the panels. The panels are all removed with two thumbscrews. Completely tool free. It takes literally seconds.

3) Side 120mm fan is useful to exhaust hot air from the rear chamber if you do cable routing with some zip ties. There are half a dozen tie downs in the rear chamber to keep cables out of the way.

 

[damric]

This is really competitively priced.

But I think it still falls short of the HAF XB/EVO

 

[Corsair George]

This is really competitively priced.

But I think it still falls short of the HAF XB/EVO

It's not designed to compete with the HAF XB/EVO.

This is a Micro ATX case, they are ATX.

 

[Frogger]

Beautiful Micro ATX case the $$ value just makes it a little sweeter

 

[Mistral]

Been waiting for the 240 for a while. With this review, it'll almost certainly be my next box.

 

[RealNeil]

I have an InWin 901 and I like it a lot,.......but this is a nice design.
Room for two GPUs is a good thing that the 901 doesn't have.
The picture of the build you did in it is impressive.

I just bought the Air 540 but haven't built in it yet. I plan to build my first custom water loop in it.

BTW: Good review Darksaber. It was a good read.

 

[stinger608]

This would have been my next build for an upcoming HTPC........However, the fact that it doesn't have an external drive bay shoots this down.
I need the external drive bay to install my Blue ray drive. Such a shame as this would have been my purchase without question.

 

[RealNeil]

You could put the BluRay optical drive into an external USB 3.0 enclosure and still use this case,................

 

[stinger608]

True, however then I have little grandchildren messing with the external enclosure.

I would have entertained the idea of buying a slim drive if the case would of included the drive bay. I mean really, they couldn't include a slim drive bay?

 

[RealNeil]

True, however then I have little grandchildren messing with the external enclosure.

I just spoil them and send them home at the end of the day,........

I would have entertained the idea of buying a slim drive if the case would of included the drive bay. I mean really, they couldn't include a slim drive bay?

They could have done it, but it would have affected the price. (because they would probably have included the drive too) I think that maybe they were trying to hit a certain price point with this case.
And you have to admit that the price is attractive. My InWin 901 does have one, but it's a lot more expensive than this is.

 

[Tsukiyomi91]

This will be a great candidate for a v3 build.

 

[miluthui]

The only problem I see with this case is there's no cooling fan for the 3.5" HDD cage so the 3.5" HDDs will get quite hot in there.

 

[RazrLeaf]

George, was there a specific reason for limiting the height of the case to the point where a 30mm rad + 25 mm fan couldn't be installed above the mobo? It's preventing my ideal mATX build with 2x240mm rads AND Crossfire/SLI.

 

[idx]

Does the MSI GeForce GTX 780 Gaming fit in this case or it will block the side panel ?

 

[Tsukiyomi91]

shouldn't be an issue for the GTX780...

 

[idx]

I tried to contact Corsair but no replay yet. I'm just wondering because the normal measures of the GTX 780/780Ti are 267x110x39 mm, and the MSI Gaming Series and some other cards measure 267x129x39 mm a little bit more height than the standard cards , the max CPU cooler this case support is 120mm .. so does that mean any GPU with width more than 120 mm will bump into the side panel? I would really go for this case and make a nice small and clean build! just not sure about the GPU yet !

 

[Tsukiyomi91]

watch out for those massive air type CPU Coolers though... so check their measurements before buying it & installing into the casing. For vendor-based VGA cards, I think height clearance shouldn't be a problem as well.

 

[Tsukiyomi91]

Example of custom VGA cards with aftermarket cooling solutions for the Carbide Air 240. Also, do note that cards with stock cooler or using custom waterblock will have no issues fitting in there.
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