Corsair 2000D Airflow

[Darksaber]

The Corsair 2000D series may be the only ITX offering from the brand, but it shines where most SFF cases struggle, thanks to an out-of-the-box approach to design. Despite its taller profile, it takes up less desk space while offering superior cooling potential and compatibility with high-performance components.

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[Chaitanya]

Access to IO looks quite restricted in line with most vertical SFF cases.

 

[dgianstefani]

Access to IO looks quite restricted in line with most vertical SFF cases.

I've built in the white version of this case and it's not really an issue. The front IO is enough for stuff you'll be plugging in/out, and the saved desk space is worth it.

Get a thunderbolt dock if it becomes a problem.

 

[Chaitanya]

I've built in the white version of this case and it's not really an issue. The front IO is enough for stuff you'll be plugging in/out, and the saved desk space is worth it.

Get a thunderbolt dock if it becomes a problem.

Thunderbolt docks are expensive and temperamental also they dont work on AMD platforms(USB 4 implementation is a similar mess). Worst offender usually are the display cables and USB cables for certain keyboards and mice which might be unnecessarily bulky.

 

[dgianstefani]

Thunderbolt docks are expensive and temperamental also they dont work on AMD platforms(USB 4 implementation is a similar mess). Worst offender usually are the display cables and USB cables for certain keyboards and mice which might be unnecessarily bulky.

Seems like an AMD problem.

I use aftermarket cables for display and USB, which are braided and much easier to route. There's always a premium for SFF, for many the space savings are worth the slight inconvenience of working details like this out.

I haven't had any issues with the USB4 implementation on my motherboard.

Still, I do think two type A and one type C plus an audio combo jack is more than enough for the stuff you'll be regularly plugging in/out, and for the rest, it's pretty much a one time cable routing job.

 

[Chrispy_]

Mainstream mITX cases seem to be making a revival but mITX boards have decidedly vanished from mainstream price points, and the selection and market availability of decent mITX boards is worse than I've known it in 20 years. It's a far cry from the socket 775 days when every motherboard manufacturer had a range of multiple mITX boards spanning multiple chipsets and a few price points.

Sure, mITX has always commanded a small premium but you literally cannot build a budget mITX machine now with the cheapest entry-level boards, whether AM5 or LGA1700 being well over $/£/€200, yet LGA1700 starts at £60 over here for the entry-level mATX.

 

[dgianstefani]

Mainstream mITX cases seem to be making a revival but mITX boards have decidedly vanished from mainstream price points, and the selection and market availability of decent mITX boards is worse than I've known it in 20 years. It's a far cry from the socket 775 days when every motherboard manufacturer had a range of multiple mITX boards spanning multiple chipsets and a few price points.

Sure, mITX has always commanded a small premium but you literally cannot build a budget mITX machine now with the cheapest entry-level boards, whether AM5 or LGA1700 being well over $/£/€200, yet LGA1700 starts at £60 over here for the entry-level mATX.

The Maximus Impact used to be a flagship level ITX board got changed to mini DTX and then died (unsurprisingly).

Unfortunately all the ITX boards these days are upper mid range no top tier stuff, and the micro ATX boards are mostly entry level/mid range.

Crosshair X670E Gene is one of the actual high end examples of mATX.

Mainstream mITX cases seem to be making a revival but mITX boards have decidedly vanished from mainstream price points, and the selection and market availability of decent mITX boards is worse than I've known it in 20 years. It's a far cry from the socket 775 days when every motherboard manufacturer had a range of multiple mITX boards spanning multiple chipsets and a few price points.

Sure, mITX has always commanded a small premium but you literally cannot build a budget mITX machine now with the cheapest entry-level boards, whether AM5 or LGA1700 being well over $/£/€200, yet LGA1700 starts at £60 over here for the entry-level mATX.

Seems like a good selection to me. Definitely cheaper than the £200 you mentioned.

In my view the issue is there aren't any top tier ITX boards. OEMs reserve them for mATX, ATX and E-ATX.

That's B660/B650 and better too, there's cheaper boards out there.

Remember mini ITX boards by default have good RAM OC, due to two DIMM slot design, whereas you actually have to pay a premium for that in the larger form factors.

I can strongly recommend the Asrock miniITX boards, they have great IO and solid builds for a reasonable price.

For high end ASUS Strix is the best IMO.

 

[Blueberries]

Only issue with this design is that the power button and IO are incredibly inconvenient for anything other than a desk placement. Granted, that was their intended target; but it is quite awkward if you decide later you want to reclaim that space or move your PC.

 

[Chrispy_]

Seems like a good selection to me.
That's B660/B650 and better too, there's cheaper boards out there

You're using PCPartpicker (I think) which gets some prices wrong because it doesn't always pick up that prices are scraped without VAT at 20%. Cheapest AM5 board I see is that one Gigabyte B650I-AX at £162 from Amazon that seems to be an anomaly over here with only 2 in stock right now. Next four largest PC component retailers in the UK don't carry that model, and don't have anything cheaper than the £200 MSI B650I Edge.

Regardless of that one B650 board at under £200, and ignoring its availability, the number of B650 ITX models stocked by the top5 retailers in the UK is pathetic;

• Scan has 3 mITX compared to 37 m/ATX
• OCUK has 3 mITX compared to 29 m/ATX
• Ebuyer has 1 mITX compared to 24 m/ATX
• CCL has 1 mITX compared to 37 m/ATX

Amazon alone offers the Gigabyte board for under £200 and in stock, only through AmazonEU third-part sellers on the European marketplace.

Meanwhile, in mATX/ATX land:

• mATX A620 AM5 boards start at £80 (Asrock A620M-HDV)
• mATX B650 AM5 boards start at £90 (Prime B650M-R)

So yeah, the mITX selection is limited here and twice the starting price, closer to triple if you ignore that one Gigabyte board - which seriously hurts mainstream builds where the motherboard isn't supposed to be a high-end set piece but is supposed to be a low-cost commodity that just joins the components together.

 

[N/A]

looks like there is only 6cm space to plug in the hdmi, well at least my display port cable can't do that as it needs 10-12cm to bend

 

[dgianstefani]

You're using PCPartpicker (I think) which gets some prices wrong because it doesn't always pick up that prices are scraped without VAT at 20%. Cheapest AM5 board I see is that one Gigabyte B650I-AX at £162 from Amazon that seems to be an anomaly over here with only 2 in stock right now. Next four largest PC component retailers in the UK don't carry that model, and don't have anything cheaper than the £200 MSI B650I Edge.

Regardless of that one B650 board at under £200, and ignoring its availability, the number of B650 ITX models stocked by the top5 retailers in the UK is pathetic;

• Scan has 3 mITX compared to 37 m/ATX
• OCUK has 3 mITX compared to 29 m/ATX
• Ebuyer has 1 mITX compared to 24 m/ATX
• CCL has 1 mITX compared to 37 m/ATX

Amazon alone offers the Gigabyte board for under £200 and in stock, only through AmazonEU third-part sellers on the European marketplace.

Meanwhile, in mATX/ATX land:

• mATX A620 AM5 boards start at £80 (Asrock A620M-HDV)
• mATX B650 AM5 boards start at £90 (Prime B650M-R)

So yeah, the mITX selection is limited here and twice the starting price, closer to triple if you ignore that one Gigabyte board - which seriously hurts mainstream builds where the motherboard isn't supposed to be a high-end set piece but is supposed to be a low-cost commodity that just joins the components together.

Never had this issue where prices are without VAT.

Smaller boards are harder to engineer more dense, so I'm not that surprised they're slightly more expensive.

 

[Chrispy_]

That's intel where the starting price for mITX is £59.99 so it's still comfortably more than double.

The point I'm trying to make is that ITX is more epensive compared to mATX than it used to be, and the selection/availability is worse - Meanwhile, there are now far more affordable, decent quality mITX cases in a huge variety of layouts than there ever used to be when mITX boards were plentiful and much cheaper.

The irony is that affordable cases have replaced affordable boards, rather than complementing them - so mITX mainstream is still just out of reach for people who want a smaller system but not if it's going to cost them a GPU or CPU tier or two.

 

[AusWolf]

Pretty bad thermals for an airflow case. And for over 100 bucks? Ouch. Typical Corsair.

 

[Onasi]

Pretty bad thermals for an airflow case. And for over 100 bucks? Ouch. Typical Corsair.

The testing is done “as shipped”. So yes, I am not that surprised that a cramped SFF case with no fans other than those on the CPU heatsink and GPU produces poor results. Throw in some decent fans on there to make it an actual airflow setup and I think it will do much better.

 

[dgianstefani]

The testing is done “as shipped”. So yes, I am not that surprised that a cramped SFF case with no fans other than those on the CPU heatsink and GPU produces poor results. Throw in some decent fans on there to make it an actual airflow setup and I think it will do much better.

Correct.

With just one 120x25mm noctua case fan in a 5950X/3080 build I did in this case temps were excellent.

 

[AusWolf]

The testing is done “as shipped”. So yes, I am not that surprised that a cramped SFF case with no fans other than those on the CPU heatsink and GPU produces poor results. Throw in some decent fans on there to make it an actual airflow setup and I think it will do much better.

There was a 360 mm AIO in it, which should provide some fairly decent airflow in such a small case (it's 3x 120 mm fans after all) and CPU temperatures, but I don't see anything close.

 

[dgianstefani]

That's intel where the starting price for mITX is £59.99 so it's still comfortably more than double.

The point I'm trying to make is that ITX is more epensive compared to mATX than it used to be, and the selection/availability is worse - Meanwhile, there are now far more affordable, decent quality mITX cases in a huge variety of layouts than there ever used to be when mITX boards were plentiful and much cheaper.

The irony is that affordable cases have replaced affordable boards, rather than complementing them - so mITX mainstream is still just out of reach for people who want a smaller system but not if it's going to cost them a GPU or CPU tier or two.

Is that with a Z690 board like the one I used as an example?

 

[Onasi]

There was a 360 mm AIO in it, which should provide some fairly decent airflow in such a small case (it's 3x 120 mm fans after all) and CPU temperatures, but I don't see anything close.

There wasn’t, it was only installed as a showcase for the build. Re-read the thermal testing methodology and then the conclusion.

 

[AusWolf]

There wasn’t, it was only installed as a showcase for the build. Re-read the thermal testing methodology and then the conclusion.

Oh... So the "test system" and the one used in the thermal tests are actually different. My bad.

 

[dgianstefani]

Oh... So the "test system" and the one used in the thermal tests are actually different. My bad.

For certain charts TPU does out of the box testing to fairly compare cases with the cooling they come with at their MSRP.

Ie some cases will cost more, but come with several high quality fans, so that provides value for money.

This is mentioned in the review where the version that comes with fans for slightly more is also recommended.

 

[AusWolf]

For certain charts TPU does out of the box testing to fairly compare cases with the cooling they come with at their MSRP.

It makes sense. It's just that the "review system setup" page, and the "test system" specs listed there include an AIO which confused me. It's not really a "test system" but a "show system" then.

 

[Chrispy_]

Is that with a Z690 board like the one I used as an example?

Of course not. H610! (Asus Prime or Asrock HDV are both under £60)

Everything I've talked about has been lamenting the high entry price to mITX and lack of budget options. Z-series boards are pointless for budget builds and doubly pointless in mITX where you're going to be tight for airflow and cooling-limited (like, really cooling-limited on a tight budget in a SFF case)

If you want to splurge money on a high-end AM5 or LGA1700 mITX board then quite clearly you're fine as several of them are readily-available at eye-watering prices with extra mITX markup and the discussion stops there.

Despite the all three of my prior posts in this thread being fundamentally about the high entry costs to mITX and lack of budget options, you seem to have completely missed it. Aren't you supposed to be the TPU proofreader with great reading comprehension skills? Pls proofread harder!

 

[dgianstefani]

Of course not. H610! (Asus Prime or Asrock HDV are both under £60)

Everything I've talked about has been lamenting the high entry price to mITX and lack of budget options. Z-series boards are pointless for budget builds and doubly pointless in mITX where you're going to be tight for airflow and cooling-limited (like, really cooling-limited on a tight budget in a SFF case)

If you want to splurge money on a high-end AM5 or LGA1700 mITX board then quite clearly you're fine as several of them are readily-available at eye-watering prices with extra mITX markup and the discussion stops there.

Despite the all three of my prior posts in this thread being fundamentally about the high entry costs to mITX and lack of budget options, you seem to have completely missed it. Aren't you supposed to be the TPU proofreader with great reading comprehension skills? Pls proofread harder!

I understand entirely what you're referring to, I just don't necessarily agree that £140 for a good board on the current socket is expensive. If that's too much there's £100 lower end options, or even cheaper if you don't need latest gen.

It's also not true that high end boards are pointless for ITX. Look at my own build for an example. It's 500 W of components in a sub 15 L case with great temps and is inaudible.

There's plenty of fantastic small case options with great airflow, optimised for air or liquid cooling ITX builds, such as this Corsair case. In my opinion it's the new high end. But the low end still exists in this form factor and it's cheap to build.

Few people realistically use SLI or standalone internal sound cards or other add in cards these days, so the larger classic form factors are holdouts from an age where the space was required, and things like storage for instance were huge 3.5" units, with larger floppy bays etc.

I mean, for budget, grabbing a AM4 ITX board, RAM kit, and throwing a 5600 in there will cost ~£250, so you can still do cheap compact builds with all the fittings like wireless etc, just don't expect DDR5/PCIe 5 etc.

PCPartPicker Part List: https://uk.pcpartpicker.com/list/K2ZwY9

CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 5600 3.5 GHz 6-Core Processor (£116.99 @ AWD-IT)
Motherboard: ASRock Fatal1ty B450 Gaming-ITX/ac Mini ITX AM4 Motherboard (£109.36 @ NeoComputers)
Memory: Silicon Power GAMING 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3200 CL16 Memory (£34.99 @ Amazon UK)
Total: £261.34
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2024-04-09 21:10 BST+0100

 

[Gmr_Chick]

The Maximus Impact used to be a flagship level ITX board got changed to mini DTX and then died (unsurprisingly).

Unfortunately all the ITX boards these days are upper mid range no top tier stuff, and the micro ATX boards are mostly entry level/mid range.

Crosshair X670E Gene is one of the actual high end examples of mATX.

I had the Crosshair VIII Impact at one point. Was pretty much the ONLY mini DTX board in existence I think, lol. It was...quite the interesting form factor, for sure. Asus tried to cram the kitchen sink on it...with mixed results. Was kind of an awkward little board and I'm honestly not surprised to see that it, in that form factor, died.

I'd love to get my hands on the X670E Gene, as it's one of the very few examples of a high-end mATX on AM5...but it's impossible to find. Once again though, AMD is getting the short end of the stick when it comes to good mATX boards compared to Intel. Ah well....

 

[dgianstefani]

I had the Crosshair VIII Impact at one point. Was pretty much the ONLY mini DTX board in existence I think, lol. It was...quite the interesting form factor, for sure. Asus tried to cram the kitchen sink on it...with mixed results. Was kind of an awkward little board and I'm honestly not surprised to see that it, in that form factor, died.

I'd love to get my hands on the X670E Gene, as it's one of the very few examples of a high-end mATX on AM5...but it's impossible to find. Once again though, AMD is getting the short end of the stick when it comes to good mATX boards compared to Intel. Ah well....

Loved the 7700K era ITX Impacts. Did many builds in them. But DTX just ruined case compatibility.

@ir_cow has a gene, nice board! But the X770 boards will likely be dropping soon so I wouldn't go out and buy one.