Corsair Carbide Series 400R Review

Written by Paul Goodhead

October 3, 2011 | 10:41

Tags: #air-cooling #air-cooling-case #best #carbide #coolest #corsair-carbide #midi-case #review #testing

Companies: #corsair

Corsair Carbide 400R Cooling Performance

Our test kit includes an ATI Radeon HD 5870 2GB Eyefinity 6 graphics card and an Intel Core i7-870 CPU, which has been overclocked from 2.93GHz to 3.4GHz using a vcore of 1.305V and a CPU PLL of 1.9V. This is a modest overclock, but our test kit will spend most of its life under high load, so pushing it too far isn't in anybody's interests. More importantly, some poorer-performing cases push the CPU temperature to above 80°C, so even this overclock will prove to be too much for some cases.

The CPU is cooled by a Gelid Tranquillo CPU cooler with a Noctua NF-S12B ULN 120mm fan. The NF-S12B ULN is a low-airflow fan, so it will highlight cases with poor cooling for the CPU. We also locked the fan speed on the graphics card to 30 per cent to prevent the automatic speed control interfering with the results.

We recorded the temperature of the CPU using RealTemp, noting the temperature of the hottest core, and used GPU-Z to log the temperature of the graphics card. Having recorded the ambient temperature in front of the main air intake of each case, we were then able to calculate the delta T - the difference between the ambient temperature of our lab and the temperature of the hardware. To load the system, we used a combination of the Canyon Flight benchmark in 3DMark06 and the smallfft test in Prime 95.
  • CPU: Intel Core i7-870 CPU overclocked to 3.4GHz
  • Graphics card: ATI Radeon HD 5870 2GB Eyefinity 6
  • Motherboard: Biostar TPower I55
  • RAM: 2x 2GB OCZ 1,866MHz DDR3
  • Hard drive: 160GB Seagate Barracuda 7200.9
  • Heatsink: Gelid Tranquillo with a Noctua NF-S12B ULN fan
  • Power supply: Seasonic M12D SS-850EM

Case performance - CPU Delta T

Arranged by CPU Delta T

  • SilverStone Temjin TJ11 (Full speed)
  • SilverStone FT02R-W (Full Speed)
  • SilverStone Temjin TJ11 (minimum speed)
  • Antec Dark Fleet DF-85 (Full Speed)
  • SilverStone FT02R-W (Minimum Speed)
  • Antec Dark Fleet DF-85 (Minimum Speed)
  • Lian Li PC-V1020
  • SilverStone Raven RV03 (Maximum Speed)
  • Antec Twelve Hundred (Full Speed)
  • NZXT Phantom (Full Speed)
  • SilverStone Raven RV02 (High Speed)
  • Antec One Hundred (Full speed)
  • SilverStone Raven RV03 (Minimum Speed)
  • SilverStone Raven RV02 (Low Speed)
  • Cooler Master HAF X
  • Cooler Master CM 690 II (Full Speed)
  • Antec Twelve Hundred (Minimum Speed)
  • In Win Ironclad
  • Xigmatek Utgard (Full Speed)
  • Lian Li PC-8FIR
  • Xigmatek Elysium
  • Corsair Carbide 400R
  • Antec One Hundred (Minimum speed)
  • Fractal Design Define R3
  • Cooler Master HAF 912
  • NZXT Phantom (Minimum Speed)
  • Cooler Master CM 690 II (Minimum Speed)
  • Lian Li V2120
  • Xigmatek Utgard (Minimum Speed)
  • Corsair Graphite 600T (minimum speed)
  • Corsair Graphite 600T (maximum speed)
  • Enermax Hoplite (Maximum Speed)
  • Enermax Hoplite (Minimum Speed)
  • Antec LanBoy Air (Full Speed)
  • CM Storm Enforcer
  • Antec LanBoy Air (Minimum Speed)
  • NZXT H2 (Maximum speed)
  • BitFenix Shinobi
  • BitFenix Survivor
  • NZXT H2 (Minimum speed)
  • BitFenix Colossus (Full Speed)
  • BitFenix Colossus (Minimum Speed)
  • Sharkoon Rebel 9 Aluminium
    • 42
    • 37
    • 42
    • 37
    • 43
    • 39
    • 43
    • 38
    • 44
    • 37
    • 45
    • 38
    • 45
    • 40
    • 45
    • 42
    • 45
    • 40
    • 46
    • 39
    • 47
    • 40
    • 47
    • 40
    • 48
    • 44
    • 48
    • 40
    • 48
    • 36
    • 49
    • 41
    • 49
    • 43
    • 50
    • 40
    • 50
    • 40
    • 50
    • 42
    • 50
    • 40
    • 51
    • 41
    • 51
    • 43
    • 51
    • 42
    • 52
    • 41
    • 52
    • 42
    • 53
    • 44
    • 53
    • 41
    • 54
    • 42
    • 54
    • 47
    • 54
    • 46
    • 55
    • 46
    • 55
    • 46
    • 55
    • 41
    • 56
    • 44
    • 58
    • 42
    • 59
    • 44
    • 60
    • 49
    • 62
    • 47
    • 66
    • 47
    • 69
    • 43
    • 73
    • 45
    • 74
    • 42
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
°C, lower is better
  • CPU Delta T
  • GPU Delta T

Case performance - GPU Delta T

Arranged by GPU Delta T

  • Cooler Master HAF X
  • SilverStone FT02R-W (Full Speed)
  • SilverStone Temjin TJ11 (Full speed)
  • SilverStone FT02R-W (Minimum Speed)
  • Antec Dark Fleet DF-85 (Full Speed)
  • Antec Dark Fleet DF-85 (Minimum Speed)
  • SilverStone Temjin TJ11 (minimum speed)
  • NZXT Phantom (Full Speed)
  • Lian Li PC-V1020
  • Antec Twelve Hundred (Full Speed)
  • SilverStone Raven RV02 (Full Speed)
  • Antec One Hundred (Full speed)
  • SilverStone Raven RV02 (Minimum Speed)
  • Xigmatek Elysium
  • Xigmatek Utgard (Full Speed)
  • In Win Ironclad
  • Cooler Master CM 690 II (Full Speed)
  • Corsair Carbide 400R
  • Cooler Master HAF 912
  • Lian LI PC V2120
  • Antec LanBoy Air (Full Speed)
  • SilverStone Raven RV03 (Maximum Speed)
  • Lian Li PC-8FIR
  • Fractal Design Define R3
  • NZXT Phantom (Minimum Speed)
  • Xigmatek Utgard (Minimum Speed)
  • Antec LanBoy Air (Minimum Speed)
  • Sharkoon Rebel 9 Aluminium
  • Antec Twelve Hundred (Minimum Speed)
  • Antec One Hundred (Minimum speed)
  • BitFenix Colossus (Full Speed)
  • CM Storm Enforcer
  • Cooler Master CM 690 II (Minimum Speed)
  • SilverStone Raven RV03 (Minimum Speed)
  • NZXT H2 (Maximum speed)
  • BitFenix Colossus (Minimum Speed)
  • Corsair Graphite 600T (Full speed)
  • Enermax Hoplite (Maximum Speed)
  • Enermax Hoplite (Minimum Speed)
  • Corsair Graphite 600T (Minimum speed)
  • BitFenix Survivor
  • NZXT H2 (Minimum speed)
  • BitFenix Shinobi
    • 48
    • 36
    • 42
    • 37
    • 42
    • 37
    • 44
    • 37
    • 43
    • 38
    • 45
    • 38
    • 43
    • 39
    • 46
    • 39
    • 45
    • 40
    • 45
    • 40
    • 47
    • 40
    • 47
    • 40
    • 48
    • 40
    • 50
    • 40
    • 50
    • 40
    • 50
    • 40
    • 49
    • 41
    • 51
    • 41
    • 52
    • 41
    • 53
    • 41
    • 55
    • 41
    • 45
    • 42
    • 50
    • 42
    • 51
    • 42
    • 52
    • 42
    • 54
    • 42
    • 58
    • 42
    • 74
    • 42
    • 49
    • 43
    • 51
    • 43
    • 69
    • 43
    • 56
    • 44
    • 53
    • 44
    • 48
    • 44
    • 59
    • 44
    • 73
    • 45
    • 54
    • 46
    • 55
    • 46
    • 55
    • 46
    • 54
    • 47
    • 62
    • 47
    • 66
    • 47
    • 60
    • 49
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
°C, lower is better
  • CPU Delta T
  • GPU Delta T

Read our performance analysis.
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