Corsair has taken the industry by storm this year, not only have they been gaining further success with their cooling products such as the H100i, but they’ve also been making some of the best gaming peripherals around with their M95 and K70 products, yet the area that they’ve been gaining the most attention, at least in my opinion is the chassis market, where they are going from strength to strength with their high quality chassis designs.
The merits of their chassis designs are apparent across all the Corsair ranges, but especially so with their Carbide series. The 900D is one of the biggest and most impressive looking chassis on the market and the 350D is one of the most premium quality m-ATX chassis designs I have ever seen. Much like its other Carbide counterparts, they Air 540 is quite expensive and has a retail price of a little over £115.00 (ex shipping), but if we see the same build quality and exacting standards that we’ve seen in the rest of the Corsair Carbide range then the Air 540 could still be good value for money.
Corsair are looking to do something a little unique with the Air 540 by splitting it into two compartments, essentially making it a double width chassis in a bid to create not only a unique design, but also improve cooling to the components that really need it. As you can see from the specifications below it’s also very well equipped, so lets dive right in and take a closer look at what the chassis has to offer.
The Air 540 comes is a fairly standard looking box with a high contrast image of the chassis design on the front, as well as a good breakdown of many of the major features and component compatibility.
Around the back we have a tear down image of the chassis that shows all the major components.
I don’t normally take an image of the packaging inside, since more often than not its a plastic cover and polystyrene, but Corsair have given the Air 540 a thick black cloth cover that keeps it nicely protected from scratches. I also discovered that the cover material helps generate near-lethal static shocks too, lucky me!
In the box I found a nicely illustrated installation manual and the usual assortment of screws, cable ties and fitting accessories.
is it possible to add the 120mm fans infront of the front panel magnetic mesh rather than inside. that would free up some more space for a thicker radiator in the front.
Yes, if the fan filter is removed you can fit the fans between the front plastic/metal mesh and the chassis.
Hey George, im a huge fan of your work. The 540 is no exception to that. Hopefully it will be my next case and i have quit a bit planned for it. Any ETA for the release in India???
I quite like it. Once again a very neat clean final build no doubt made even easier via all the space behind the mobo tray. I wouldn’t mind taking this case for a spin.
When I first saw it I thought it was the worse looking case Corsair had ever made, but now that I have had a better look its starting to grow on me.
I’m so excited about this case. I’ve been wanting this type of case configuration for a long time but nobody has really made it happen until now (that doesn’t rape your wallet). I pre-ordered mine on the 13th. Hopefully Corsair will ship this week :).
is it possible to remove the bot ssd drive holders and put 2 120mm fans to blow air up into the case ? looking for a nice case to hold 4 video cards.
i usually run a couple SSDs for OS and several (max 4) 3.5″ HDDs for storage, any idea or options for 3.5″ HDD cages for this case?
Is it possible to put a eeb/eatx board in it, and still be able to mount radiators on the top and the front fans?
Will that opening on the bottom (where the hard drive trays are) allow for more dust to enter the case.
Seriously?
Thats the psu vent
Rofl
rather like that case for a filer server build it may be in my future
A good chassis for server builds IMO. Or a big HTPC.
I don’t think it is well suited for normal work but I do like the designing concept of Corsair.
Looking forward to building with this chassis next month. Thanks for the great pics and tips.