Corsair Carbide Series 330R Quiet Mid-Tower Chassis Review

We’re big fans of the Corsair Carbide series here at eTeknix, from the products we’ve seen in the range so far it seems that Corsair cannot put a foot wrong and their design team seem to be at the top of their game, producing one excellent product after another. This much seems to be true of much of the Corsair product range in recent years, taking a look at their Vengeance products you’ll find award winning memory modules, gaming mice and keyboards, their entire chassis range is full of high quality solutions and their CPU coolers are some of the most popular on the market, so I think its safe to say that I have high expectations for the 330R, it has a strong reputation to uphold.

Priced at around £75 the 330R isn’t exactly cheap, or at least that’s a higher than average price for a mid-tower and that means that we’ll be expecting premium quality to match the premium price tag, but with steel construction, sound proofing material pre-installed, two high quality pre-installed fans, USB 3.0 support and more it looks like Corsair might be able to deliver the premium features we are looking for.

The 330R comes in a fairly standard box with a high contrast image of the chassis design and some marketing information about the major features of the chassis.

The back of the box features a break down image of the chassis which shows all the major components and fittings as well as some further information about component compatibility.

In the box I found a handy user manual and an assortment of high quality black screws and some cable ties.

The chassis looks fairly plain at first and the general appearance is fairly stealthy and minimalist. The left side panel is plain and while there is a window edition of the chassis available we’ve gone for the much sleeker solid panel.

Front the right side the chassis looks the same, another plain panel with no major standout features. The left and right sides of the front panel feature a full height cut-out, this allows for airflow to the front panel fans without the need for a front mesh, keeping the front panel door looking clean and tidy.

The front panel door features an effect that is similar in appearance to brush aluminum with only the Corsair logo at the bottom breaking its clean appearance.

Behind the panel is a different story, the door is lined with some tough sound proofing material, there are three ventilated 5.25″ bay covers at the top and a large removable and washable dust filter at the bottom.

There is a pre-installed 140m air-intake fan and room for one more below that.

The front I/O panel is pretty basic but all the important items are here with 2 x USB 2.0, HD Audio connections and a reset/power switch.

The top panel is just as plain as the rest, albeit thanks to a clip-on cover.

The cover is lined with the same sound proofing material as the front panel and this should help keep things nice and quiet.

The panel hides an array of cooling mounts, here you could install 2 x 120mm, 2 x 140mm or a water cooler such as the Corsair H100i.

The underside of the chassis features four large rubber feet which provide plenty of ground clearance for the PSU air intake.

There is a magnetic dust cover here, which is strangely long given that the ventilation holes don’t extend as far across the bottom as the filter does.

Around the back we have a pre-installed 120mm fan, 7 expansion slot covers with some extra ventilation to the side of those and a bottom mounted PSU area.

With the side panel removed we find that the interior has a black paint job, keeping the chassis looking nice and uniform inside and out. There is a large cut-out on the back panel for easy installation of your CPU cooler and there are four more cut-outs to aid with cable management.

There are three 5.25″ drive bays with push-click mechanisms although the actual clips feel like they’re constructed from very cheap plastic. There is a large open area between the 5.25″ bays and the HDD trays, this gives great airflow space to the front fan that comes pre-installed and a lot of extra room for long graphics cards. At the bottom we have four HDD trays, all of which support both 3.5″ and 2.5″ drives. All internal cables are finished in black and this only helps keep the chassis interior looking clean and tidy.

Here we see the rear 120mm exhaust fan which is fitted with a 3pin motherboard connection, below that we have the re-usable expansion slot covers, each of which come fitted with quick release screws for easy access.

The top of the chassis features plenty of room for a radiator or fans should you require extra cooling performance.

Around the back we have a much better view of the cable management options, there a few cable tie loops on the chassis to help keep things tidy and the rear of the HDD bays is exposed and this should further aid with cable management and routing.

There is around 20mm of space back here, more than enough for a chassis of this size.

Much like the front and top panels, each of the side panels is also covered with sound dampening material that should help keep things super quiet.

The build took around 25 minutes to complete and as you can see, cable management is fairly tidy and there are no major obstructions to the airflow. There is also more than enough room for our graphics card and with that huge gap on the right you could easily fit the biggest graphics cards on the market in here with room to spare.

Our Kingston SSD sits nicely in the bottom bay, but I can help but think that this chassis should have an extra HDD bay in between the 5.25″ bays and the HDD bays at the bottom, at least something modular that can be removed should you need the space there for long GPUs or cooling.

Our corsair H80i fits easily although I had removed the stock 120mm fan from the chassis. While a push-pull configuration would be possible it would put a lot of strain on the water pipes and I wasn’t happy with doing that. The H100i will also fit the top of the chassis nicely but our sample was unavailable at time of testing.

With the side panel back on the chassis looks very stealthy, you can’t see anything in terms of components unless you remove the top ventilation cover, a very clean exterior overall.

Overall the Corsair has really impressed me, its delivered the performance, features and quality that I’ve come to expect from Corsair, but it’s just a small bit short of perfect in the end. There are no major things wrong with this chassis, but when you have nothing major you have to pick on the minor issues.

The small cut-out for the motherboard 8pin power cable is small and routing fan cables, power cables and cables for our water cooler proved tricky here, there was more than enough room to provide a bigger hole or more than one hole near the top and for a chassis that can handle top and rear mounted cooling, this cable routing option is essential in my opinion.

The front HDD bays could be more expansive also and while the large gap there provides great clearance for our GPU and the front cooling I would have liked the option for more hard drives, it feels like wasted space. Lastly the 5.25″ bay clips feel a little cheap.

Minor issues aside there is a lot to praise about the 330R and this is still one fantastic chassis. Firstly it’s nice to see a chassis that isn’t all flashy lights, big windows and all over the top, the 330R is understated, bold and stealthy, it looks fantastic but it’s designed so you hardly notice it. This continues with the sound proofing and the extensive padding inside means you should hardly hear it also.

A pair of dust filters will keep things running smoothly and should help keep system maintenance at a minimum, and so will the durable chassis and it should last you many years without falter. I didn’t find a single panel that didn’t fit perfectly, there are no rough edges and the overall finish is pristine.

While I feel the minor issues such as only having four storage bays keeps the chassis from having our editors choice award, I don’t want to diminish the product as I would happily own one of these myself, but I think there is room for a few minor tweaks to its design that would turn this from a great product to something incredible.

Pros

• Clean looking
• Great dampening
• Durable
• Well equipped

Cons

• More storage space would be nice

eTeknix says: “Corsair have done it again, creating a product that is well-built, that looks great and performs even better. It’s perfect for those who don’t want to see or hear their system when working, but still want something that looks bold and stylish regardless.”