mATX-Zilla, with a few flaws
review by
ganzosrevenge
This was the second case I bought for the current rig I'm building. The first, a Corsair Carbide Spec-02, was returned because of its great difficulty holding a dual 120mm radiator / AIO combo. With that, I paid the difference at MicroCenter, and returned home with a large box. A part of me still wanted to buy an Obsidian 750D for the "LARGE!" factor, but when I returned home and put the case on my desk, thankfully I made the right decision; the 350D fit with about a centimeter to spare front-to-back. This study in "LARGE" and "QUALITY" would continue as I worked my way through the case to make this rig a holder of a liquid-cooled gaming reality.
First, in terms of size, although this case is mATX by what motherboard it can hold, in terms of actual dimensions, it's closer to a small ATX mini-tower. There is ample room for the board (in my case, I chose a Maximus VII Gene), and the quality of the steel and aluminum had NO flex, and no need to tighten down anything that held the case together. I almost thought of it as the "common man's caselabs case" (and judging by how the 900D is a design relative in a lot of ways to one of Caselabs' models, it isn't completely a misnomer). There is plenty of room for the motherboard, cooling loops (within reason, more on this later), cable management (again, roomy but there is an issue), and other means (ie: SSD / HDDs, etc., I never felt that anything was going to bend, break, etc, even though at its $89.99 price point, it finds itself in competition with cases by companies such as BitFenix and Fractal Design. However, whereas the former favors small builds, and the latter is difficult to obtain near me and seemingly favors quiet builds, the Obsidian 350D is both quiet and capable of a LOT of airflow due to 2 x 140mm fan intakes in the front, and a 120mm in the back. (It comes included with a 140mm fan up front, and a 120mm in the exhaust.
That being said, although there is a LOT of space to work with, as well as a high level of quality within the build, I wish the tower itself was about 5mm taller. That's right,I said taller. Here's why. I shoehorned a Swiftech H220x (29mm radiator / 25mm fan) AIO up into the roof of the unit, and although it fit, it *BARELY* fit, with the bottom of the radiator coming extremely close to the 8-pin ATX power cable for the CPU, some capacitors, and the PWM points (CPU_FAN) and (CPU_OPT) on my Maximus VII Gene. If someone sought to use a 30mm radiator (ie: an alphacool UT30) with a 25mm fan, or even the H220x up there, it comes down to manufacturing tolerances for both case height, and radiator / fan combined height. For someone who is not precise with moving components about, I would probably stick with a more traditional AIO (ie: an H100i) just to avoid potentially damaging a connector or a cap that resides at the top of the mobo (that extra 4mm of space can mean the difference between a safe fit and a crushed cap / connector on a mobo). Furthermore, once I put the H220x in, I discovered that even with the 8 included rubber "washers" (for lack of a better word), it was still possible to screw fan screws through the top of the case; careless screwing could result in a radiator that either wobbles due to being too loosely connected, or the screw going THROUGH the top mount, and allowing gravity to crash the radiator into the case itself. Because different fans use different diameter screw-heads, and different types of screw-heads, I'm going to have to put the blame on Corsair for allowing such wide tolerances in "screwmount" for top-mounted fans.
Back to the positive about this case, it is VERY easy to work with and keep clean. Filters abound (front and PSU) to keep air sucked into the case or PSU from consuming dust, and their easy-to-access nature are good for the performance user who may use dual 140mm SP fans, or have a PSU with high-speed fans, as fewer particles are likely to enter the machine. In the month I've owned my Obsidian, I haven't had a dust problem, but perhaps it's because the build is still in progress and I haven't pushed the fans hard enough to where they would actually consume such a level of dust. I even like that the front is capable of a LARGE (i'd say at least 60mm thick) 240mm radiator with push-pull fans, although the larger the fan is, the less likely non-reference cards (ie: 780 Ti KingPins) would fit without length issues. I'd probably stick to a 30mm rad with the fans acting as an intake, were I to ever expand my 220x, or build a custom loop, for that purpose; but to know that custom loops can reside in the 350D, is a good thing.
An issue I have with the 350D is that while there is copious ROOM for cable management, especially with flat cables such as the ones provided with the RM850 that resides (bottom mount) in this case, the tiedown points are primarily either all up front by the SSD / HDD bays, or right by the rear (where the 8-pin connector goes). There are no "easy-to-access" tie-down points below where the CPU backplate would be installed. What this does is it leaves a nice flat cable for the 8-pin, but leaves me struggling with "cable piling up front" unless I'm willing to have free-dangling cables in the midsection, or by the SSD / HDD bay. This gives an otherwise clean wiring job the unpleasant appearance of "rogue cable". Yes, I could re-route the SATA Power cable (the culprit) through one of the side management holes (by the SATA Data connectors, but then I have the issue of a cable climbing up, in plain sight, for no reason. Unfortunately, there is no "ideal solution" other than to have a solid black piece of metal (or plastic) connect the HDD and SSD bays together, but that would limit the ability to use the case for custom loop cooling, which as I said, was one of the strong points of this case.
Cooling is that strong point. Early testing in a room at 21 deg C shows that the one fan in front at 700 to 800rpm and the fan out back at 900rpm, is sufficient to keep the motherboard at 22 to 24 degrees C at idle. I may replace the fan in the front with a higher SP fan (SP because of the filter AND aluminum plate in front of the fan) or 2 of these fans in the hopes of getting more positive airflow into the case. Other than those niggling issues (case height, lack of tie-downs, I really have no problems with this case, and recommend it as a candidate for an mATX build where maximum performance while maintaining a quiet atmosphere is desired.
Jason
Pros | Cons |
---|
Large, Deep, mATX case, GREAT airflow | Could be a little taller, Cable Management Tie-Downs unevenly distributed |
Ratings