Summary
Overall the case exceeds most mainstream user’s requirements for a full tower case that supports water cooling. I would heavily recommend running two 45mm thick 480mm radiators in push/pull and this should provide plenty of cooling for all but the most extreme builds. The really extreme will as usual need to go to boutique vendors for the extra cooling that they “need” however this case offers a lot of punch for the price. For example a case with a similar layout is the CaseLabs SMH10 which when setup with a 480 radiator side mount will retail at $560 + tax/ship. This is a significant amount more, but then you do get more. The SMH10 can fit 560 rads, it has a removable motherboard tray, is full Aluminum and can support larger radiators in the front with optional mounts, as well as more HDDs or ODDs as you might need. The comparison is not really fair because the price is much more and so the two do not really compete even though the builds in each are often similar in terms of total cost. The real competitor to the 900D is really the 750D. The 750D is so competitively priced and has so many features of the 900D that for I feel that Corsair really undercut themselves by pricing it so low. The 750D still supports HPTX and can still support some water cooling. The real differentiation is how many water cooled GPUs the user needs. The 750D is perfect for a Z87 + single GPU all watercooled, or even a 2P SR2 system but with air cooled GPUs. The 900D is therefore only necessary when a large amount of water cooling is needed.
There are niggles I have with the design, plenty of them in fact and none more than the lack of a removable motherboard tray that when coupled with the thick frame makes installing a GPU extremely tiresome and awkward. The design could be better in any number of ways, but all of those increase the cost and would push it towards the same cost as a boutique case and the 900D would then be undercut further by the 750D. In the end I think Corsair really got the design right. It looks the business and delivers on it too.
How good this case is really depends on the end price. At launch the 900D was $350 + tax/ship, which put it into competition with a case like the CaseLabs SM8. The SM8 supports only eATX, and doesn’t have the same cooling capabilities unless you buy optional extras that push it to $450 + tax/ship. However after the 6 months of living with the case it has been frequently below $300 with it’s current price after rebate of only $260. For $260 this case is a veritable bargain, for $350 it’s hard not to consider paying a bit more for something that’s easier to work with. Ease of use matters most when you’re the type of user who changes parts often. Those who water cool also usually do more maintenance than air coolers and therefore are often tearing loops apart. Having said this I thought at first that the lack of motherboard tray and the hard to access PCI slots would drive me nuts, and I was surprised to find that it was not nearly as much of an issue as I thought it would be.
Overall after 6 months I think the case is much better than my first impressions. It certainly helps that the price has dropped. For $350 +tax/ship I would give it a silver award simply because there are too many little niggling design details that should be improved. However with the recent price drops at resellers who are also offering very cheap shipping then it becomes a much more interesting proposition. At $260 + tax with free shipping this really is a bargain and therefore has to win a gold award. There simply is no mainstream competition to this case and Corsair executed it exceptionally well.
Where to buy: Newegg, Amazon, TigerDirect
Great review. I have been looking for a long term review for the 900D. I have heard problems with production quality, like bits snapping off. But you give no mention of that so I’m assuming these are isolated incidents.
Hey Terry – Yes I haven’t seen problems in the long run with anything failing. Most complaints I’ve seen were things being delivered with something broken. There’s definitely improvements that can be made and corners that were cut to save costs, but for the non-msrp price it’s a great deal!
Like the 900D. But – 480 rads can be obstructing to the upper bay as the rad will intrude on optical drive lengths / area. For this reason I swapped over to a 420 up top. Plenty of room all round and leaving many other options open, so I would disagree on the 480 recommendation up top.
Had to remove the lower intake fan as well to accommodate the 480 which is 60mm deep as the rear chamber just impinged on the fan mounts – using Alphacool nexus 480 x 60 unit with the 420 x 60 up top. Also a 140mm below as well. This aside, a joy to work in but still not the same as my lianLi 2120 workstation unit. may well look at the boutique brigade next time..
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