KitGuru KitGuru.net – Tech News | Hardware News | Hardware Reviews | IOS | Mobile | Gaming | Graphics Cards
The Corsair Carbide 200R is designed to target a wide audience of enthusiast user, being Corsair's most affordable chassis, available for only £50. Can they deliver a quality chassis at such a low price point however?
The Corsair Carbide 200R can handle both mATX and ATX Motherboards, as well as 3 x 5.25″ drives, 4 x 3.5″ drives and 4 x 2.5″ drives. On top of this, an impressive eight 120mm fans can also be fitted with two 120 mm fans pre-installed out of the box.
Specifications
| Dimension | 16.9 x 8.3 x 19.6 inches, or 430mm x 210mm x 497mm (H x W x L) |
| MB Support | ATX, mATX |
| Expansion Slots | 7 |
| Form Factor | Mid-tower |
| Material | Steel structure with molded ABS plastic accent pieces |
| Drive Bays | (x3) 5.25″, (x4) 3.5″, (x4) 2.5″ |
| Cooling | (x5) 120mm/140mm fan mount locations, (x3) 120mm fan mount locations, Includes (x1) front-mounted 120mm fan and (x1) rear 120mm fan |
| Front I/O | (x2) USB 3.0, (x1) Headphone, (x1) MIC, Power, Reset |
The Corsair Carbide 200R Chassis is packaged in a large brown box, which did unfortunately get a bit grubby during transport. Thankfully the case itself suffered no damage.
The back of the box shows an interesting pulled-apart diagram of the chassis, showing you how all the fans, dust filters and sides fit onto the case.
The Corsair 200R is packaged as you would expect, with two large Styrofoam blocks at either end.
Corsair have included a small installation guide, which shows you pretty much everything you need to know when building a system into this chassis.
Also included are 4 packets of screws, and several cable ties.
The Carbide 200R is a plain yet effective looking chassis design, with the Corsair logo at the bottom taking a highlight.
On the left-hand side of the chassis there are fan mounts for two 120mm / 140mm fans.
Looking at the back we can see there is already a 120mm exhaust fan fitted and 7 PCI expansion slots. There are however no watercooling holes.
At the front of the chassis are 2 x USB 3.0 ports and a microphone and headphone jack. There is also the reset and power switch. On top of the chassis are mounts for up to two 120mm / 140 mm fans.
The reset and power lights are not very strong and hardly visible.
The bottom of the chassis features space for another 120/140mm fan and also has a power supply fan filter that can be removed.
The case is painted black inside and out – no complaints here. There are three 5.25 ” bays top right.
At the rear of the chassis is a 120mm fan, 7 PCI expansion slots, and plenty of space for a power supply.
From the other side of the chassis, we can see that there is a large CPU cut-out so you can get at the motherboard backplate without removing the motherboard.
From the front of the device we can see the 120mm fan which sits in front of four 2.5″ bays. At the bottom of the chassis are the 3.5″ drives where another 120mm fan can be fitted.
We installed a Seasonic Platinum Rated 1000W Fully Modular power supply.
We then installed a new Motherboard and CPU bundle, with an Akasa Venom Voodoo CPU Cooler. There is a moderate amount of space around the ATX board for installation and large graphics cards.
To install a 3.5″ drive is just a case of sliding it into the desired bay; no screws, no trays … just slide in place.
The same is also true for 2.5″ drives making it very quick to install up to four 3.5″ drives and four 2.5″ drives.
We then installed a test-system graphics card. There is clearly plenty of space for larger, high-end graphics cards.
Installation was relatively easy in this chassis and we were able to route the CPU Power cable behind the motherboard tray which we weren't able to do in the larger Thermaltake Soprano Snow Edition we recently reviewed. Considering how quickly we were able to build this system it is still surprisingly tidy.
Today’s test system will give us a good idea of how well this case works in terms of thermal and acoustical performance. Ambient temperatures were 19c.
Processor: AMD FX-4170 Quad Core @ 4.6 GHz.
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-970-UD3.
Cooler: Akasa Venom Voodoo CPU Cooler.
Memory: 4GB Kingston HyperX DDR3 1800MHz.
Graphics Card: XFX Radeon 5450 HD (GPU @ 700 MHZ, Memory Clock @ 650 MHz).
Power Supply: Seasonic 1000W Platinum Full Modular.
Boot Drive: Kingston HyperX 3K 120GB
Storage: Seagate Barracuda 1TB
OS: Windows 7 Home Edition 64bit
Pyle Digital Sound Level Meter PSPL25
The thermal performance is quite good, especially at this modest price point.
If you look at the difference in temperatures the processor dynamics only increased by 17 degrees. By comparison CPU temperatures in the Thermaltake Soprano Snow Edition rose by a full 20 degrees. The dual 120mm fans in the Corsair 200R do push a considerable amount of air.
Today, to test this chassis we have set our Sound Level Meter one meter away from the case.
We then temporarily turned the two Akasa Venom Voodoo fans off, which leaves us with only the included case fan and very little noise from the power supply fan.
As this can be a little confusing for people, here are various dBa ratings in with real world situations to help describe the various levels.
KitGuru noise guide
10dBA – Normal Breathing/Rustling Leaves
20-25dBA – Whisper
30dBA – High Quality Computer fan
40dBA – A Bubbling Brook, or a Refrigerator
50dBA – Normal Conversation
60dBA – Laughter
70dBA – Vacuum Cleaner or Hairdryer
80dBA – City Traffic or a Garbage Disposal
90dBA – Motorcycle or Lawnmower
100dBA – MP3 player at maximum output
110dBA – Orchestra
120dBA – Front row rock concert/Jet Engine
130dBA – Threshold of Pain
140dBA – Military Jet takeoff/Gunshot (close range)
160dBA – Instant Perforation of eardrum
A reading of 37.7 dB is much better than the average mid-tower chassis. We are impressed with this result and we know that you can build a fairly quiet, but powerful system into this chassis with a minimum of hassle.
The Corsair Carbide 200R is a compact ATX chassis which manages to fit a plethora of great features into a compact form.
The 200R features tool-free drive bays, a CPU back plate cutout and support for up to eight fans. This array of features certainly put it in league with some of the best mid-tower chassis' currently on the market.
Installing a system into this chassis was effortless. The sides of the chassis feature thumbscrews meaning you don't need a screwdriver to get inside. That said, the thumbscrews are a little small, making it a bit harder to loosen if they have been overtightened.
The 200R is spacious and has plenty of room for installation of components. Fitting three 5.25″ drives and four 3.5″ drives won't pose a problem and there are four dedicated 2.5″ bays, ideal for a range of performance oriented Solid State drives.
The thermal performance of this chassis is above average. Our testing highlighted a CPU temperature increase of only 17 degrees even when overclocked to 4.6 GHz. That said, the motherboard temperature did increase a little more than we would like. Fitting another inexpensive exhaust fan in the middle of the case should negate this issue.
Hard drive temperature didn't increase much which highlights a capable front to back intake airflow methodology. Extreme overclockers could add another six 120mm /140mm fans if desired.
Acoustic performance is excellent. With only the two included fans in operation the sound level output is just under 38 dB. Adding another couple of quality fans wouldn't increase this significantly.
In terms of design, we like the simplicity of this chassis.
The fact that you can just slide in 2.5″ drives, 3.5″ drives or 5.25″ drives without any screws or trays is very convenient. There is also logical routing holes around the motherboard which suited our cooler and cables perfectly.
With the included cable ties you can easily make this a tidy and clutter free system. The only thing we didn't like about the design is the I/O section at the top of the chassis. The buttons to turn on and reset your computer on our sample exhibited weak lighting.
The Corsair Carbide 200R Compact ATX Chassis can be purchased for just £49.98 from Ebuyer.com. This is a remarkable price for a case with so many commendable features. Highly recommended.
Pros
- Simple, tidy and easy to use.
- Well built.
- Decent thermal and acoustical performance.
- Can fit up to eight 120mm fans.
- USB 3.0 ports.
- Excellent value for money.
Cons
- Not the most dramatic of designs.
- Power and Reset Switch buttons could have been designed better.
Kitguru says: A quality case at a very reasonable price point. Ideal for gamers on a budget.
