Corsair 9000D RGB Airflow Overview

If it’s a must to ask what it prices, so the saying goes, you’ll be able to’t afford it. With this mammoth PC case from Corsair, think about a corollary to that: If it’s a must to ask why, you in all probability don’t want it. That is the most effective recommendation, as seasoned reviewers, we can provide for Corsair’s staggeringly over-the-top 9000D RGB Airflow. This $499.99 chassis, able to internet hosting a full-size PC and a Mini-ITX system inside, helps as much as 4 480mm (!) radiators with out even contemplating its 360mm and 240mm mounts. And naturally you’ll need to fill it with two motherboards, two energy provides, and two graphics playing cards as a result of…why not? Evidently, this mega-chassis could possibly be all concerning the bragging rights, however you may want loads of house to spare and dough to blow to think about this titan your subsequent case. Streamers with a necessity for each gameplay and game-capture machines in a single chassis, or video editors who need to have their modifying and rendering rigs in a single enclosure would possibly think about this beastly field. The 9000D is nice for that area of interest and wins an Editors’ Alternative award for being the final word twin-rig chassis, however is it ever imposing.

The Design: An Extra of Extra

To say that the 9000D is greater than huge ought to be descriptive sufficient for most folk, however in case you’re sitting round imagining what you would possibly do with virtually limitless mounting house, we’ll have your consideration now. At 27.5 inches tall, the case is simply too tall to suit underneath any desk we have ever owned, and too heavy (66 kilos empty!) for some desks to assist, too. Measurement alone differentiates its aesthetic out of your typical glass-sided metal gaming case. This factor is solely a monster. (It is nearly precisely as deep as it’s tall, too.) You may get it in white or black variations.

While you flip it on: Extra out-of-the-ordinary stuff. The entire ports are surrounded by mild diffusers identical to the facility button, and the row of lights behind all these diffusers is nothing lower than a Corsair iCUE Hyperlink-controlled ARGB strip. Not so apparent to the informal observer is that the complete assortment of 4 Kind-A and two Kind-C ports, plus the headphone and microphone jack, are linked by a single dual-link cable. That’s proper: The 9000D gives its personal USB audio controller to attach these jacks, reasonably than faucet into the motherboard’s front-panel audio header.

(Credit score: Thomas Soderstrom)

Two sq. mud filters that cowl the 9000D’s power-supply air inlet on the underside slide out at an angle from the aspect of its backside panel: These are a part of a complete dust-banning system that features slide-out filters for each the highest and backside radiator mounts, in addition to a magnetic sheet filter that rests over the vent on the prime of its proper panel.

(Credit score: Thomas Soderstrom)

From the other way, we will see the above-mentioned right-panel vent on the left, and the rear panel on the fitting. Highlights of the rear panel embody a 140mm/120mm twin fan mount with sufficient room to suit a 240mm radiator (relying on the thickness of any top-panel cooler put in), eight enlargement slots within the regular place, two vertical enlargement slots which are half-covered by a detachable panel that surrounds the facility provide bay, and an uncommon button group subsequent to the higher fan mount. Talking of wierd, the twin fan mount seems to be round an eighth of an inch in need of supporting two 140mm followers, and is thus restricted to both two 120mm followers or one 140mm fan.

(Credit score: Thomas Soderstrom)

Peeling away the layers on the backside of the rear panel, we discover house to mount an SFX (or SFX-L) energy provide to the left of the principle energy provide bay, a gap to accommodate the I/O panel of a Mini-ITX motherboard above the principle energy provide bay, and 4 standoffs for mounting a Mini-ITX motherboard atop the facility provide cowl. Sure, meaning the 2 vertical slots we see right here are supposed to serve the Mini ITX motherboard…however the case’s accent package additionally features a four-slot vertical panel that replaces its eight-slot panel.

(Credit score: Thomas Soderstrom)

(Credit score: Thomas Soderstrom)

(Credit score: Thomas Soderstrom)

That brings us again to the highest of the again panel, the place you’ll discover these odd buttons talked about earlier: They’re energy and reset buttons for the Mini-ITX motherboard tray. In different phrases, in case you certainly set up a second system within the case, utilizing a Mini-ITX board, you’d energy it on from again right here, individually from the “important” system.

(Credit score: Thomas Soderstrom)

The general dimension of this case is tough to visualise from a direct aspect shot, and I had no banana almost large enough helpful for scale, however the triple fan mount seen above the highest of the motherboard tray will be your first clue. Designed to align with the higher vent of the fitting aspect panel, it’s lengthy sufficient to carry a 360mm-format radiator. And that further row of standoffs between the primary and second column of cable passage grommets? It is positioned to carry the entrance fringe of 13-inch-deep motherboards (SSI-EEB sized EATX). The field on the backside is the again aspect of a 3.5-inch drive rack, and customers can match a complete EATX board within the house between that and the higher fan mount. Large enough for you?

(Credit score: Thomas Soderstrom)

Zooming in towards the middle of the above house, we see a graphics-card assist mounted to an adjustment slot by way of a screw on the other aspect. Above that may be a standoff at a place marked “C,” which refers to SSI-CEB motherboards. Most customers of “EATX”-labeled motherboards might want to take away all three of the SSI-CEB standoffs, as boards just like the Asrock X670E Taichi lack the additional three mounting holes regardless of its SSI-CEB-matching 10.5-inch depth.

(Credit score: Thomas Soderstrom)

We beforehand talked about the slide-out mud filters that cowl the front- and top-panel radiator mounts, however we should always put somewhat extra emphasis on the mounts themselves: Mounted to cabinet-grade drawer slides, every rack (which Corsair calls its “Infinirail” system) is designed to carry two rows of 4 120mm followers for a complete of eight followers on prime and eight extra on entrance. Every rack’s fan mounts and heart brace will be moved round to assist three 140mm or two 200mm followers every, however both of these choices looks as if a giant step down from the eight 120mm followers that every is ready to assist. (The 21-fan max depend we point out within the specs is with 16 followers on the racks, three on the aspect, and two within the again.)

Protecting in thoughts the 240mm width restrict, builders are welcome to put in as much as two 480mm (aspect by aspect) or one 420mm-format radiator up prime, and one other two 480mm or one 420mm-format radiator up entrance. 

(Credit score: Thomas Soderstrom)

Two doorways positioned behind the fitting panel are designed to carry as much as 4 2.5-inch drive trays every, on the other aspect. These doorways are secured on the heart with nothing greater than a pair of weak magnets, however the mounted aspect panel prevents them from swinging open as soon as the system is assembled.

(Credit score: Thomas Soderstrom)

Solely three of the 4 2.5-inch drive-tray mounts are crammed per door, however that’s nonetheless sufficient to carry six drives, and customers of greater than six 2.5-inch drives will discover that the 5 3.5-inch drive trays seen listed below are additionally drilled to simply accept 2.5-inch drives. Different options embody a Corsair iCUE Hyperlink controller and a 3-pin adapter for the front-panel ARGB lighting, which incorporates the each the emblem and the facility button/port group.

(Credit score: Thomas Soderstrom)

The iCUE Hyperlink controller and adapter each adhere to the case utilizing magnets which are too weak to outlive getting dislodged in transport, therefore the twist ties seen above. A better have a look at the controller under reveals that it’s powered by a PCI Specific supplemental energy cable out of your PSU, and it interfaces with the motherboard by way of a USB 2.0 inside header.

(Credit score: Thomas Soderstrom)

Extra particulars of the identical controller (together with screenshots of its software program interface) will be present in our featured iCUE Hyperlink-based take a look at construct.

Constructing With the Corsair 9000D RGB Airflow

Packed inside one among its 3.5-inch drive bays, the 9000D RGB Airflow’s accent field features a entire ironmongery store. You get 42 “Quikturn” fan screws, 12 M3 screws for mounting three 2.5-inch drives, 18 #6-32 UNC screws for mounting the motherboard and any 3.5-inch drives, six spare motherboard standoffs, a dozen zip-style cable ties, and a mixed nine-pin F-Panel-to-separated-front-panel-lead adapter.

(Credit score: Thomas Soderstrom)

Different equipment are included in a cardboard field, together with a number of fan brackets for the entrance and prime racks, a set of eight knurled screws and threaded nuts, a four-slot vertical graphics card adapter to exchange the eight-slot horizontal enlargement panel, two iCUE Hyperlink cables, and a fuzzy cleansing material.

The front-panel buttons and ports are served by solely three cables: A 9-pin combo connector that options solely energy and reset buttons, a USB Gen 2×2 (Kind-E) cable, and an SATA energy enter. The Kind-E cable connects a USB 3.2 hub, which in flip breaks out into two Kind-C and 4 Kind-A ports, plus the interior USB audio controller we talked about.

(Credit score: Thomas Soderstrom)

You do not have to fret about having two 19-pin USB header connectors for the 4 USB-A ports. Certainly, not connecting any 19-pin USB or HD Audio headers in any respect felt somewhat unusual, despite the fact that it did simplify the method. We put our 240mm cooler above the motherboard to optimize airflow over its voltage regulator, after which seen {that a} full ATX motherboard and 12-inch-long graphics card look ridiculously small in a case this huge. However hey, these are our commonplace take a look at elements!

(Credit score: Thomas Soderstrom)

Alternatively, turning the case at an angle no less than helped us to hide a few of the empty house on the entrance of the motherboard tray.

(Credit score: Thomas Soderstrom)

Testing the Corsair 9000D RGB Airflow

We’re utilizing our newest full ATX case testing configuration to check the 9000D RGB Airflow to the 5 tallest evaluation items to lately precede it. All stand greater than 21 inches tall however nonetheless stay cowed earlier than this Corsair monolith. This is a recap of our take a look at elements…

The 9000D could be geared up to carry a bucket 21 of 120mm followers, however it’s delivered with none of these places crammed. Our CPU cooler’s followers nonetheless gave it sufficient airflow to attain fourth place in CPU, voltage-regulator, and graphics-card temperatures. With temperatures this average at low airflow, we will solely think about how a lot enchancment including a couple of extra followers would possibly convey.

Its lack of followers meant that the 9000D didn’t produce its personal noise, however it additionally did a so-so job of containing the noise of our element followers. It strikes as much as third place, general.

After all, being that it’s not designed to be restricted to so small a choice of {hardware} and cooling gear, all of the 9000D actually needed to do is cross our primary take a look at. And it did that. 

Verdict: Large as All Outside (and Indoors, Too)

The actual take a look at is what a builder would possibly do with the 9000D, and people in search of somewhat construct inspiration are welcomed to take a look at the assorted configurations displayed on Corsair’s internet web page for the 9000D. Our take a look at used our commonplace take a look at elements for comparability, however no right-thinking purchaser would purchase this case for a construct in need of needing to put in an extra-large motherboard, a couple of liquid cooling loop, or a customized huge loop, and/or a second Mini-ITX PC being put in alongside. There’s merely not sufficient huge single-PC {hardware} that almost all people would set up, or can afford, to justify this case.  

Streamers or professional editors, although, who might need to seize or render on a secondary mini-PC whereas by no means slowing down on their important rig, will perk up on the 9000D. No, it is in all probability not smaller by quantity than two discrete programs constructed individually, however in order for you your twin rig constructed out in a single place, it is probably the greatest such options you will discover. Simply know that it is large enough that you will need to cost it hire.

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About Thomas Soderstrom

Contributor

Years again, when a small web site referred to as out for product-review editors. I leapt on the alternative: I’d simply wrapped up a four-year stint as a programs provider. That have offered the credentials I’d want for the transition from trade provider to trade observer. For one factor, I’d been the primary supply for an exposé on capacitor plague (“Acquired Juice”) at EDN.

By that point, I’d already self-published some tips on hardcore PC stuff: pin-modifying processors to defeat compatibility checks and overclock non-overclockable programs. I noticed an opportunity to receives a commission for my data, and have since written greater than a thousand items (lots of them for the seminal tech website Tom’s {Hardware}) earlier than discovering my newest alternative: with PCMag.

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