Corsair Graphite Series 230T Case Review

Today we are going to take a look at the Corsair 230T. Supplementing the Graphite series of cases, the 230T supports up to eight storage drives, graphics cards up to 320 mm in length and even power supplies up to 200 mm in length. Retailing around £75, the Corsair 230T is up against some serious competition. The big question is, is it worth the money? The Corsair 230T is available in Battleship Grey, Rebel Orange, and Black. We are reviewing the Rebel Orange version today. Cue Star Wars music. Specifications: Warranty: Two years. Size: 505 x 210 x 440mm. Motherboard support: ATX, Micro ATX, Mini ITX. Expansion slots: 7. Form factor: Mid-tower. Material: Angular, steel aesthetic panels with high airflow plastic front fascia. Drive Bays: 4 x 2.5” / 4 x 3.5” / 3 x 5.25”. The Corsair 230T ships in a brown box, protected by layers of styrofoam. The orange top and side panels immediately make the Corsair 230t stand out. Turning the case around shows the window has been designed to only show the motherboard tray, cleverly hiding any unsightly cables. A closer look at the front panel shows the I/O panel grants access to a pair of USB 3.0 ports, audio and mic jacks, the Reset button and Power Button. The top panel houses several pre-installed rubber grommets to reduce vibrations from fans. The face plates covering the top drive bays have received a textured finish to blend in with the mesh dust filter. Along the very bottom we can see the only visible Corsair branding on the case. The back of the case gives us a glimpse of one of the pre-installed fans and follows a standard design with 7 expansion. Finally, turning the case on its side shows a small dust filter underneath the power supply, as well as the mounting positions for either a 120 mm or 140 mm bottom in-take fan. Removing the front panel reveals the two front in-take fans. The model number A1225M125 indicates these are modified versions of the fans found in Corsair's Vengeance C70 case, though the exact specifications of these fans are not known. These fans harbor orange LEDs to create a glow effect with the front panel mesh in place. The rear of the front panel shows the dust filter. Starting from the bottom left we can see there is a small cut-out in the motherboard tray to route the front I/O panel cables. A large cut-out behind the CPU is accompanied by two cut-outs along the center of the case to route the remaining cables. The drive cage can hold four 3.5" drives and an additional four 2.5" drives in the compartments directly above the cage. A large CPU cut-out facilitates the installation of coolers without removing the motherboard. The same locking mechanism that is present on Corsair's other cases is found in the Corsair 230t as well. Releasing the lock and pressing it back in place secures 5.25" drives. The rear of the case is where we find the third pre-installed fan. This fan bears the same model number as the front in-take fans. The roof of the case features a large mesh and pre-installed rubber grommets. Users can install either two 120 mm or two 140 mm fans in the top. If a 240 mm radiator is installed these fans will have to be mounted on top of the case. The rectangular cut-outs allow for fan cables to be routed into the case. A closer look at the drive cage shows the top compartments can hold up to four 2.5" drives. These slide into place and are then held in place firmly by a large clip. A single latch secures 3.5" drives in place, removing the need for any caddies. Around the back we can see there is enough clear space around the motherboard to route cables unobstructed, though the number of cable tie points is rather limited. As always, we aim to find out how forgiving a case is by stacking cables cable deliberately and only applying minimal cable management. The Corsair 230t certainly offers plenty of room to facilitate a large number of cables, though we would have preferred additional cable tie points behind the motherboard tray as well as rubber grommets. We are using the Cooler Master Hyper 103 cooler to keep our Intel Core i7 3770k cool and perform our tests with the CPU at its default clock speed before then overclocking it to 4.6GHz with the voltage set to 1.3v. Test System: Processor: Intel Core i7 3770k Motherboard: Asus P8Z77-V LX2 Memory: 16GB G.Skill Ares Blue Graphics Card: Sapphire HD 7790 2GB GDDR5 OC Power Supply: OCZ ZT Series 550W Chassis: Corsair Graphite Series 230T Monitor: Acer X243HQ Boot Drive: Intel SSD 510 Storage Drive: 2TB Seagate Barracuda System validation can be found here. Software: CPUID HW Monitor 1.23 CPUID CPU-Z 1.65 Prime95 v27.1 Furmark 1.11.0 We are testing the Corsair Graphite Series 230T's performance as follows: Room temperature is kept at 22° throughout our tests. The CPU Fan is set to 100% to eliminate inconsistencies as a result of PWM control. Idle temperatures are obtained after booting the PC and idling on the desktop for 30 minutes. CPU load temperatures are obtained after running Prime95′s Small FTTs test for 15 minutes. GPU load temperatures are obtained after running Furmark’s Burn-In Test for 15 minutes. To measure noise levels we disable the CPU fans and GPU fan. We cleaned up our cable management to ensure a clear path of airflow to our components. The unrestricted airflow of the top front in-take fan provides our small cooler with plenty of fresh air, keeping maximum temperatures below 60 degrees. We measure from a distance of around 1 meter from the closed chassis and 4 foot from the ground to mirror a real world situation. Ambient noise in the room measures close to the limits of our sound meter at 30dBa. We use the integrated 3-step fan controller to measure noise levels at 5V, 7V and 12V. The CPU and GPU fans are manually disconnected to eliminate unwanted noise. KitGuru noise guide 10dBA - Normal Breathing/Rustling Leaves 20-25dBA – Whisper 30dBA - High Quality Computer fan 40dBA - A Bubbling Brook, or a Refridgerator 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 Running at 5V the fans are nearly inaudible and fell below the lower limits of our meter. Increasing the voltage to 12V the fans produced a total of 36.5 dBa. Though audible, we would not classify the fans as loud or intrusive. The Corsair Graphite Series 230T is a very impressive chassis that will comfortably serve a wide audience. The build quality of the 230T is on par with what we have come to expect from Corsair over the years. The variety of colour schemes also helps to add diversity to their range. Strong cooling performance and low noise levels make the 230T capable of standing side by side with the larger 600T. However, there are some areas where we feel Corsair have regressed. Limited space in the roof of the case means users will either have to block areas of the motherboard with fans or mount them outside the case. Increasing the 230T's height minimally to allow for a slim radiator with slim fans would have been preferable. With regards to cable management we feel the large space behind the motherboard tray goes mostly unused due to a lack of cable tie points. Adding a handful would allow users to more efficiently route cables completely out of sight. Finally, including optional rubber grommets would have been an advantage in our opinion. We believe a portion of the 230T's audience will prefer to use rubber grommets to hide cables. At the end of the day, the Corsair Graphite Series 230T is a strong performer with some room for improvement. Retailing for £79.99 inc vat., the 230T is a solid investment for users who want a low-profile build with room for expansion. Pros: Variety of colour schemes. Strong cooling performance. Excellent noise levels. Plenty of space behind the motherboard tray. Cons: Lack of cable tie points behind motherboard tray. Lack of optional rubber grommets. Limited roof space may put some potential buyers off. KitGuru says: The Corsair Graphite Series 230T faces stiff competition but we feel it is worth its asking price.

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Corsair Graphite Series 230T Case Review

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