Corsair 900D Long Term Review

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The Corsair Obsidian 900D is a large full format tower with extensive water cooling support.  It replaces the old 800D design as the top of the line Corsair case and was nicknamed “Godzilla” in development because of it’s large size.  The goals of the design were to fix all the complaints that users had with the 800D while creating the ultimate mainstream water cooling case.  I mention mainstream for two reason.  The first is that this does not replace boutique cases and nor is it meant to compete with them.  It does not cater to the ultra high end, but to “just” the very high end.   The problem with focusing on the high end PCs as we do at ExtremeRigs is that after some time a large water cooled multi-gpu system can seem very normal, when in reality it’s at the very high end of current PC offerings.   The second is that the mainstream may define more than we may at first expect.  The 900D is of course aimed towards the “Built Not Bought” crowd, but it’s also designed to be sold to the larger mainstream through boutique and custom PC builders.  Companies like Origin PC were very quick to switch their high end PC offerings to use the 900D as soon as it was launched.  As we look at the case design these two factors will be seen to have influenced many parts of the design.

A little history…

The 900D was launched as the first of the Obsidian line refresh, preceeding both the very competitively priced mATX format 350D and the full format 750D case.  The case is made in China of steel and plastic and comes with zero customizable options.  There is no reverse ATX option, there is only one color available (black) and there are no window options and really somewhat limited options.  The design is obviously made to reduce manufacturing overheads as much as possible and therefore maximize profit.  This is particularly important when you are targeting boutique PC vendors as they will be buying in bulk and wanting a discount that will eat into the normal profit margin.  Having said all of this, this one size fits all really does cover 95% of the serious water cooler’s needs.  If we ignore the boutique case designs such as CaseLabs, Mountain Mods and LittleDevil then there are very few cases that directly compete with the 900D.  The obvious competitor is the aging Silverstone TJ07 which being made of Aluminum is not only pretty expensive but doesn’t support as much radiator area or larger motherboards.  To be honest this was the case that Silverstone should have made it if it hadn’t have got lost along the way.

Specs

The critical specs for the 900D are really the following:

Overall Dimensions: 25.6″ x 9.9″ x 27.2″

Weight: 41lbs

Motherboard Support – ATX/eATX/XLATX/HPTX and many more…

Radiator options:

480/420 at the top

480/420 at the bottom, side mounted (if you give up a 2nd PSU)

240 at the front (if you give up the drive bays in the main chamber, and a 360 if you don’t mount a large radiator in the base)

120 at the back above the IO plate (bear in mind this will probably get hot air and is most likely a waste of time)

 

I would recommend 480 radiators over 420 as the difference in surface area is only 2% and the 120mm fans have more options.

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Unboxing

The 900D came in a strong cardboard box with plenty of packaging, in addition it also had reinforcing strips on every corner and was further wrapped in plastic to keep it all together. Overall the box arrived in extremely good shape which is reassuring when something is this large and heavy:

The case itself is has a strong defined style that is neither too immature, nor too boring. It also very much fits the Obisidian name:

The look of the front is imposing and it means business. There is a flip down panel at the top which hides the headphone/mic jacks, two USB3 and four USB2 ports:

The center top of the flip down panel that remains is a combo power switch with two white LED lights, one for power and one for the HDD access as normal. In normal use the lights are subtle and classy but still useful:

The reset button is hidden behind the panel but is still easy to push when needed. It is worth noting that the cheaper Obsidian cases (350D and 750D) do not use the flip down panel and instead the I/O is always on display. The 900D therefore looks better when the IO is hidden away, but perhaps worse when they are in use. Of the two I’d prefer the 900D design.

Underneath the flip down panel are four 5 1/4″ drive bays. These are not standard drive bays as you may notice they appear too wide. The drive bay covers can be removed by pushing them out from inside the case. Once removed optical drives or bay reservoirs or fan controllers could easily be fitted, however the smooth flush look of the panel becomes very disrupted:

Again like the flipdown panel, the aesthetic is great when not used. However once used the overall look is severely hurt. If an optical drive is required it’s suggested that the front cover panel is modded to attach to the front of the optical drive so that it is stealthily hidden. I would suggest the same for fan controllers and as usual I would recommend a cylinder reservoir if possible. This case is so large that unless you are running a HPTX board then you should be able to fit a cylinder reservoir.

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The branding on the bottom of the front is again simple and classy. It’s almost the only branding on the case and this is nice because this is a panel that is crying out to be removed and modded:

The panel easily unclips and reveals a dust filter underneath:

Pushing the two top corners of the dust filter releases it to pivot out revealing included case fans underneath. Here one of the three included front fans was removed:

As can be seen the fan filters really do work and caught a decent amount of dust after nearly 6 months. The interesting thing is that the design allows and filters air from the sides which is good because the front panel will be limiting direct airflow from the front.

The side panel contains a slightly tinted acrylic window that is just a perfect balance to keep most people happy. It is not so dark that lighting is lost, however it’s not so clear that a dark room will have you blinded by the internals. Of course like most windows it can reflect things very well:

The side is divided into two sections. The large upper windowed portion is a seperate door that is opened by pressing a stealthy release button on the top of the rear of the case:

Depending on how stiff the fit of the door is, it may require a bit of work for the windowed door to open, on the other hand if it’s loose the door may simply fall open. So be careful!

The lower section on the other hand is not secured with a locking release but is instead held shut with a magnet. In order to pull it off the magnet there is a pop out little handle half way along. However this little plastic handle even when folded away really disrupts the simple clean lines of the case. Once the lower door is opened it can be seen that there is another included dust filter:

The lower chamber has room for two power supplies and radiators can mount on both sides of the chamber, which both have magnetic filters. The motherboard side of the case is similar with the large door panel (this time unwindowed) revealing the cable routing space, while the lower door reveals the same lower chamber where radiators, PSUs and HDDs can be mounted. The lower door on this side has the blank panel fitted. Both sides of the case have this fitted by default but it can be unscrewed to allow air to flow into radiators:

The space behind the motherboard is fairly deep, enabling plenty of power supply cables that might be needed for 2P or 4 way GPU setups to attach to extensions without bulging the side panels. There are copious options for cables and even tubing to come in and out from behind the tray and every one includes rubber grommets to not only protect the cables, but also screen it from being seen from the window. The large amount of grommetted holes means that any build will be kept tidy regardless of if it’s a normal ATX based build or a much larger HPTX build. The downside is that the area left to mount cylinder reservoir clamps is therefore limited as the motherboard plate is somewhat like swiss cheese.

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There are three HDD quick release units each of which can mount three HDDs. The units slide on to five possible mounting locations where they can be screwed down. Three are in the lower chamber:

While two can fit between the 5 1/4″ bays and the lower chamber:

Although there are three units they are not all the same. Only one is prewired to be fully hotswap capable. The other two units are not wired up and instead SATA and power must be wired in manually through the rear. While this is of course a cost saving measure, it’s not a big deal, because very few people these days who would be interested in this case need more than full hotswappable bays anyway. Here’s the prewired hotswappable unit:

The HDD caddy trays are cheap plastic that can easily snap into a standard 3.5″ drive. A 2.5″ SSD on the other hand requires the metal side pins to be removed and the drive to be screwed in from the underside:

This is not a high quality workstation style hotswap bay, it’s designed for occasional use and it does feel flimsy, but it’s also not horrible and for infrequent use it’s perfectly fine.

The dual PSUs would be mounted either side and there is no option to center mount the PSU:

Of course these days dual PSUs are rarer because there are plenty of high power PSU options. Those pushing more than 1600W are normally those who bench, and this is not a case made for benching.

If you do mount dual PSUs then you will be more limited in the radiators you can use. A long PSU like the AX1200 would only allow a 240 in front of it. In fact I’m sure more creative modders will mount the PSU in the main chamber in order to run two full slim 480s side by side in the bottom chamber.

Fat radiators like the Alphacool Monsta series that are 80+mm thick can still be fitted as long as only one set of 25mm thick fans are used:

As can be seen there is a small amount of clearance with the Monsta. I would however recommend using at most a 60mm thick radiator so that Push/Pull fans can be used. In addition if you are running side by side radiators then I would suggest something even thinner.

The side mounted radiators can be mounted with a two part quick release radiator mount:

This is not as quick release as it should be and is certainly no match for the CaseLabs radiator mount. In order to mount the radiator, I had to attach the bottom half of the mount, then mount the radiator, and then screw the top part into the case and the radiator. Again this is not a big deal, but certainly something that could have been simpler and easier albeit most likely requiring a cost in terms of space efficiency.

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The top of the case can also mount a 480/420 radiator and again it’s concealed behind a clever dust filter that really does look the business:

Although it looks the business it’s a real pain to remove. The instructions for the case are essentially non existent and it took a literal hour and some youtube videos that confused me more before I figured out how to remove the dust filter. Like the radiator side mounts this is something that could be improved or at least better labelled. Once removed the radiator mount is built into the frame of the case:

Because the mount is in the frame the radiator must be mounted from inside the case which can be quite awkward if you’re trying to run push fans in between the frame and the radiator as the fans can slide around:

Running a 480 is much harder because of the limited access space due to the 5 1/4″ bays. The radiator clearance is less at the top than it is at the bottom of the case. A thick radiator like the XSPC RX series can not run push/pull without interfering with the top of the motherboard. Some motherboards may still fit – for example the Rampage III Extreme did work, while the Rampage IV Extreme had clearance issues with the 8 pin CPU EPS power connectors:

As can be seen there is a supplied 140mm rear exhaust fan included by Corsair. The mount is also compatible with a 120mm fan and while a 120 radiator might be able to be mounted here, because the case is really designed to be run with positive pressure venting hot air out the back of the case it means that most likely any radiator situated there will only receive warm air and acheive very little.

The top filter does catch dust pretty well, however this means that the case does quickly look dusty:

Even after removing the filter and cleaning it with the perpetually handy Metro Datavac, it was hard to get the dust out from the nooks and crannies of the cool filter design:

In order to really get the corners you have to unbend some metal tabs to separate the layers. This is a bad idea in the long run and again is another minor quibble that could have been improved on.

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Layout

Overall the layout works. There is plenty of space to work for most users and the end user can make the cooling as complicated or as simple as they want to. Most 900D buyers will be running a high end X79 or Z87 board such as the Rampage IV Extreme pictured here:

Because the case supports the much larger HPTX format there is therefore plenty of space left for a large cylinder reservoirs as well as a possible midplate to separate the bottom chamber. Of course the case could be larger in order to support the larger radiators, but the reality is that the trade off doesn’t buy that much. A thicker radiator isn’t that much better than a thinner one, but yet the extra size of the case can be limiting. The case already is only just small enough to fit under the popular Ikea Galant desk:

Because of this, a large number of people will be running this on top of a desk where it’s large enough to be an earthquake risk, and intimidating, but not so large that it’s unfeasible to actually put it on a desk at all:

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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