hey PC fans Gordon hang with PC world here we are still at Corsair talking to
experts in every field this one something I particularly care about this
is an Jankowski case PM bam cases everybody loves cases she's gonna tell
me why ATX has to die C well that's me why it just can't happen you can't no no
you talk to George about this earlier but it is a bit difficult for Corsair as
a company to change the standard from other boards over all industry-wide we
don't make motherboards ourselves we would need to work with a lot of
different companies and get a lot of different people on board so while it's
not the ideal format it would be quite - hopes crushed hopes crushed of moving on
from 25 year old ATX standard not going to happen this right in front of us is
the IQ for 65 X 150 bucks yep glass front glass sides comes with three RGB
fans three ll RGB fan what's the ll RGB it's C it is our high-end RGB fan so it
has two light loops one on the inside and one on the outside so you can do
custom lighting so you can have different lighting patterns going
through the inside and the outside makes a little more interesting from an RGB
standpoint okay and of course you can control it out of the box yes
so when we have IQ in the name of the case that means that we have an IQ
controller that ships with the case so in this case it's the lighting node core
which can control up to six RGB fans out of the box first question because
everybody wants to know about their cases now is the airflow for some reason
they're all concerned about air flow I don't know why but is well how'd you
handle air flow for this case because we do have the glass which people like so
actually this is one of our best performing cases we did a lot of testing
on this front panel we knew we wanted a glass but air flow is becoming more and
more a concern with hotter components we
don't want your components to overheat obviously they want you want them to
last longer so these gaps right here actually provide a lot of airflow to the
system we sent this out to a lot of reviewers and we got great feedback on
the airflow so I think this is the best glass case that we've ever released from
a performance standpoint now of course some people said well why even use glass
then why don't we just go to a the typical holes in the front we used to
have or a mesh front is that not something that's so we did just release
the 2 20 t RGB IQ 2 20 t RGB as well so that one is an open front with RGB fans
but we do realize that our glass cases are one of our bread-and-butter product
lines a lot of people love the 460 X the 570 X they want that glass front with
the RGB fans showing and we don't want to take that away from people who've
given us feedback that they really love that so that's why we wanted to really
incorporate the air flow with glass okay is there either
what's more popular glass or mesh front um
so right now we just started coming out with mesh fronts from our old cases we
did have a lot of mesh fronts that were popular if you look at the market
overall though I think straight mesh fronts aren't as popular as people think
so that's why we like to do different patterns on the front of our cases like
220 t um instead of just straight mesh make it a little more interesting try to
get some younger consumers interested as well okay for cases oh you know I'm an
old-timer I've been doing this a long time we've gone through beige we've gone
through all black we went through red and black then we went to liquor store
RGB and then now which is a phrase I'm still stuck in and then now we are in
this phase where this is just elegant you've got the glass I mean actual
tempered glass front and side you've got the RGB how do you how do you stay ahead
of the curve as far as what people are gonna want I think from my perspective
course there has always been a little bit more elegant than the others when it
comes to our RGB implementation
it doesn't look like that liquor store I mean we have 570 X which i think was one
of the first big RGB cases out on the market which has a very elegant
implementation so right now we're doing this glass front we're really looking
into more sleek and simple designs moving forward how can we implement RGB
that's not just fans but also maybe in the front panel on the side panel even
including in the case may be some under glow under glow would be a thing that
would be a little more subtle not as in-your-face
so we're exploring a bunch of different options right now when it comes to our
new products you wouldn't be able to say but I'm gonna ask cap ELYX
like I sort of think like there's such great uses in a case maybe you'll see
something and maybe you want I can't comment on future product okay can't
come on a future product standard line I hear from AMD and Intel all the time but
again sort of like that I mean I know people like to use a fancy
term design UI or a language or or design language but for me I very much
feel it's just it's fashion because right now we're just sort of in this
elegant RGB glass look and then we did also go through a brushed aluminum phase
for a while I mean I couldn't just switch on a dime and we could be into
wood and teak and cloth I mean how do you how do you predict so we like to
look at a lot of different things when we're designing a new ID not just
computer cases so I'm not saying those things couldn't happen but we do like to
take influence from a lot of items that you'd see throughout the home newer
items in your home like electronics or even furniture but I would say that
glass is not the only trend there is you you can see right now that a lot of the
most popular cases are very simple and sleek with no RGB so I would say not
just glass we're not just focusing on that one of our biggest cases is our 275
R and that's because it looks so simple and clean for an affordable price
I think simple and clean is definitely in right now as well so as a case
designer what's the hardest thing to balance cost oh is that so that's as you
look at that question it's always cost as always you want to include everything
you want to make a great building experience you want to make it modular
you want to include as much RGB as people would want but there's always a
cost limitation so you really have to prioritize what's most important to the
customer and from a corsair standpoint I think that's always number one quality
and then build ability and cooling compatibility so you have our coolers
obviously we want to make sure that all of our cases can fit all of our coolers
that most of our cases can fit a 360 in front most of the new cases we've come
out with and 240 on top so we're going to be focusing on that in the future
obviously because we want to be able to incorporate all of our products within a
system and then build ability you can see it with a lot of new cases on the
market right now people are focusing a lot more on cable management wiring
making it easier for new users to join this DIY space and build computers so we
are always focusing on that as well and you've seen the DIY is just nothing it's
not going away you're seeing huge interest in it so easier we make it for
new users to build the more people join in my opinion so for materials this one
is I think probably steel yes steel glass and a little plastic here to hold
the glass out you said that the problem is is cost I'm a big fan maybe just
because I'm retro but I'm a big fan of aluminum cases from the old days is that
just too hard for material to deal with these days it's not as strong and no we
still include aluminum with some of our cases it just has to be at a certain
price point because it is a premium material so again you have that cost
trade-off I don't want to give up build ability cooling compatibility or quality
to add aluminum to the front of the case so we're going to maintain those three
things and then at a higher price points add those higher and materials like
aluminum and if even if it's I guess that's one of the things where if you
use aluminum there's no guarantee people are gonna be
into it I guess yeah I mean our Obsidian line although we're not really using
series means anymore our 500d is very popular it has an
aluminum front the 500d RGB also incorporates aluminum elements those
both came out last year and they've done very well so I think people definitely
still like aluminum I think it needs to be pretty subtle but yet we definitely
are not moving away from aluminum all together okay are there any other
materials that you think could possibly come up I think we joked this morning
about marble I don't think we'll see any marble cases but it might be a bit heavy
for shipping purposes I like aluminum because it's light but I mean we've
experimented I know you mentioned this morning as well with carbon fibre and
other materials I think we're moving more away from plastic and towards steel
if we can like with our 220 T case that we just came out with in July that has a
full steel front that snaps in so there's only a small amount of plastic
on the case I think that gives the user a more premium feel with our case so
things like that trying to swap out some materials that we have typically used
for a bit higher end okay I have has course never done any research into DIY
builds and how long they keep cases because I my impression is most people
will keep a case to the end of time essentially and that's a tough tough for
you because that customers gonna buy it now and they don't buy another one for
eight years is that I think it's a little bit shorter than that typically
when somebody wants to buy a new graphics card or do a new build with
motherboards that's typically when they may look for a case I don't think many
people will just buy a new case and then take all their old parts and put it in a
new case so we do see uptick in sales when there's a new graphics card that
comes out when there's a new CPU that comes out right now with the new AMD
CPUs we've been seeing a lot of good okay is it German buy up greatest would
they also go like oh my gosh my case looks so dated like you know you've got
this beige I mean cases are a lot about looks I
mean we do focus on quality performance and build ability but we also are very
focused on looks we do a lot of research on what our cases should look like what
is the market asking for what do our consumers want and I really do think
that a lot of people are buying their cases at least 50% almost for case
features I have to ask this because I'm an audio guy I run sound cards one of
the things I always tell everybody is don't run that front panel audio
connector because you snake it down from the front all the way down to your sound
card or to your onboard motherboard is there is there any way to ever get clean
audio out of that front panel connector is that something like I know it's tough
because you can't make that a shielded $25 cable in the box but so typically
our ground connection in our newer IO panels actually the audio is a separate
ground than the USB and the USB is where you'd be hearing that feedback so I
don't think you shouldn't be experiencing that with our newer cases I
talked to my boss about that question specifically because I wasn't sure but
he said they implemented that about four years ago okay
yeah it's one of those things I think you just you have old information you
never change this so I'm still I'll have to try it out them because usually when
I tried in other cases it just sounds pretty bad so you'll be getting the
feedback from like your mouse or some mouse USB data and yeah we use piece
colander we have fixed that problem since like like you said I think four
years ago so I'll have to try to I'm gonna ask you this is the tough one we
don't talk politics here but any forecasts as to whether case prices are
going to go up or down based on trade wars so specifically with the u.s. our
worldwide pricing should remain pretty consistent though with the US I cannot
really predict what our president and we'll put a tariff on and if we do
have significant tariffs our prices will go up well we will continue the
rollercoaster of international politics and economics what else I want to ask oh
you know what I would love to know what's the most popular case eyes like
are we moving away from right here this this is considered a mid tower by like
your sources so I would say our most popular case size is mid tower not this
case specifically because it's over a hundred dollars I know you talked about
that this morning but the bulk of volume comes from below $100 and this size is
about the size of a 275 R that is our most popular case so ATX a little bit of
a smaller mid tower would be our most popular size
I see no drive bays on this case actually there in the wolf okay
so dead serious is there are they dead everywhere or I'm not gonna say they're
dead because we may or may not have a new product with one coming out soon but
our 100r is one of our most popular cases it's an entry-level case similar
look to a 275 R but it has an OD D and I think that is one of the reasons it's so
popular because it's at a low price point and offers an optical drive I
don't think a lot of our competitors offer that so from a cheaper workstation
standpoint I think we're one of the only players out there so with that case it's
kind of its own animal overall I'd say Oh Dedes we don't typically include them
anymore we don't really see a lot of people asking for them the only time we
would include it would be on a maybe a full tower maybe just to eat up to have
an option but it does feel like it's it's on its last legs only but
interesting ly on laptops most budget laptops have optical drives yeah it's
funny that also on budget cases they also want optimum
so last question if Andy called you up and said I want you and we're gonna go
or this is this is Ford versus Ferrari I want you to build the most insane case
we are going to conquer everyone what would you build no price is no object
Manhattan Project here go to the moon part of me wants to do Mini ITX cuz we
haven't but I'm gonna say a halo 1000d type product but I would want to make a
lot of improvements make it very modular use high-end materials maybe try some
carbon fiber because that's always been a cost constraint for us definitely
include two systems so that people could stream with it maybe something a little
bit smaller than thousand D just to see if I could do it and fit the two systems
in there I think that'd be a fun challenge three systems okay two systems
is good then three is better just like razor blades pretty soon
you'll have five systems that could be it that could be the secret that could
be the secret of the next yeah you could tell how far of course here we go I
built is not very far anyway thank you for coming and keep coming back we have
a lot of Corsair content on the channel also check out PC world calm peace out