- Do you wanna waste your money?
Go buy a fancy case for your computer.
No, but seriously, think about it.
Every single dollar that you throw away on a metal box
to stuff under your desk, that's money you could have spent
on faster hardware games or Doritos and Mountain Dew.
That is why Sigma gamers bolt their PC components
to a $2 sheet of wood, except that they mostly don't.
There are actually benefits to enclosing your computer
like safety, which is why the market is absolutely flooded
with options that promise everything from better cooling
to better compatibility or cable management,
to extras like fan controllers and RGB lights.
All of which raises an obvious question,
with so many choices out there,
why the ever loving-
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- Buying a case is a little like dating.
While there are plenty of fish in the sea,
most of them are clearly awful for one reason or another.
So it's easy to at least narrow down our choices.
But what is it about the CORSAIR 4000D
that ticks so many boxes that both Newegg and Amazon agree
that is the number one best selling case?
Well, it starts with the price.
Going all the way back to the early 2000s,
$100 give or take has been the target
for your mainstream gamer case.
It's something that's got everything you need
and nothing you don't.
And somehow in spite of the rising costs of both materials
and shipping, CORSAIR is still landing right on that target.
But that's hardly enough to stand out from the crowd.
And frankly, not even enough
to justify buying a case at all.
The thing is the ATX standard hasn't changed much
in the last 20 years.
Which means that if you're building a new rig today,
your old case or even when you found on the side of the road
is probably compatible with your new parts.
The only downside to this approach
is that it might take a bit of coaxing
and this isn't the sort of thing that new builders
tend to be comfortable with.
That is where CORSAIR's biggest contribution
to the case category comes in.
Right on their first try with the 800D,
CORSAIR made it clear that their cases were designed
so anyone could build a PC in them.
Every cable management hole had a purpose.
Instead of simply plunking a couple holes
in the back and calling it water, cooling, ready,
they went out and bought aftermarket radiators,
they built test systems and they refined the design
to ensure that once it got out into the real world,
it would be intuitive to build in
while also meeting enthusiast expectations.
And 12 years later,
this DNA is all over CORSAIR's case designs.
And it works without any incentive whatsoever.
Nearly half of the last 10
of our Intel extreme tech upgrade recipients
have chosen a 4,000 series case from CORSAIR.
And why shouldn't they?
There's a lot to like.
The look of the airflow variant may be a little plain,
but at least it's in offensive and CORSAIR
makes it easy to upgrade to the RGB version later on.
They also include thoughtful cable management features
like this two piece cable tray
and the fully removable panel here that covers
all the connectors that need to make their way
over to the motherboard.
The hard drive mounts are fully toolless
with all screws and accessories, nicely packaged
in a little box that occupies one of the hard drive sleds.
And as one of the top providers of AIO liquid coolers,
naturally CORSAIR made radiator compatibility
a top priority.
Up in the roof, we find space for a dual 140 mil,
and on the front a triple 120.
Though with that particular size
you may have to have your tubing up top.
Aesthetics are never an afterthought for CORSAIR.
And while you can stick with a standard GPU orientation
and hide your 2 1/2 inch drives away
behind the motherboard tray,
they also support vertical GPU mounts
with an aftermarket riser and putting your SSDs on display
on top of the power supply basement
if you're into that sort of thing.
Making life easier for first time builders,
the cutouts are all folded over to reduce the chances
of nicks and cuts.
There are cable management anchors absolutely everywhere.
The center standoff has a little stud
to hold the motherboard in place while you screw it in
and those embossed arrows on the side panels
that show you what direction to push
when you wanna pop them off, are real nice to have.
By the way, if you enjoy behind the scenes shenanigans,
you may wanna pop off to floatplane
where we've gotten exclusive
with me accidentally setting our props on fire twice.
There's still some room for improvement.
CORSAIR falls behind in some nice to haves
like the screw organizers that Fantech provides
with their cases or the removable radiator mounts
that make water cooling a fair bit easier.
And in my opinion, CORSAIR has settled
into a bit of a design rut in recent years
with many of their cases looking kinda samey
though in fairness to them,
pretty much every other mainstream case maker
is in the same rut.
Where the 4000D airflow really sets itself apart though,
is right in the name, airflow.
While CORSAIR will gladly sell you a 4000X
or a regular 4000D if you prefer solid panels,
we will have those links down below,
we've seen time and time again
that with the latest power hungry CPUs and GPUs,
you will end up leaving real world performance on the table
if you don't take cooling seriously.
4000D airflow does just that.
Nearly the entire front, top and back of the case
is perforated.
And even long GPUs will get plenty of fresh air
through the filtered front panel.
All of these positive aspects of the 4000D
apply to both the black and to the white versions
like the convenient captive side panel thumb screws
and the well rounded front IO.
But we wanted to take a moment to appreciate
just how fine of a job CORSAIR did
with the white in particular.
Small touches like choosing to produce gray clips
for the push pins and color matching the magnetic strips
of the top fan filter go a long way
to the cohesiveness of your overall build.
Speaking of magnets,
oh, actually those aren't available yet.
But we finally have short circuit hoodies.
Go and get 'em guys.
There are a few more points
of concern worth discussing here.
CORSAIR's packing foam is what I would describe
as single use only, and is not suitable
for protecting the case with the additional weight
of a fully built system inside it.
And even if yours arrives in one piece,
that easy to access mesh filter on the front intake
can be a little bit saggy
from the factory causing a brushing sound
as it contacts the intake fans.
You'll notice that the other filters like the one
for the power supply use plastic support frames
to prevent this.
So it seems like they were emitted in the front
to keep the front panel look clean especially on the 4000X,
which uses that same filter
behind a tempered glass front panel.
The other issue is down below.
Larger power supplies will have trouble fitting
in the basement, especially if you wanna keep
your hard drive cages in place.
CORSAIR has accounted for this somewhat
by allowing the cage to move toward the front of the case
by 40 millimeters.
But even then you can forget about plugging in
an extra modular cable for GPU upgrades
or when adding another drive.
You'll have to pull your power supply all the way out.
We also mentioned vertical GPU mounting
as a nice to have feature, but you're limited
to two slot GPUs in this particular chassis.
And even those can end up being a little too close
to the tempered glass panel, offsetting the advantage
of choosing an airflow first case design.
Finally, on that note, there are other cases
in this price bracket that include
more than just two basic black fans
though you're probably giving up something else.
Like for example, CORSAIR's excellent post-sale support.
So your mileage may vary.
Bottom line, if you're one of the sheeple
who saw the 4000D airflow and went,
hmm, popular, me likey,
you actually made a really good choice,
but it isn't the only one.
If you wanna buck the trend and pick up
a comparable offering at around the same price,
Fractal Design has the Meshify C,
Fantech offers the Eclipse P360A
and Cooler Master has their NR600.
Any of those will satisfy your airflow cravings
also without breaking the bank.
Now, these cases being mid towers as well,
have some of the same constraints seen on the 4000 series
with regards to fitting large radiators
and large power supplies,
and they aren't without issues of their own.
The Meshify doesn't support longer graphics cards
and has poor access to the front filter.
The Fantech struggles to fit dual 140 millimeter radiators
and Cooler Master uses an SSD mounting system
that's not very well liked.
With that said, you'd likely still be very happy
with any of those alternate choices
depending on your specific build, or, or okay, okay.
You can just go with the popular one, that's fine.
Like I said, it's a perfectly good choice.
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- If you enjoyed this video, you might also enjoy
one of our extreme tech upgrades
where we actually built in it.
How about Ed's?
His house is weird.