Review on CORSAIR Obsidian Mid Tower Tempered Aluminum by James Turpin

UPDATE: It's been about a month and I've started measuring my results (overclocking and thermal testing). I thought in my setup (1 x 480mm wheel and D5 pump for my CPU (7900x) and another exact setup for my 2 1080ti cards in SLI I should be golden. Bottom line: yes and no. Have wheel up, because the exhaust and another one for the inlet meant my CPU (front inlet) stayed colder than my VGA which was on top (outlet)..My SLI cards overclocked up to 65C under load.Not bad again, but I was disappointed. I started adding fans: 4 more in front, 4 more on top and 2 for rear exhaust Improvement with extra airflow but not enough to be "wow" 2: 2x 480 (60mm thick ) wheel with d5 pump for CPU (front) and two 480mm (30mm thick) wheel on top for VGA Stress benchmarks again showed better results: CPU dropped about 4c and VGA dropped from 5c Not as significantly as I did it was what I was hoping for for SLI cards Back to the drawing board (last round): I decided to use all 4 radars and 2 pump en in a serial configuration. The CPU lost an additional 4 seconds and the VGA another 10 seconds. This pretty much summed up what I found to be an obstacle in this or any other tower if you rely solely on top mounted radars - ambient air/heated air affects cooling. I'm saying all of this to help the next person who wants to point out a water-cooled design. I recommend if you have a multi-radiator setup to use both front air intakes first and use the top rack as a last resort. Still 4 stars even though the Corsair Commander Pro loses a star. These things are tricky when using PWM splitters or extenders. Use the wrong one and iCUE won't control it properly (I even used an INCLUDED Corsair power strip and it didn't control the Corsair Mag-Lev fan speed). Also keep track of how many fans you use in total with one commander. I got 12 with no problems but 16 caused a crash and burned two fan ports. INITIAL REVIEW: I've been building PCs for about 20 years. Mostly as a hobby, but sometimes also for family and friends. I've tried many stylish cases, from mini to this behemoth. Pros: Beautiful and quality construction. Lots of space (see cons). (even non-PWM fans) and RGB lighting on Corsair products such as RGB RAM) - Customizable heatsink inserts (see cons) - Custom front USB 3 LED ports - Gorgeous retractable tempered glass doors - Rear French Doors make cable management easy task. The SSD and HDD brackets are out of the way and are in the perfect place. Cons: I need a case that can support 2 x 480mm radiators. The box really doesn't need to be that big to fulfill such a small request (this case is VERY high). - Dedicated radar trays are great, but a top 480mm tray wasn't available from Corsair so I had to get another dual 480mm tray which didn't work for me; I also feel that instead of a triple 420mm 140mm tray, they should have gone for a quad 120mm tray with a stack. Mounting a 480mm radiator on top and bottom didn't leave enough room for my wheels (GTX 480 Nemesis) when I wanted them on the same side of their respective bays. I ended up using the front slot for one and the rear slot for the other. Reservoir Mount: I'm not sure what brand of pump/reservoir Corsair was targeting, but I have two EKWB D5 pump/reservoir combos and I may not have originally installed both with the EK mounting kit as this is based on the There aren't enough holes in this area on the back of the case. Luckily I bought EK mounting rings just in case and ended up using them. - This box is HEAVY! - NO case fans included - at this price a pair of exhaust fans would be fair. I know some of the cons listed are "my" cons due to my physique, so take them with a pinch of salt. I have included photos of the finished product and I was very happy with how my build looks. This was my first rigid tube water cooled design and a large open space in the case made it easy to measure and install tubes.