Corsair Carbide SPEC 01 & 03 Review

Up Close:  Interior

As the Spec-01 is able to accept both standard ATX as well as the smaller M-ATX and weeny little M-ITX boards, Corsair have seen fit to offer cable management holes to cater for all of the sizes.  Ok, so their not rubber grommeted, but then we’ve seen cases that cost twice as much as this without grommets so we can’t really be too upset.  They’re also a bit on the small side, but as there’s plenty of them we don’t think this will be an issue.  To make fitting CPU coolers less arduous Corsair have also included a decent sized CPU cut out. 

     

 

The pair of 5.25″ bays are lavished with tool-less fixing mechanism, with the interior having a little additional roof space to accommodate the front I/O cables.

     

 

Below the 5.25″ bays we find the only fan in the Spec-01, in this case it’s a Red LED unit.  No details are available yet, but we’re hazarding a guess that other colours are available.  By not having HDD racks placed here the Spec-01 is able to accept GPUs up to 420mm in length.  Below the fan intake area there’s a rack supporting up to four 3.5″ or 2.5″ drives.  Drives are held in the fairly common plastic clip on drawer devices which seem sturdy enough.  Four drive bays might not seem like much, but with 3TB drives readily available it’s more than plenty, and by resisting the urge to add an upper rack, which would invariably be removed to either improve airflow or allow the accommodation of a long GPU Corsair will again have managed to reduce costs.

     

 

The floor and rear of the case are a pretty standard affair.  Small foam pads will support any PSU up to 200mm whilst a vented and filtered intake will give a flow of cool filtered air to this area.  Although there is a 120mm fan mount at the rear it’s worth noting that Corsair have not included a fan in this area.

       

 

Back to the roof and we can again see how Corsair have offset the 2x120mm fan mounts.  More hints that this case might be capable of native water cooling support.  Just how big the off set is has yet to be determined.  Fingers crossed chaps.

     

 

Round the back you get a better idea of just how many cable management options this case has.  Not only that but it also has five well spaced cable tie points.  Around the edges of the case you’re only going to get about 10mm of cable manangement space, which isn’t a lot, but owing to the bulged side panel, for the greater part of the case you’ll have up 15mm of room which although not cavernous should be plenty.  You’ll just have to plan things a bit if you’re planning on using bulky cable extenders