Corsair Crystal 680X RGB Review

Up Close

When working with Corsair’s Crystal 680X, we thought that it would be appropriate to combine the chassis with as many white components as we could, using a white Corsair RMX series power supply, Corsair’s white H100i liquid cooler and Gigabyte’s white RTX 2070 graphics card. 

On our desk, beside a 27-inch monitor, it is safe to say that Corsair’s 680X is a big unit, sitting at 5.0mm tall, 344mm wide and 42.3mm deep. This case will take up a lot of space on your desk, though that might be a good thing depending on your preferences.     

  
Quickly moving to the top of the enclosure, we can see the case’s top-mounted tempered glass panel, as well as the case’s top I/O, which may be difficult to access when the case is on top of your desk. 

On the top of the case, we can see a single headphone/microphone jack, dual USB 3.0 ports and a single USB 3.1 Gen 2 Type-C ports. Standard power and reset switches are also available at this location. 

  
At the rear of the chassis, we can properly see the dual-chambered nature of the 680X, with the PSU mounting behind the case’s motherboard tray while the case’s HDD/SSD mounts are located behind the visible spaces for 92mm fans. 

Here, we can also see space for a rear mounter 120/140mm fan, eight standard PCI slots and two additional vertical PCI slots, which are designed for use with vertically mounted graphics cards. 

As you can see, the tempered glass side panel on the Corsair Crystal 680X is mounted using a hinge and a magnetic latch on the other side, making the window extremely easy to remove and relocate. This is a very welcome change from Corsair’s original tempered glass windows, which are often mounted using thumb screws, a feature which made them extremely difficult to add/remove. 

  
At the side of the enclosure, we can see that Corsair has added a side-mounted dust filter, which can be easily removed and cleaned as required. This location acts as the air intake for the case’s power supply, allowing the user’s PSU to intake air from outside of the case and exhaust it out the rear of the enclosure. 

  
Taking off the right side panel we can clearly see that that Corsair 680X offers plenty of room for cable management, or ample room to hide your poor cable management and non-modular PSU cables. It is easy to make a clean looking PC with the 680X, assuming that you never take off the right side panel. 

Above the PSU mounting location is space for three 3.5-inch HDDs and mounts for four 2.5-inch drives. All of these drive caged can be removed and remounted in a variety of positions. 

  
Taking off the H680X’s front mounting place reveals plenty of space to mount a hidden water cooling reservoir or pump, a design decision which will allow end-users to free up more space in the case’s main chamber. As for the large gap at the front of the case, we asked Corsair and they didn’t know what it was for. Strange…

  

The front and top fan mounting locations on the Corsair 680X are removable, a feature which allows radiators to be installed more easily and for the dust case’s front/top mounted dust filters to be cleaned without removing the case’s tempered glass front/top panels. These radiator/fan brackets can be installed/uninstalled using thumb screws. 

Looking at the H100i in the image below will show you how close the end tank on the H100i is to the 680X’s front mounted fans, showcasing how difficult water cooling will be when using both front and top mounted radiators. Yes, moving the tubing to the other side of the case will help, but 360mm radiators with large end tanks may prove difficult to fit when top-mounted radiators are also in use. 

  
Moving to the bottom of the 680X we can see mounting locations for two 120/140mm fans, with the location also being well suited to 240mm/280mm water cooling radiators. There is enough space here for both thick and thin water cooling radiators, though larger radiators will inevitably block the case’s bottom PCIe slots and the vertical GPU mount.   

  
Lastly, we will talk about Corsair’s vertical GPU mount, which we would argue only offers enough space for a two-slot graphics card, providing 20mm of space between the graphics card and the case’s tempered glass window. This gap will get narrower with GPUs that are more than two slots thick, which leaves us in a position where we can only recommend vertically mounting dual-slot GPUs in this case, or larger GPUs that are liquid cooled.