Going small with the Corsair Carbide Air 240 chassis

Today we review a new chassis from Corsair, the Corsair Carbide Air 240. Based on the popular success of the 540, this is a small mini ITX and Micro-ATX form factor chassis that will house the smallest, but also the biggest stuff inside your computer. A high-end graphics card and liquid cooling? Not even an issue. Not mid, not full, but mini; this is intended for small form factor PCs. Now the product might be tagged as mini, the details and features however are grand.

Building a high-performance PC these days doesn't require you to have have a massive big-tower. I mean sure, taste differs, but the trend ever since last year seems to be "smaller". This is the reason why mITX form factor PCs have become so much more important. I mean you can build a simple HTPC, but within that same small form factor you can also house a Z77 mini ITX motherboard with a Core i7 4770K processor, liquid cool that processor and then even add a GeForce GTX 780 Ti or Radeon HD 290X in there.

The trick is clever housing and that's what Corsair has been pursuing with the new Carbide Air 240. By compartmentalizing chambers inside this small chassis they can house the aforementioned PC components. Next to that it's Corsair .. that means a tool free design, a stylish design, heck even a see through panel is present. Then there's room for three 3.5" HDDs and another three 2.5" SSDs. There's no space for 5.25" Optical drives though. The Carbide Series Air 240 is the PC case that will appeal a lot of afficionado's. The cube-shaped chassis comes in either black or white colors, complete with side-window, and optimized for powerful air or water cooling configurations (including room for a 240mm radiator or two) without sacrificing space for a full-size graphics card—an impressive feat for a compact PC. Cooling will be a key factor as well and the chassis includes three AF120 - 120 mm fans - one on top side and two at the front as intake. As mentioned there's room for liquid cooling as well, and that's despite its smaller size. You can mount two fans with a 240 mm water cooling radiator at the right top side of the chassis.

Have a quick peek first... meet the Carbide Air 240 Chassis, a chassis that I like to refer to as "compact cubish performance" and yeah d00d, head on over to the next page.