Within the land of PC instances, what “mid-priced” means has modified a bit over time. However demanding PC builders’ expectations haven’t! Most of us nonetheless need room for 2 large (or at the very least biggish) radiators and an exterior pump with an built-in reservoir. Do we want it? Most likely not: Most of us are utilizing nothing greater than a single closed-loop all-in-one cooler for our CPU. Positive, we are saying we’ll use the additional area sometime, however even when we by no means fill the case, we anticipate to get no matter extra we’re paying for. The Corsair 3500X ARGB fulfills most of these expectations: a number of room, a number of fan mounts, even a number of pre-installed followers. It additionally affords a number of fish-tank-glass visibility, prefer it or not, into your system’s construct, so carry your cabling A-game. It delivers superb worth and high quality for its $109.99 value, and earns an Editors’ Alternative award for a mainstream-priced ATX showcase chassis.
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Design: A ‘Lighter’ 20-Pound CaseThink of the 3500X as a stripped-down, one-chamber model of Corsair’s pricier dual-chamber 6500X from earlier this 12 months. Corsair presents the 3500X in white or black, in three variations of every: an $89.99 3500X mannequin with out followers; the 3500X ARGB we examined, with three pre-installed ARGB followers; and a $149.99 iCUE Hyperlink 3500X RGB model with Corsair’s proprietary iCUE Hyperlink followers and an iCUE Hyperlink hub. (See our hands-on construct with Corsair’s iCUE Hyperlink gear.)Between the additional glass and the non-obligatory white end, the 3500X appears all lit up even when merely reflecting the room’s lighting. The “further glass” we converse of is the entrance panel, and as with many competing fashions, Corsair makes up for the shortage of entrance followers by placing a vertical stack of followers on the right-side panel close to the entrance.Dimming the picture sufficient to point out element, we spy two USB 3 Kind-A and single USB 3 Kind-C ports bounded by a lighted energy button, a four-pole (mixed headphone/microphone) headset jack, and a reset button.
(Credit score: Thomas Soderstrom)
Operating all the best way again to the ability provide inlet, the decrease mud filter slides out the entrance for added comfort. We needed to elevate the case barely to seize its pull tab.
(Credit score: Thomas Soderstrom)
Round again we see no exhaust followers, simply an empty 120mm fan mount with screw slots that enable vertical adjustment to make room for, say, the top caps of a 120mm-format liquid cooling radiator, within the occasion you continue to have a type of to mount again there. The seven enlargement slots sit in an old school inset panel, as they need to, and all the motherboard area is sandwiched between a top-panel fan mount and a full-ATX energy provide bay.
(Credit score: Thomas Soderstrom)
Magnetic tape secures some steel mesh sheets underneath the highest panel’s and proper facet panel’s vents. Corsair consists of a further strip of (packaging) tape on each to maintain the sheets from sliding sideways out of place.
(Credit score: Thomas Soderstrom)
Discover just a few extra particulars because the panels come off, corresponding to the additional cutouts within the tray for reverse-connector motherboards (Asus BTF, MSI Venture Zero) in each ATX and MicroATX codecs, and the offset between the side-panel followers and the motherboard tray. That offset will maintain a radiator as much as 36mm thick between the followers and the vanguard of a protracted graphics card, and sits in an area that measures 417mm vertically. Since this whole area is to the proper of any top-mounted followers, most 360mm-format radiators ought to match with out obstruction.
(Credit score: Thomas Soderstrom)
Whereas the highest panel has mounts for each 120mm and 140mm followers, its slots lengthen far sufficient to carry solely two of the latter. Previous the ends of the slots is sufficient area to carry a 360mm-format radiator that’s as much as 426mm lengthy, and there’s sufficient vertical clearance to suit a mixed 60mm of radiator and fan thickness with out hanging previous the motherboard’s prime edge.
(Credit score: Thomas Soderstrom)
You’ll be able to set up three extra followers atop and in entrance of the ability provide enclosure, although the mounts on prime of the duvet lack the offset wanted to scale back noise in a frame-upward (historically consumption) orientation. The highest mount additionally has 4 extra holes for mounting a vertical graphics card riser (not included, and would block any followers being put in right here), whereas the 4 further holes on the forward-most mount are spaced to suit another 140mm fan measurement.
(Credit score: Thomas Soderstrom)
You will have observed by the reversed-connector entry holes that the 3500X’s motherboard tray is barely wider than commonplace ATX. Regardless that it received’t maintain a full-spec (13-inch-deep) board, Corsair calls it Prolonged ATX (EATX) suitable just because many motherboards which can be likewise barely bigger than ATX additionally carry the EATX label. The boards Corsair has in thoughts are usually 10.6 to 10.8 inches deep, and the forward-facing cable passages that sit behind the manufacturing facility 120mm followers seem like completely suited to these, in addition to commonplace (9.6-inch-deep) ATX boards.
(Credit score: Thomas Soderstrom)
The 3500X’s motherboard tray features a very massive entry gap to help the set up and removing of CPU-cooler help plates. Overlaying the middle of that gap is a detachable tray that may host two 2.5-inch drives on the motherboard-facing facet, plus two 3.5-inch drives on the outward-facing facet. The three.5-inch drives conceal the screw holes of two.5-inch drives, so any 2.5-inch-format drives should be put in first.
(Credit score: Thomas Soderstrom)
Constructing With the Corsair 3500X ARGBThough Corsair shipped our 3500X ARGB pattern with out an set up information, it does have all of the screws wanted to connect a motherboard and drives. Within the accent pack, you get one other set of screws (metal, in quarter-inch plastic thread) for attaching followers to any of the bigger unthreaded holes, yet one more set of screws for attaching followers to the threaded holes of the decrease fan mounts we mentioned just a few paragraphs in the past, plus three extra standoffs for securing the entrance fringe of 13-inch-deep EATX motherboards. Additionally in there: some zip-style cable ties, and a breakout cable for splitting the now-standard one-piece front-panel header connector into legacy pins for buttons and LEDs.
(Credit score: Thomas Soderstrom)
Corsair’s inclusion of the three further standoffs on a case that doesn’t also have a place to put in them is the form of complication that happens when an organization sticks an “EATX” label on a case that’s not totally EATX-compliant. The manufacturing facility followers fill the place the place these standoffs would have gone, and including a radiator to those limits motherboard depth to 11.5 inches. Drop these standoffs in your spare elements bin.The ARGB followers that give our 3500X pattern the “ARGB” in its title are related through PWM and ARGB cables, with every cable offering a pass-through connector to feed the subsequent fan. Which means we solely have to attach one PWM and one ARGB cable (the leftmost two pictured under) to our motherboard to energy and management its followers, which we recognize. That’s along with front-panel audio, the mixed front-panel header cable, a legacy 19-pin USB 3 cable for the 2 Kind-A ports, and a dual-link Kind-E cable for the Kind-C port.
(Credit score: Thomas Soderstrom)
Our triple-slot graphics card we use for case testing is thick, however its 12-inch cooler size is much from atypical. Which means the 3500X ARGB has a bunch of additional area for mounting extra units, despite the fact that we didn’t do any of that with our commonplace set of take a look at elements.
(Credit score: Thomas Soderstrom)
The additional glass and white end spotlight all of the area surrounding our black full ATX motherboard, to the purpose that a few of it’s possible you’ll really feel compelled to place a radiator up entrance, an extended graphics card, or each, simply to fill the area.
(Credit score: Thomas Soderstrom)
Testing the Corsair 3500X ARGB: A ‘Sound’ PerformanceWe’ve locked down our CPU to make sure constant energy use from case to case. Right here’s a rundown of our present commonplace take a look at elements…
Onward to the assessments. A second-place end in CPU cooling on this aggressive set of instances is a good place to be for a properly priced mid-market case, and the third-place finishes in voltage-regulator and GPU temperatures nonetheless maintain the 3500X ARGB within the higher half of performers.
There may be, nevertheless, one factor that the 3500X ARGB would not do an awesome job of within the above assessments: conserving quiet. On the full fan velocity wanted to get these low temperatures, it makes numerous irksome noise. The 45.2-decibel studying from the louder angle didn’t even appear lifelike on condition that the followers seemed like they had been attempting to grind the air, however our SPL meter measures amount with out regard to high quality (i.e., white noise of comparable quantity could be much less annoying). You’ll need to reasonable the fan curves to your stage of tolerance for noise, which can be on the expense of some cooling.
The excellent news concerning noise is that at even a 20% lower in fan velocity, the 3500X turns into a far much less intrusive roommate. However that assertion pairs with our basic advice to make use of your motherboard’s computerized fan controls to retain your sanity in any respect however the highest thermal hundreds.Verdict: Extra Than You Want, for Much less Than You BudgetedThe Corsair 3500X ARGB is a fantastic worth in a midrange case that ought to ship both ample efficiency at acceptable quantity ranges, or superb efficiency with a little bit of noise. The ARGB variant we examined offers you a horny wraparound-glass design that you simply’ll need to weigh towards what you’ll set up; it could possibly look slightly empty with smaller elements. That’s emphasised by the shortage of a nook help beam or something to interrupt the glass sides. It ekes out an Editors’ Alternative award regardless of the fan noise we encountered in our assessments for optimum efficiency, as a result of that is simply fixable. We suspect many informal builders will probably be very pleased with the construct high quality and a focus to element for the value, and with the acoustic stability {that a} extra constrained fan curve will carry.
Execs
Nicely-priced, high quality building
Excessive inside visibility
Helps two 360mm-format radiators
Nice air flow from inventory ARGB followers
View
Extra
Cons
Followers are noisy at full velocity
In our assessments, reaching prime thermal outcomes required full-speed followers
The Backside Line
Corsair’s 3500X ARGB delivers stable construct high quality, flashy followers, and a great mixture of comfort options in a midtower chassis distinguished by cool wraparound glass.
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