Corsair 4000D Airflow Review

Featuring a front panel covered in triangle perforations, Corsair's 4000D Airflow PC case has a distinctive-looking face and delivers what it promises: ample, well, airflow to keep your PC components cool under pressure. Priced at a low $79.99 with a tempered-glass side panel, it's far from the most feature-packed ATX mid-tower we've seen for under $100. But its affordability and construction quality make it worth a look if you're shopping for a spiffy-on-a-budget PC case while saving up for the stuff inside.

The Design: Triangles All the Way Down

The "Airflow" in the name is no idle boast. In addition to incorporating that perforated front panel, Corsair also left large gaps on either side of this perforated section that permit additional inward ventilation. The top is also perforated and covered by a large magnetic dust filter, and the back of the case has ventilation holes cut in it from top to bottom. Altogether, this makes for a clear path of low resistance for air to pass straight through the case. Two 120mm Corsair AirGuide fans are pre-mounted (one front, one back) to push things along.

The two sides of the chassis aren't quite as friendly in the airflow department. The right panel is a solid sheet of steel, and the left panel is tempered glass, without any cut-throughs for air to flow in or out on either side. This shouldn't hamper cooling much, however, due to the abundance of ventilation elsewhere and the front-to-back design.

On the inside of the case, the perforations continue. Like many other modern chassis, the 4000D Airflow is broken up into two main compartments. The upper compartment holds the motherboard, whereas the lower compartment is walled off behind a shroud that holds the power supply and has room for storage devices. Unlike on most rival cases, though, the metal sheet separating these two areas is covered in the same triangular perforations seen on the front of the case. This should help to keep the power supply relatively cool. In most such case designs, the supply gets isolated and has to fend for itself in terms of air through the bottom panel.

The rear panel has two slots for vertical GPU mounting alongside the seven PCI Express card positions. Like in most cases, however, the vertical-mounting hardware and the necessary GPU riser cable are not included; you'll have to find these yourself.

A Look at the Front I/O

A budget case is going to show its stripes in places, and the loadout of ports is one of them here. The front I/O panel of the Corsair 4000D Airflow (actually up on top of the case) leaves a bit to be desired. 

This panel is rather bare by modern standards, with just one USB 3.0 Type-A port and one USB 3.1 Type-C port. Also present are a headphone/microphone combo jack and the usual reset and power buttons. That's it.

As prevalent as USB devices are today, we can all agree that just two USB ports aren't really enough for most folks. Really, this arrangement is often like having just one USB port, because not many devices have a USB cable with Type-C connectors on both ends. We think Corsair should have sprung for the extra port up here, or made both USBs Type-A.

The Building Experience

Building a system into the 4000D Airflow case is a predictable experience, and more positive than negative. The most notable issue I found is that the chassis' side panels are neither easy to remove nor to reattach. This is most notable with the solid metal right-side panel of my test sample. While getting it and the glass left panel on and off takes some finesse, it's doable with practice. Hopefully you won't have to do it much, once your build is done.

Fitting the motherboard into place is easy enough, as there's little in the way to block the board's installation. A ridge toward the front of the case permits cables to pass from the right side of the case (behind the motherboard tray) to the left, but this is positioned far enough forward that it shouldn't get in the way of putting in the motherboard. After getting the board mounted, I measured just under 1.5 inches of room between the edge of the standard ATX motherboard that I used and this opening, which made plugging in SATA cables quite easy.

I could, however, have done with more clearance at the top of the case. Right now, it's in a bit of a gray zone—the top of the case is spacious enough that you can access ports on the top of the motherboard (such as the CPU power connector and the CPU fan headers) and even toss in a top-mounted fan or two, but liquid coolers and their thick sandwiches of radiators and fans will likely get in the way of connecting headers up in this area. You'll want to do any fine wiring in this neighborhood before tackling the liquid cooling.

None of this is to say that you can't add a liquid cooler to the top of the case, but it would probably be a better idea to mount the cooler in the front of the case instead. If you do choose to mount it on the top, you should add it last, after you get the motherboard fully installed and rigged. Later tweaks might mandate removing the radiator.

Corsair added room in this case for a total of four storage devices. On the hidden side of the motherboard mounting tray are two 2.5-inch drive mounts, and at the bottom of the case is a drive cage that can hold two 3.5-inch or 2.5-inch drives. You also get a fan controller set behind the motherboard mounting tray. The two Corsair fans provided are wired into this controller box.

Corsair also added a nifty channel with Velcro ties that helps to keep cables neat and organized. This sits directly beside the cable cutout in the tray, which makes it convenient for running cables to devices on both sides of the board...

We've seen similar cable-routing creature comforts from vendors like NZXT of late, such as in the recently reviewed (and much more expensive) NZXT H710i. This kind of channeling should be standard equipment.

Verdict: Getting Into Your Flow Zone Can Be Cheap

Though it has a few limitations, Corsair's 4000D Airflow is overall a fine budget-to-midrange case. Building an uncomplicated air-cooled system inside it was mostly free of hurdles. The case may not be the most original of designs, but it does look nice when kitted out with a full complement of components and RGB lights. (Three front-panel RGB or ring-style fans would really shine.) Last but not least, the case is reasonably priced.

We've reviewed other cases in this price range that have scored solid marks, including the Deepcool CL500, the Deepcool GamerStorm Macube 310P, and the Be Quiet Pure Base 500. The 4000D Airflow rates more or less on par with the Macube 310P and just behind the CL500 and Pure Base 500. Ultimately, all of these are close enough to one another that picking whichever case tickles your DIY aesthetic best is the way to go—or, failing that, the one that is the lowest-priced at the time of your purchase. 

Posted in: Laptop