Corsair’s Warthog Airflow Chassis Takes Flight With High-Velocity Cooling

That's right folks; this is an actual launch of an actual PC hardware component! A little odd to get as excited as I am over a new case, but this is where we're at in the market right now. Corsair's new Warthog case is an absolutely fantastic-looking new PC chassis in black or olive drab, and if you agree, you can skip my chatter and go down to the bottom to preorder one for $179, or $199 with three pre-installed fans.

The Warthog looks like a throwback, and that's because it's an obvious and direct reference to the classic Halo series of shooter games and its iconic all-terrain vehicle of the same name. The front panel is clearly styled after the angular design of the UNSC M12 Force Application Vehicle, and the whole thing has a bit of a military aesthetic. Corsair says that it produced the Warthog in response to customer calls for a reissue of the classic Vengeance C70, which had a similar military theme; I don't know why Corsair refused to reissue the original design and decided to make a new one, but I'm fine with it because this thing looks awesome.

The interior of the Warthog is new, but based on the extant Frame 4000D chassis. It has mounts for a whopping 13 120mm fans, seven 140mm fans, or (as it comes pre-configured in the "RS" configuration) you can stick a pair of 200mm intake fans in the front. There's room for a 360mm radiator, if that's your thing, and even with that you can stick another five 140mm fans on it.

Given the fully perforated front panel, triple bottom fan mounts, and large vents on the top, rear, and far side, you should not find airflow to be a major issue. However, the right-side vent will probably be partially blocked by power wires if you don't have a back-connect or "back to front" motherboard, so keep that in mind when picking your parts.

Corsair makes comparisons to a fighter jet when talking about the design, and it's true that there are elements of jet design here; the power, reset, and lighting control buttons have metal bollards surrounding them to make sure you (or Fluffy) don't accidentally hit them, and the USB Type-C port comes with a "Remove Before Build" tag on the pre-installed plug. That port supports 20Gbps operation, and then there's a pair of USB-A 5Gbps ports over on the right side of the front panel. There's also a 3.5mm combo audio jack, as usual.

Other awesome features on the Warthog include an LED light on the back to illuminate the rear I/O for you, the fully functional grips on top of the case (sturdy enough to lift the chassis, although I'd be dubious about using them for a fully loaded system), and the compatibility with 3D printed accessories just like the Frame 4000D. Corsair has a whole website where you go download models for things like a three-bay hard drive cache, print them out, and install them, which is good, because the case has few accommodations for SATA storage by default; two 2.5mm bays and one 3.5mm bay are all you get.

The side window, which is glass, is oddly shaped like the Dota 2 logo, but it's also the only glass on a chassis that is otherwise made of relatively thick steel. The maximum supported GPU length is 405mm, the maximum supported CPU cooler height is 190mm, and the maximum PSU length is 200mm, all of which are long enough that you should be able to fit nearly any hardware in the Warthog.

Corsair's Warhog case is available to preorder direct from Corsair in four variants (two color options, both with or without fans).