Origin Genesis Desktop Gaming System Preview


The Case: Corsair's Obsidian Series 800D

Corsair's Obsidian Series 800D:



The thumbnails above link to larger images and are a good way to get a feel for how the 800D is built and what features it offers without a bunch of hardware getting in the way. The front of the case is subdued, with both the front panel and the hot-swappable drive bays hidden behind doors. In addition to the four hot-swappable 3.5" bays, the case offers two additional internal 3.5" bays as well. That's support for six hard drives standard, with an additional five 5.25" bays open if you choose to use drive extenders.

There are several notable features visible in the case's interior. First, the area directly underneath the CPU can be accessed by a rear-mounted hatch. This vastly simplifies the mounting of certain heatsinks or coolers to the motherboard; it's no longer necessary to physically yank the board to swap out cooling solutions.

Corsair has designed the case to minimize cable clutter whether the customer is using air or water cooling. The plethora of pre-cut ports make it possible to reroute nearly every cable behind the motherboard, though this may require longer cables in some instances.



The front panel offers a standard series of connections—four USB 2 ports, a headphone/microphone jack, and a FireWire 400 port are all included. The case is apparently available without a side window, but both the SKU on Corsair's website and the case Origin sent us included one.


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