Corsair Obsidian 250D ITX Case Review

Corsair Obsidian 250D ITX Case Review

Introduction  

Anyone that gave the Obsidian product range any thought would have probably happily put money on the fact an ITX chassis would appear eventually. We had the enormous 900D then the 750D ATX chassis, 350D MATX case it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see that the 250D enthusiast ITX case had to be next. Also makes you wonder if they have a 150D steam box product being thrown around atm too…!

Features

  • Aluminium front fascia and thick steel construction
  • Overall dimensions: 290mm (H) x 277mm (W) x 351mm (D)
  • Top window for component visibility
  • Thumbscrew backplate removal for PSU and hard drive access
  • Easily removed dust filters on all intakes
  • Simultaneously fit two 3.5”/2.5” drives, two 2.5” drives, one 5.25” drive, a full sized PSU, a 290mm long GPU, and a 240mm radiator
  • Front panel USB 3.0, headphone and mic ports, and power and reset buttons
  • Innovative three panel removal for sides and top panel, with thumbscrews
  • Front fan 200mm, 140mm, or 120mm compatible (AF140L 140mm included)
  • Side fans dual 120mm compatible (AF120L 120mm included)
  • Rear fans dual 80mm compatible
  • Tons of cable routing tie downs for easy cable maintenance
  • Tool free installation of all drives

    Corsair Obsidian 250D ITX Case Review

    Video Review

    Conclusion

    If you want the full indepth nitty gritty on the 250D then you really need to watch the video above, due to our inability to shut up if we wrote everything down this review would be about 40 pages long and I doubt you’d get past page 3 eh boys 😉

    The 250D is a great enthusiast ITX case and by that I mean its not meant to be tiny, it’s meant to be small enough to house the hardware they expect people to fit in it. Any reduction in size would limit some item of hardware not being able to be fitted. If it wasn’t as tall you couldn’t have the full sized PSU or H100i support. If it wasn’t as deep it would limit GPU support and when you allow for these items in your perception of the case you can finally understand how this is actually a very cleverly designed chassis.

It’s not designed to be a home server, and for a gaming rig a pair of SSD’s and mechanicals is ample. Having the PSU bay unlimited gives people a much wider choice of units they can possibly buy but this does mean you will have to plan your cabling very well,. This is also the point where would beg Corsair to release shorter cable kits! 

Watercooling support is limited to a thin 240mm rad, but then we have the feeling Corsair really just designed this for us with the H100i. Especially as when you fit said AIO with the Asus ROG IMpact as we did in the video the two fit together millimetre perfect. The hose on the H100i literally fits past the power riser card on the impact so perfectly. Just like having the 2x 240mm fan mounts or H100i bracket (how ever you like to think of it) pointing at the motherboard is brilliant. It means the airflow will keep your ram, chipset and or riser card cool but by having it here it also opens up the option to have a roof with a window. On other cases the window is sometimes at the sacrifice of the GPU airflow mesh. We really do like seeing touches like these when you can tell a manufacturer has really put some thought in.

From our experience with the case we would have it set up to use all the dust filters and by that we mean having the fans pulling air in and then just letting the airflow find its way out of the 80mm fan mounts at the back on its own, this should also help with dust by keeping a positive case pressure.

All in all its a brilliant case that does what it was designed for very well. The only thing we can see people really picking fault with is the aesthetics. Some may not like the Obsidian family looks others may find their negative thoughts in the lack of colour choices compared with the competition. Our only thoughts on this would be we want a white one but then we say that pretty much every case release! We would find it much easier if Corsair could possibly maybe produce something we can really pick some fault in, if for no other reason than giving some of the other brands a chance as they seem to be struggling to keep up with all of these Gold Awards they keep winning!

       

Thanks to Corsair for sending the 250D in for review, you can discuss your thoughts on this new case in the OC3D Forums. Â