Corsair Air 740 Review

Corsair Air 740 Chassis - RushKit

Corsair Air 740 Review

When Corsair released their original dual chambered Air 540 chassis, it was a case that we immediately fell in love with, so much so that it has become the home of the OC3D motherboard test rig. That being said it was not the perfect case, with few of design decisions which troubled us, like the 3.5″ hard drive mounts.

With the Air 740 Corsairs plan was to evolve, producing a chassis that is larger, has a tidier internal layout, and includes some features that have never been included in any previous Corsair cases like RGB Fan support and the potential to upgrade the chassis with a forward facing VR ready HDMI port.

Corsair Air 740 ReviewCorsair Air 740 Review

With the Air 740 Corsair have moved from the vertical lines of the Air 540 to more horizontal aesthetic, taking advantage of the extra width of this case to give it a unique almost rugged look. On the side of the chassis, Corsair has also upgraded this case with a hinged, windowed side panel, making it easy to open up your PC case without the need to remove any thumb screws and this also means an almost full side window.

This case features a double chamber design, hiding away the PSU, cables and storage components in the cases smaller secondary chamber to keep only the most aesthetically pleasing components on show in the large windowed section of the chassis.

Corsair Air 740 ReviewCorsair Air 740 Review

In the main chamber of the case, there is plenty of room for water cooling radiators, with space for a 240mm or a 280mm radiator in the top, a 240mm, 280mm or 360mm radiator in the front and room for a 240mm or a 280mm radiator on the bottom of the chassis.

End users will need to be careful with their cooling configuration, as while there are mounts for all these radiator sizes to fit it will be difficult to have them all occupied without radiator end tanks clashing.  This will require some careful measuring or some exceptional tubing management to avoid, so we advise water coolers to take care when ordering components and plan their loops and placements thoroughly.

Corsair Air 740 ReviewCorsair Air 740 Review

In the secondary chamber of this chassis there are separate storage mounts for 3.5″ and 2.5″ hard drives, allowing users to have up to three 3.5″ mechanical drives and four 2.5″ SSDs. This move perfectly illustrates the move of modern PC gamers to use more SSD based storage, with a lot of recent price reductions and reasonably affordable high capacity SSD drives hitting the market.

On this side the PSU will mount on its side, breathing in cold air from the outside of the chassis through a magnetic dust filter. Around the PSU there is also plenty of room for cable management, allowing users to be as tidy or messy as they wish without affecting the main chamber or the outside aesthetic of the chassis. There will certainly be no bulged side panels on the Air 740.

Corsair Air 740 Review  Corsair Air 740 Review

Conclusion

When looking at the Air 740 the word that comes to mind is evolution, improving on a lot of the aspects of the Air 540 while still adhering to the same core dual chamber 1.5 width concept. Corsair has taken away the ugly 3.5″ hard drive mounts from the main chamber of the case and moved them to the secondary chamber, hiding them from view, and making the case significantly larger to accommodate those who want to use thicker water cooling radiators and other cooling solutions.

The dual chambered case design has always been attractive to us, allowing PC builders to create and aesthetically pleasing PC with ease by hiding all of the ugly cable clutter and storage components in the secondary chamber of the case and allows the chassis to take full advantage of its full length windowed side panel.

Feature wise the Air 740 is the first case to offer Corsair RGB fan support, allowing users to control your RGB fans from the front panel of the chassis, making this chassis the most up to date Corsair case around. At stock, this case comes with traditional Corsair 140mm AF140L fans, so those that want to take advantage of this case’s RGB functionality will need to spend extra on the required SP120 LED or HD120 LED fans.

The main selling point of this case is the large secondary chamber, which simply put makes cable management a breeze. There is plenty of space to keep your cables tidy, allowing your side panel to fit onto the chassis with ease, meaning that with the Air 740 nobody is ever going to have a bulging side panel.

All-in-all the Air 740 is a case that has very little to complain about, offering a lot of space for both high-end air coolers and water coolers alike and dual chambered design where cable management couldn’t be any easier.

At the price of around £130 it’s placed in the mid price point for a case but it is undeniable that Corsair has created something that will no doubt be the host to some beautiful systems in the future.

Today we are giving the Corsair Air 740 the OC3D Exceptional Aesthetics Award, providing not only a beautiful design but a very functional layout which makes it almost too easy to create an attractive system. Can we have a white one?

You can join the discussion on Corsair’s Air 740 on the OC3D Forums.