Corsair Carbide 678C Review

Introduction

The idea behind the Corsair Carbide 678C is simple, create a quiet case that supports a large number of HDDs and offers PC users enough versatility to hold a range of potential water cooling setups, leaning more on the professional side of the PC spectrum than many of the company’s other designs. 

If there is one word that describes Corsair’s ambitions with this case, it’s options, offering support for a broad range of potential hardware, including a 5.25-inch optical drive (which are exceedingly rare in modern case designs) and 420mm radiators, which are uncommon in all but the largest enclosures. 

Corsair is clearly aiming at Fractal’s R-series, offering support for a large number of 3.5-inch HDDs, supporting six 3.5/2.5-inch drives in the case’s stock configurations alongside three additional 2.5-inch drives at the rear of the enclosure. 

Specifications
  
Give their focus on whisper-quiet operation, Corsair has lined the front, side and roof panels of the 678C with sound deadening materials, which are designed to lower the noise output of the PC inside. Users of this case have the option to have a dust filter or a solid, sound deadened top on the enclosure, a feature which will be detailed further on the next page of this review. 

On the front of this case, dual 140mm fans or three 120mm fans are supported as well as 280mm/360mm radiators, though only 30mm thick radiators are supported when all of the case’s 3.5-inch drive bays are installed. At the top of the enclosure, up to three 140/120mm fans are supported, with 360mm and 420mm radiators being supported at the top of the enclosure. To support large 420mm radiators, users of the Carbide 678C will need to remove the case’s 5.25-inch drive bay. 

On the front I/O, this inclosure supports USB 3.1 Gen 2 Type-C and dual USB 3.0 ports and offers industry-standard power and reset switches as well as audio jacks. Sadly, the LEDs used for this case’s I/O are blue (at least for the white version of the 678C), which limits the colour matching options of the enclosure. White LEDs would have been preferable.  

Below are the full specifications of Corsair’s Carbide 678C enclosure. The case ships with three 140mm fans at stock and a 6-fan PWM controller. 

  

Pricing

Below is the regional pricing of Corsair’s 678C chassis, which was provided to us as part of Corsair’s review guide one day before NDA. The review guide states that these prices were “correct as of January 21st 2019”. We assume that these prices are still correct, as Corsair has not provided us with updated pricing.