Final Thoughts and Conclusions
The Corsair Carbide 330R Titanium Edition Quiet case is a full-featured mid-tower enclosure that provides several different case cooling options and comes with two installed fans to get you started with optional locations for up to five case fans. The new Titanium Edition adds a little class with nice looking brushed aluminum front panel and a three-speed fan controller that the original 330R did not have. The case also supports both single and dual fan radiators for liquid cooling. The 330R is focused on functionality and quiet operation and like all Corsair cases it is very easy to work with. The reversible front door, removable top panel, and both side panels are lined with sound absorption material to keep the noise down. The front panel air intake openings have also been designed to help reduce fan noise.
The Carbide 330R Titanium case can easily accommodate extended VGA adapters and offers four internal HDD/SSD mounting trays and three external 5.25” bays but does not have any built in 3.5”/2.5” HDD hot-swap options. Overall the build quality is good, the case is easy to work with, and it is has the potential to offer very good cooling with minimal noise.
Combining silent operation and high performance can be quite a challenge. The Carbide 330R enclosure provides an excellent foundation to build upon but ultimately it will be the parts that you choose to install into this case that will determine the final noise to performance benefit.
If your main goal is to build a very quiet, virtually silent PC then pay close attention to your choice of components (CPU cooler, VGA/VGA cooler, power supply, etc). With the right choices you can assemble a relatively powerful PC that can operate with minimal noise and be virtually silent.
However, if ultimate performance is your goal you may have to sacrifice silence at the expense of keeping all the high-end bits powered properly and cooled adequately. High-end parts generate heat and dissipating that heat generally requires airflow. The more heat the more airflow to maintain stable operation. And in most cases, increasing the airflow increases the noise. The 330R has been designed to help minimize this noise but it can only do so much. So again, if you are careful in selecting parts designed for high efficiency and quiet operation, the finished package should deliver an acceptable performance to noise ratio.
The Corsair Carbide 330R Titanium Edition Quiet Mid-Tower case is currently selling for $99.99 USD (the original 330R is now priced at $89.99). (You can also find the Carbide 300R Titanium on Amazon.com.)
Strengths:
• Clean styling with new Titanium-look brushed aluminum front panel
• Very good case cooling options with support for liquid cooling
• One 140mm intake fan and one 120mm exhaust fan included
• Three-speed fan controller included
• Sound absorption material on top, front and both side panels
• Five different case fan mounting locations
• Support for both single and dual fan radiators
• Tool-free ODD and 3.5” HDD bay mounts
• Three 5.25" external drive bays
• Four 3.5” / 2.5” internal HDD / SSD bays
• Oversized CPU back plate cutout for easy CPU cooler installation
• Allows installing extended VGA adapters (up to 450mm long)
• Functional cable routing cutouts and extra room for neat wiring
• Two front panel USB 3.0 ports and I/O panel
Minor Weaknesses:
• No external hot-swap 3.5” HDD bays
• No side window option (for those who like to show off the internal bits)
Corsair Carbide 330R Titanium Edition Quiet Mid-Tower Case
I would like to thank our friends at Corsair for sending us the 330R Titanium case to review – thank you.
Very conflicting case,
Very conflicting case, Corsair filler?
Not at all. It serves its
Not at all. It serves its intended purpose very well.
You can quite easily have a virtually silent office PC during the day and turn it into a killer gaming rig at night.
I love my 650D except for the
I love my 650D except for the HD trays. PITA to get out. Unless something has changed in the design, looks like not much changed there.
Very similar to the Antec
Very similar to the Antec P100 except for video card length and the reversible door.
I bought this case during the
I bought this case during the Black Friday sale, although the black edition. I am most pleased with it except for two things. The first is space. I had to saw off a portion of the HDD cage to fit both my R9-290s, which is about the same length as a 970 Strix from Asus.
The second is that the dust filter on the underside is laughable and falls off right away. You can use screwdrivers to put it in place, which I did, but the default magnetic solution is terrible.
However, on temperatures and acoustics, it’s an amazing case. It’s also quite light, which is a bonus if you have to move it somewhere, such as like a LAN.
All and all a good review. It
All and all a good review. It would be nice to see more emphasis placed on the cases ability to house an SLI/Crossfire config (two card) and resultant temps. Thanks for taking the time to perform this review.
I own the original 330R.
I own the original 330R.
With 2 140mm intake fans, 120mm exhaust fan and an AIO CPU cooler, two GTX 780 Classifieds work… but temps are really high in SLI. Worst case scenario you are thermal throttling.
Overclocking the Classies with the side on is almost out of the question. Not enough airflow. The second card gets the brunt of it, as is usually the case. No pun intended.
Perhaps a couple of 970’s or 980’s wouldn’t be so bad, overclocked they probably would be close.
I think the best possibility for stable, lower temp SLI or Crossfire in a 330R would be reference cards with blower fans which exhaust the heat outside the case, rather than custom cooling that dumps the heat into the case.
For overclocked SLI I would look at water blocks and a custom loop. But if you’re going to do that why buy a 330R?