Inside the 400C
To gain access to the interior you only need to swing open the clear side panel, which has a latching handle that feels very good and operates smoothly.
Closing this panel was better than I expected, and its smooth, secure closure is aided by magnets on the corners of the door panel.
If desired, removing the clear panel entirely is very simple, as you need only lift it off of its hinges:
The back side panel is a conventional slide-off design, and is a little thin, but doesn't wobble too much. The thumbscrews securing it are captured, which is a nice touch.
With the side panels removed we'll take our first look at the interior of the Carbide 400C, which has the increasingly common wide-open interior of a design devoid of storage bays on this side.
Up front we see the included 140 mm fan, and this area can support up to a 360 mm radiator as well.
The rear of the case is limited to a 120 mm fan opening, as this is a rather compact mid-tower design.
The floor of the enclosure is hidden by a plastic shroud by default, though this is simple enough to remove (as we'll see in a moment).
Looking behind the motherboard tray where storage can be accessed. There is a triple SSD mount in the middle, and below this is space for a pair of 3.5-inch hard drives on slide-out trays.
I was a little surprised to see that the power supply mount was not accessible from behind the enclosure, as it was with the Carbide 600Q. This means we will have to remove the shroud covering the floor of the enclosure, and install a PSU from the other side. This process is very simple, fortunately.
To remove the shroud, which is actually two separate pieces, two thumbscrews first need to be removed from the back (circled here in red):
Then the panels slide toward the right side and out, though the rearmost panel will need a couple of additional tabs released from the rear of the enclosure:
Now we can see the case floor, and the PSU mount location includes padded feet to prevent vibration.
Filters
Essential for keeping your build clean, the Carbide 400C offers a full compliment of filters for fan intakes. We'll begin with the top of the enclosure, which is covered with a large screen filter that attaches magnetically.
This is held in place securely with the magnets, which line the entire perimeter of the filter, and it feels strong enough to hold up over time.
The front intake includes a full length filter, which is less convenient to access as it requires the removal of the front panel. To do this you first need to release the tabs located on each side of the interior, and pull the front panel off:
And then the filter is easly removed with a tab at the top.
Finally, there is a slide out filter beneath the PSU, accessible from the rear of the case.
Next we'll go through the build process with the Carbide 400C.
Can Predator 360 fit in this
Can Predator 360 fit in this case, in front?
Good question. There’s plenty
Good question. There's plenty of clearance up front for a deeper cooler like the Predator 240, but I don't have the 360 mm version of that cooler here to test. The plastic shroud and HDD cage at the bottom might pose a clearance issue, though both are removable.
I have just built a system
I have just built a system with this case and when you install a Radiator on the front, it causes a few problems.
1) The HDD Shroud can be very tight to the Rad so you either have it in place prior to Rad installation or omit it from your build.
2) The screws used to install the Rad to the front panel of the case obviously protrude more than the supplied fan’s almost flush grub screws.
This means that the front filter can not sit flush – it bows in the middle. This kind of defeats the use of the filter as air will get through there unfiltered.
The only option is to mount your Rad elsewhere (which can cause its own clearance problems) or to alter the filter by cutting out the plastic edges where the Rad’s screws are.
This is not a problem if you use a 120mm fan based Rad as the screws miss the outer edge – but if like me you are using a 140mm fan based Rad then you are in for problems.
And to add insult to injury, this could easily have been fixed by various simple design choices – so I’m not happy at this problem.
3) The cases top control panel leads come down at the top of where you would install the Rad. This means that you can not have the Rad to the very top – which means in my 280mm rad that it therefore got in the way of the HDD shroud.
One other thing of note is that taking off the front of the case for me was extremely difficult.
In the manual is says you should grab it from the bottom and pull firmly – No chance of that happening for my case it was rock solid. Even when doing the unclipping method as mentioned in the review the bottom two clips really did not want to release.
I’m hoping my case was just faulty as I’ve built PC’s for decades and never taken 20 minutes to take of a panel undamaged.
This panel must be really easy to remove as you should be cleaning your filters on a regular basis. I’m just hoping that it will become easier over time.
Also the individual bags of screws are great, but they really should be marked, as I can foresee a less experienced builder mixing some of them up and possibly causing damage.
Oh, and I quite agree that cable management in the back can be quite difficult and tight – could have done with a little bit more room.
The enclosure includes
The enclosure includes flush-mount screws to attach a cooler to the front without protruding screws. There were 4 in the pack, so double-width coolers would need more (though I've attached 240 mm AIO coolers with just 4 screws before). The screws that most self-contained liquid coolers ship with are pan head, and protrude even farther if you use the washers that companies like Corsair include. I don't use the washers in situations where there are clearance issues, and I think the flat rad screws are a good addition to the accessory pack.
Would be nice if the bags were labeled, but I'm happy when the screws are at least in their own bags. I guess I've build so many systems at this point that I just 'know' which screws go to what, so perhaps I'm not the best user to judge.
Hello,
Do you know how much
Hello,
Do you know how much space is between the front of the case and the HDD shroud?
I want to install a Fractal Design Kelvin S36 and from what I can see in the pictures, I’m worried that it might not fit in there without removing the HDD shroud (and I don’t want to remove it, since IMO the case looks strange without it)
Thank you in advance.
This is an ATX case, you
This is an ATX case, you could have used an ATX motherboard …
Yes! I could have.
Yes! I could have.
is it worth it to replace my
is it worth it to replace my corsair carbide 300r with this ?
You can clean the front
You can clean the front filter by simply blowing horizontally through the openings, fluff comes right off. I won’t be removing my front panel much, if at all because of that. The RM750i was a tight fit but all panels are in just fine.
Interesting case, I often
Interesting case, I often wonder why any case has doors on the front that MUST be opened to access various components,etc, when it’d be easier to use by simply NOT having the door at all! I don’t mind the “industrial look” where parts are easy to access, also please, NEVER put USB’s, audio/video connectors behind any door or POWER switch on/off,etc…
Also, not a big fan of windows on sides of cases, nice to see the insides/fancy light systems, BUT…doesn’t these window cases tend to all be..louder?
Like quiet PC’s best!
Thanks again for the good review!
What is the CPU cooler. I’m
What is the CPU cooler. I’m going to get this case and a new CPU cooler and this one looks really nice. If you have one could you please link me a PCPartPicker build of this PC. Thanks!
-Zac