CES 2012: Corsair Announces Obsidian Case, Carbide 300R & Accelerate SSD Caching

Corsair 550D PC Case

Last night we had the chance to spend some time in the Corsair suite in Las Vegas, Nevada during CES 2012. While we were there we got an early look at a couple of new products Corsair announce today. Among the new products is the Corsair Obsidian 550D. The first PC case that Corsair launched was the Obsidian 800D and the enthusiast community really seemed to like it. Since then Corsair has launched quite a few other cases in all the various price ranges, and they have all taken off like wildfire. The Corsair Obsidian 550D is a bit different than the previous cases in the Obsidian series. While the previous Obsidian cases focused on cooling, the Obsidian 550D focuses on silence. Though it does it with a twist!

The first photo on the page shows that the Corsair Obsidian 550D is sealed up with limited airflow. In the above photo you can see that there are removable panels on the side of the Corsair Obsidian 550D. Once removed it opens up to a magnetic fan filter and a pair of fan mounting points that have Silicone grommets to reduce the noise caused by fan vibration.

The top of the Corsair Obsidian 550D also features the same removable panel and magnetic fan filter as the side panel. The top fan mounts are fully compatible with the Corsair H100 Water Cooling kit. We did notice that it is capable of running 140mm fans as well. Out of curiosity we asked about a possible 140mm water cooling kit and they declined to answer, makes ya wonder doesn’t it? Once you remove the side and top panels to increase airflow, you will sacrifice some of the noise reduction capabilities of the Corsair Obsidian 550D. The bonus to this is that if you decide to run a higher end graphics card that needs some added airflow you don’t have to change cases, all you have to do is remove the side and top panels to add some airflow to the system.

Opening up the front cover of the Corsair Obsidian 550D we can see that it is equipped with four 5.25″ drive bays, and the door opens to the back side of the case. The front panel includes the usual front panel audio jacks, power and reset buttons, LED’s and front panel SuperSpeed USB 3.0.

If you noticed above that the door opened to the back of the case, it also opens to the motherboard side of the Corsair Obsidian 550D. If you want to switch the direction that the door opens up it’s a pretty simple procedure. All that you need to do is close the door, and open it up from the other direction. I suppose it doesn’t get much simpler than that does it? From the limited time that I have been at CES 2012 (though it hasn’t officially opened yet), this is by for one of the most innovative designs that I have seen so far.

While talking about the cable management of the Corsair Obsidian 550D, we stuck our heads into the area behind the motherboard tray. As we can see, there is plenty of room behind the motherboard tray to route all of your cables back there.