I'm a big fan of Corsair's range of PC cases, with the gorgeous Graphite 600T sitting at the top of my personal wish list. But it's not just the vast PC builds Corsair's chassis cater for, oh no, they've just announced the latest in its Obsidian range, the 350D.
The Obsidian 350D takes its cues from the rest of the range, incorporating versatile cooling options with a stylish, brushed metal finish and clean, simple lines. But this time we're talking micro ATX and mini-ITX form factors.
This chassis has been designed to fit the latest small form factor gaming gear inside, whether that's mATX multi-GPU motherboards, like Gigabyte's G1 Sniper or the teeniest of teeny-tiny mini-ITX, like Asus' P8Z77-I Deluxe.
And if you're building a small form factor, high-end gaming rig then chances are you're going to want some serious cooling to keep those high-performance graphics cards or overclocked Ivy Bridge chips chilled. Thankfully the Obsidian 350D has, what is technically known in the business as, a crap-ton of small form factor cooling options. There's a 140mm fan on the front and a 120mm spinning thing on the rear to keep airflow running across the main components.
Not only that but it also has space for up to 240mm liquid-cooling radiators - in fact it's got space for two of them either in the roof of the case or replacing that 140mm front fan.
So, you're not going to be limited by thermals and you're not going to be limited by the space available to your choice of GPU either. There's space for cards up to 380mm in length - even the faintly monstrous Radeon HD 7990 will fit in this mini beast.
It may not have the diminutive curves of the Prodigy, but the clean, classic lines of the Obsidian 350D won't be as aesthetically polarising and will be infinitely more steady than the wobbly Bitfenix. Sure, it's a chunkier chassis, but it's an incredibly well-appointed one and packs all the functionality and versatility of the larger Obsidian series cases into a very pleasing, mATX form factor.
The cases should be around sometime in May, with an £85/$100 price-tag for the plain, closed-in chassis and a £94/$110 price-tag for the perspex-windowed version.
