Corsair Obsidian 450D Review

Corsair Obsidian 450D Review - Interior

Once you spend a bit of time figuring out a decent design with one case by way of cable routing, layout and features, you'd hope that this would be fairly easy to translate to other cases in a particular range. We've seen plenty of people fail at this but with the latest Obsidian series, Corsair hasn't suffered the same fate. Cable routeing in the Obsidian 450D is excellent, with plenty of large holes in the motherboard tray finished with rubber grommets. There's not a massive amount of room behind the motherboard tray to hide cables, as the case is so narrow, but at least the holes are usefully concentrated near the PSU area.


As standard, the Obsidian 450D can provide a home for a maximum of three 3.5in hard disks using a tool-free cage although you can apparently buy additional cages, which mount on top the included one or beneath the 5.25in bays. These all support 2.5in SSDs of course and there are two dedicated tool-free, vertically mounted 2.5in mounts behind the motherboard tray too. It's a shame these aren't on show like we saw with In Win's 904, as they're usually every enthusiasts pride and joy, although at least you won't be advertising their presence at LAN parties.


Despite being relatively compact for an ATX case, the Obsidian 450D is quite spacious on the inside. There's plenty of room for GPUs with 430mm clearance from the fans in the front to the PCI expansion slots and no limit on PSUs either. CPU cooler clearance is a tad restrictive, though, at 165mm but a quick scoot through recent CPU cooler reviews reveals that only the very largest, such as the Phanteks PH-TC14PE won't fit.

Water cooling is very well catered-for, though, and with Corsair's stacks of all-in-one liquid coolers, it's yet another case the company has clearly designed to steer you towards the likes of an H105 or H75. The front can house a dual 120/140mm full-height radiator, if you're willing to sacrifice the 3.5in drive cage that is.


The roof has space for a triple 120mm or double 140mm half-height radiator if you don't mind doing without an optical drive. Incredibly the base can also play home to a double 120mm-fan radiator too - again a full-height model depending on how many expansion cards you'll be using but with two 5.25in bays plus enough room inside to mount a pump and tube reservoir, you can't really ask for a lot more.