Corsair 7000D Airflow & 7000X Case Review: XL Cases for "E-ATX" Builds

[Music] corsair 7000 d case is in for review now this one comes after the 4000 d and after the 5000 d so straight out of the gate we already know that the 7000 d is at least 40 percent better than the 5000 d which of course was already 25 better than the 4000 d so as corsair adds more ds to its cases we assume they get better in this instance though mostly just larger and more expensive so the 7000d is relatively large it's at 260 dollars puts it in competition with the xl class of cases like the lienly 011 dynamic xl the fractal meshfy 2 xl fantax and through pro 2 things like that there's a 7000 x as well and the 7000 x is uh spectacularly expensive that one is 330 dollars so we're going to be reviewing those today to look at thermals and more before that this video is brought to you by thermaltake and the thermaltake tough ram xg memory thermaltake's tough ram xg series is a freshly updated line of rgb memory available in frequencies ranging from 3 600 megahertz up to 4 600 megahertz thermaltake's tough ram xg uses 10 layer pcbs and heat spreaders are fixed with bright leds everywhere and they market toward overclocking support and capability learn more at the links in the description below the first thing to talk about with the 7000d is definitely the pricing side of it because at this price point given that this is in an existing lineup of cases that look very similar to this one corsair is sort of competing with itself there are features here that you don't get with the other ones those features are primarily afforded by the size water cooling features for example a lot of extra radiators but then you also get things that are maybe not as necessary like a door within a door or a really heavy door side panel door that is with it's almost two millimeters thick of steel anyway there's some stuff you get that's useful and some stuff that well in this case is simply necessary by nature of the size uh and then some things that aren't that useful but in this case the primary competition is going to be the 5000 d and that's 160 it's about 100 cheaper current prices and the 4000d airflow is another competitor to this that's 85 thus far with its new cases corsair has done pretty well and the 4000d and 5000d airflow versions got general recommendations from us and it's a strong turning point from our corsair was just up until recently where it had become a meme generator of cases prior to this sort of revolution in the x 000 d series other competitors keep in mind while we go through this review build notes thermals all that stuff would be the mesh by 2xl from fractal it's 180 we have a review on the channel if you're curious the 011 xl bit older but also around the same price points any fluctuates 170 to 200 ish and that would be a direct competitor as well both a bit cheaper than this one or the m2 pro 2 from fantax a couple of the changes to this case versus i really don't know where to put these a couple changes for this case from the others it's a piece of steel by the way you don't need to don't cringe uh the front panel looks the same top panel looks about the same other than size so they're keeping the aesthetic and the functional aspects of it it's still these sort of sockable ball joints come on all right okay all right sorry so the primary difference in the front here is courser's gotten rid of some of the circular metal uh pieces of the mounting hardware for the fans previously we complained that these were problematic if you change the fans from say 120 to 140 mil in this case they've gotten rid of it so already there's one of our complaints that's been solved because it it looks a bit bad with rgb leds and it also uh it's just blockages that don't need to exist so those are gone on the previous cases in the series one 40-mil fans looked misaligned and off-center because of that in this one it ships stock with one 40-mil fence so this is another change for the d series these are 0.3 amp fans 12 volts of course there's room for a lot of them in here although it ships with these three we've got two in the front biased a bit towards the cpu and then one in the back there is a vertical mount for the gpu as usual we generally advise not using those unless you're watercoloring more on that later and uh beyond that this case mostly is advantageous for water cooling where you get extra height for tall radiators extra length here for the same except at the top and then your usual myriad appendages and sundries that come with water cooling cases like radiator or reservoir pump mounts so we're gonna be looking at this let's go through the build section that patrick worked on we'll be going over thermals and acoustics as well as noise normalized thermals as usual we'll talk about if it's actually worth it as we've mentioned with multiple other corsair cases another way that the company tries to highlight the front fans is by eliminating any reinforcement in the front filter this makes rgb fans look great but it can lead to some sagging in the mesh potentially to the point of contacting fan blades we've seen that with other ones in the past the filter frame is now thicker lifting the nylon mesh away from the fan blades this has the unfortunate side effect of blocking off the air gaps on the side of the front panel that the 7000 x relies on for ventilation meaning that the 7000 x is a step backwards from the 5000 x in terms of airflow on that subject the distance between the surface of the top filter and the top cover plate has been reduced from approximately three centimeters in the 5000 blank to approximately 1.6 centimeters in the seven thousandths this is mostly irrelevant for the 7000d airflow where the front and the top cover plates are ventilated but in the tempered glass 7000x it's actually a significant reduction in airflow given the 7000 x's restrictions it's a good thing that the 7000 case family has a side vent intake that can mount up to four 120 mil fans although using that mount necessitates removing the cable bar the stock fans are 140 millimeters so none of them can be shifted to the side mount and after working on cases like the lee lee 011 series one of the side vent features that we've really come to appreciate is the magnetic filter resting precisely in the corner of the side panel so there's little danger of the filter sliding around during installation and leaving an open air gap kale management is a mixed bag as usual corsair has done an excellent job of placing plastic cable channels with big loops to fit velcro straps with three pre-installed and six extras finally we can flex our fully blend out corsair d series velcro strap necklace or the the flexless as we call it it's it's a thing it'll catch on the tray has three centimeters of clearance from the side panel just as advertised space for cables under the power slash route is limited if both hard drive cages are installed side by side but each cage fits three drives so even one cage can house more three and a half inch drives than a typical mid tower in today's times our main complaint is with the hinged metal door that encloses the cables which is a returning issue from previous corsair cases the manual refers to this as quote motherboard steel hinged doors rather literal but it differentiates it from other cable cover pieces in the case interior a cable door is a good idea for this case and could help prevent the side from popping open however the cable door is big it's also flexible and it closes magnetically meaning that cables have to already be bundled perfectly flat in order to shut the door this renders it mostly useless the side of the case is also opaque so it doesn't make the system look any tidier we'd recommend ditching the door completely and relying on the velcro straps for cable management it's an unfortunate waste of money obviously this is passed on to the consumer at some level so it's a bit of a waste of money for the consumer but it just seems like there's always bits and pieces that go unused the hard drive cages we just mentioned are one way in which the 7000d makes effective use of its size out of the box the two cages are placed side by side under the power slide shroud but each can be removed by taking out a single thumb screw and the cages can optionally be stacked if the cable cover is removed this is where we'd like to see corsair have maybe considered including another drive cage or maybe more focus or more cost invested in this feature rather than something like that closing door behind an opaque panel that's the seal with magnets this doesn't make any real sense really the tab used to fasten the cages to the bottom of the chassis is removable for easier stacking but our biggest concern with these cages is that they fit loosely this makes it great for easy installation but they're hard drives or most time they are and that means that you're dealing with vibration noise and just vibration in general from mechanical drives none of the drive sleds contain any rubber damping you'll probably want to invest a dollar or so in some rubber with glue on it and deal with that yourself one of the best features of the 7000d is the amount of headroom above the motherboard there's a ridiculous nine centimeter gap between the top edge of the board and the roof of the case this leaves a lot of space for fans and radiators we'll talk about that more in a moment as well cable cutouts above the board are also large but it would be nice if they were closer to the edge of the board because the further down they are the less chance that they'll be blocked by a radiator and speaking of radiator compatibility is listed as up to 480 ml at the front for 20 at the top and 480 mil on the side although the side mount is specifically limited to 120 millimeter wide fans and radiators corsair's manual incorrectly lists maximum compatibility for this mount as 480 or 420 millimeters for 20 millimeter radiators are 140 millimeters wide despite the number being smaller than 480 it is wider so that's wrong it won't fit as far as multi-rad configurations corsair only claims that three simultaneous 360 millimeter radiators top front and side two simultaneous 420s top and front or a single 480 rad will fit installing items in the top mount limits the height of the other two mounts and vice versa the cutout at the front of the power supply shroud does allow for mounting large clcs in the ideal tubes down orientation if the tubes are long enough to use the front and the side mounts simultaneously it might also be necessary to use 120 millimeter wide components on the front mount and use the extra set of mounting rails to offset them towards the glass side panel the steel panel is likely the heaviest we've ever seen and it weighs almost as much as the e-waste that dell's warranty comes with this entire thing is constructed of 1.7 millimeter thick steel with the intention of eliminating any warping and it works it's a very brute force method to preventing warping the hinge knuckles are built from the same material screwed securely into the steel side panel and glued to the glass one the tempered glass panel in our case sagged slightly so that the snaps at the front edge don't line up without help the hinge pins are of unequal height but this is good because that makes it easier to install and the tops of the pins are drilled and tapped so that the hinges can be screwed together there's no way to screw the doors themselves shut which is a feature we'd like to see for security while carrying a case that weighs about as much as our growing pile of e-waste from pre-built manufacturers and also just as a way to mash unruly cables down in total the 7000 d airflow is listed as 18.7 kilograms the 7000 to x is listed as at 19.8 kilograms the power supply filter deserves a special praise though for ejecting to the side of the case this is actually a very small but very good attention to detail feature accessing the rear of a gigantic case like this once it's built especially if it's got water cooling in it will be extremely inconvenient in most setups if it's anywhere near a wall it's somewhat difficult to grab even through the side since the case legs remain at the reduced two centimeter heights of the 5000 d rather than the original three centimeter like height of the 4000 d but this is still a good design overall maximum motherboard size is defined as eatx there are no numbers describing what this means anywhere including the reviewer's guide there are no obstacles to wider than atx boards though other than removing the cable bar but there are also no standoffs beyond the standard atx ones so eatx support is essentially limited to the widest board that can be comfortably installed without an additional set of standoffs the evgx 299 dark for example also eatx isn't real it's not a form factor that exists and it's not defined anywhere by any standards organization it's made up corsair should be using ssieb or ceb or most appropriately the actual maximum size of the motherboard and really it should have standoffs there too taking out the cable bar extension is necessary in order to access the cutouts along the edge of the motherboard we found that since the extension is only fastened at the top and the bottom it's prone to bowing out under pressure from the 24 pin atx power cable taking out the main section of the klr is necessary when using the side mounts for fans or stacking hard drive cages so we'd prefer to remove it as well the whole cable bar it's just cosmetic here all the functional cable management is already done behind the motherboard tray so you can ditch it without really losing much a vertical gpu mount is built into this case as a rule of thumb as a reminder we recommend only using this for vertical mounts when the gpu is liquid cooled corsair also includes a bracket to convert the six lowest horizontal expansion slots out of eight total into vertical slots that should have enough distance from the side panel to work well with some air quotes cards but with the ridiculousness of some of the 30 series cards where you're looking at four slots uh you do get a little bit close to the glass so keep that in mind question doesn't include a riser cable with the 7000d airflow or with a 330 7000 x so that you'll need to bring front i o includes a mic headphone jack that's combined at 3.5 millimeters it has a usb type c port and 4 usb 3.0 type a ports we're happy to see an extra large case like this get so many type a ports on the front panel too because as we mentioned with the cooler master master frame 700 master master master the more inconvenient it is to access rear i o the more important front i o becomes like in this one as with past cases there's a plastic extension at the front of the psu shroud that clips into place and is fastened with a single captive thumb screw it's a tight fit and the extension wasn't snapped into place fully in our review unit so it was bouncing around in addition the thumb screw had either been over torqued or over tightened at some point so that the plastic split this is apparently a plague among case manufacturers where they over torque a lot of the screws alternatively there is a second plastic cover that simply caps off at the end of the power supply shroud this cover is constructed in sections that appear removable it doesn't have the split plastic and we believe it's designed to give even more clearance to radiators or fans if necessary removing these sections requires snapping the plastic and is irreversible both shroud extensions are cosmetic and not functional since the power supply should probably be installed fanned down anyway it makes a little difference whether the shroud is sealed or not the 7000d airflow is our focus for this review for thermal testing as we know right away that it's the model we're the most likely to recommend of the two it's got better ventilation and more importantly it's cheaper while offering largely the same set of features corsair agreed to send us the 7000 x panel as well so we did take the opportunity to simulate a 7000 x by installing the tempered glass front panel sealing the top panel and moving all three 7000d stock fans to the front of the case and installing a comparable 1200 rpm fan in the rear of the case the nfp14 this isn't exactly the same as testing the 7000 x but it gives us a rough idea that's going to be close enough to better determine how the expensive case differs from the airflow model the 7000 x's iq sp 140 rgb elite fans are exactly the same as the 7000ds fans except they have more shiny more rgb corsair publishes build guides for its cases for the 7000 d and x they've depicted three builds every one of these builds is set up in a negative pressure rear intake front exhaust top exhaust and side exhaust configuration this is a valid choice but keep in mind that the rear of the case isn't filtered while the front side and top are so you're pushing air out through the filter and you're pulling air in without a filter meaning that there's potential for more dust the initial cpu results from our combined cpu and gpu torture workload with the stock 7000d airflow was an average of 46 degrees celsius above ambient removing the front panel brought that down to 45 not really significant but only because of rounding here the ventilated front panel just doesn't have that much of an effect on the cpu's temperature in our testing by removing the front panel what we really mean is that we removed the cover plate the bezel and the filter were left in place simulating the 7000 x brought the cpu up to 50 degrees average 5 degrees hotter than baseline the restricted air gaps to the sides of the front panel aren't enough for it to breathe clearly swapping the 7000 x front panel to the airflow plate brought temperatures down to 44 degrees average which is the best of both worlds part of that has to do with where you are allowing the air to exit if the air exits out of the top before it ever gets the cpu cooler then it's not beneficial to the cpu comparatively an average of 46 degrees above ambient for the cpu puts the 7000d airflow in a strong position compared to most of our charge and that includes corsair's own 4000d airflow at 50 degrees and 5000 the airflow at 48 degrees the 7000 d's advantage is mostly in the quantity and size of its stock fence we consider the meshfy 2xl to be the 7000d's main competitor among the large cases we've tested and at 49 degrees it fits in as a competitor the fantax m2 pro 2 is also a potential competitor but it doesn't include any stock fans the 11 xl is also a good and large case but it doesn't have the same focus on supporting multiple extra-long radiators and high numbers of three and a half inch drives the 7000d overall looks pretty good for a start baseline gv temperature was 59 degrees celsius above ambient which was more affected by the removal of the front plate than the cpu was and that's down to 56 degrees average switching to the 7000 x configuration involved installing another 140 ml fan at the bottom of the front panel while leaving the upper two fans untouched dropping the average to 53 degrees with the airflow plate and the 7000 x fans gpu temperature averaged 51 degrees the lowest result yet an average of 59 degrees is on the hot side of the charge and in this instance the 4000 d airflow's average of 52 degrees is an improvement over the 7 000 airflow comparatively the meshfy 2xl is also an improvement at 55 degrees adding an extra intake fan to the front panel to emulate the 7000x health significantly and we recommend doing so as always every build is different so experimentation with the configuration is a good idea rendering our monkey head test scene on the cpus and blender resulted in a cpu average of 35 degrees celsius over ambient this is tied with the silverstone rvo2 as one of the best temperatures on the chart for this test with all three intake fans biased towards the top of the case cpu cooling is obviously very good in this one our set of standardized fans includes two 140mm intake fans and one 120mm exhaust which sounds like a step down from the three 140ml stock fans but the standardized fans are also higher rpm this test is the one highly requested by the audience despite its imperfections but we have a methodology piece explaining those that you can make the best use of this data cv temperature dropped down to 44 degrees average which puts the 7000 series alongside the p408 digital for one of the best results measured in this test we didn't alter the positioning of the fans from corsair's chosen stock configuration which helps explain why the cpu temperatures remain so good in this test as well as why the gpu's 52 degree average in this test is more middling but it's still tied with the mesh by 2xl and the 5000d airflow given the right fans in the right arrangement the 7000d airflow is a well ventilated case overall the quantity of stock fans and the open front panel design also means that the 7000d airflow is loud with the case fans at maximum speed the noise level measured at 46.7 dba at our standardized 20 inch test distance it's in the same audible range as the loudest cases we've tested thus far the meshify 2 xl scored 38.7 dba in this test and that's a reduction in noise that's definitely audible bringing the 7000d airflow down to 36 dba for the threshold we use for noise normalized test in required setting the case fans to about 730 to 750 rpm for the reported speed cpu temperature climbs to 50 degrees celsius above ambient which is still an excellent result the massify 2 xl averaged 53 degrees on the same test while the 4000d airflow was even warmer at 55 degrees gb temperature only worsened slightly comparative performance is the inverse of the cpu result with the 7000d airflow landing among the worst results in this category as did the 5000d careful balancing of the intake fans is a good idea here especially if the case fans aren't set to blast at 100 speed at all times the 7000d airflow is a big and expensive case so this is a specific market we would say it's sort of like backwards approach where typically you'd come into the market with your really expensive product and then release the lower end ones later so that people who looked at this said wow i really want that couldn't afford it or justify it we'll then buy the cheaper version of it that looks similar later but you still extract maximum sales out of the launch of this one so in this case uh it's happened backwards where the 4000d came out first and the 4000d right now current prices at time of filming 85 that leaves some budget for extra fans or specializing the hardware that you have in the case it's a much more reasonable entry for a case of its quality whereas this you get into diminishing returns the 5000d itself is pretty pricey at 160 dollars that is on the higher side from what people tend to spend on cases it does have improvements over the 4000 d they are probably easier to justify at the 160 price than the improvements here at the 200 plus 260 price so the 5000 d in terms of mid towers is your most sensible alternative to this one if you really don't need the size of this case the radiator support of this case with that said the 7000d airflow does provide some features that users may specifically want if you want to install six hard drives more of course hair cells the cages or install three 360 ml radiators for an open loop the 7000d is one of the few cases that provides a platform for that we find fractals meshfield 2xl at 180 to be the wiser investment for functional features like this since the xl has standoffs for motherboards even larger than ssieb which would be called w atx in their listing the meshfy 2xl also has extra hard drive trays that are easily available for a maximum capacity of 18 three and a half inch drives on the other hand the mesh by 2xl supports fewer large radiators simultaneously and then that leaves the opinion of looks which we will leave that up to you if you prefer one or the other cool it just looks so it doesn't really matter what we think but in terms of performance both cases include three 140mm fans they can both be made to perform well coarser stock fans are higher rpm they cool a little bit more effectively and when noise normalized or standardized in any way it's doing pretty well so this case build quality is overall what we would call good the construction is pretty good there are a lot of unnecessary components to this case that you will be paying for but the construction of them minimally is good the 7000 x we don't recommend at all we would give it a negative recommendation here it just it makes so much more sense to buy almost anything else especially at that price point your 300 plus there's every option available to you for the most part except for like the yacht one or the train one that leon lee made there are a lot of options at 300 plus and the 7000 x just doesn't bring enough to the table to really be worth it you're sacrificing function in the 7000 x for sake of aesthetics which is something that we are always going to be biased against that's one of our biases as reviewers patrick and i are both very performance oriented very function oriented and that means we will review things more positively and value oriented when they perform well given a price so you just you don't gain enough from the 7000 dax for that in our opinions now uh it's more expensive it has some additional features tempered glass rgb leds commander core xt uh fan and lighting controller things that we just don't really care about maybe some of you do cool go for it but we don't like that one so wouldn't recommend it case here 7000 the airflow it's built well uh it is excessive and it's large so again the competitors are o11 xl from liam lee fractal mesh by 2xl and probably the fantax n2 pro 2. we've reviewed all of those on the channel if you want to see the individual reviews but if you really want this one for a specific reason the build quality is good despite some of the excessive materials involved and that's about as good as it gets from us as a review so that's it for this one uh value is the biggest problem here otherwise it's it's okay corsairs is not as impressive to us 4000 d of course we're just still keeping a good path right now compared to where it was a couple of years ago thanks for watching subscribe for more as always you can go to store.camerasexus.net if you'd like to buy one of our mouse mats which are in stock and shipping at the time of this video going up or one of our modmats and you can go to patreon.comgamersnexus4extra thanks for watching we'll see you all next time

Channel: Gamers Nexus

Views: 364,215

Keywords: gamersnexus, gamers nexus, computer hardware, cases, case reviews, corsair 7000d review, corsair 7000d benchmarks, corsair 7000d airflow review, corsair 7000d vs 5000d, corsair 7000d vs 4000d, corsair 7000d vs fractal meshify 2 xl, best eatx cases 2021, best large computer cases, best xl computer cases, lian li o11 xl vs corsair 7000d

Id: wxmy6A3v4Nw

Length: 26min 40sec (1600 seconds)

Published: Sun Jul 18 2021