Review: Corsair Obsidian Series 450D

by Parm Mann on 25 March 2014, 13:00

Tags: Corsair

Quick Link: HEXUS.net/qaccg5

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Specification and Test Methodology

Corsair Obsidian Series 450D Specification

Materials Steel and Plastic
Available Colours Matte Black
Motherboard Support Mini-ITX, Micro-ATX, ATX
External Drive Bays 5.25in x 2
Internal Drive Bays 2.5/3.5in x 3
2.5in x 2
Cooling System Front 2 x 140mm AF140L fans (supports 2 x 120mm)
Rear 1x 120mm AF120L
Top Supports 3 x 120mm / 2 x 140mm
Bottom Supports 2 x 120mm with 3.5in cage removed or relocated
Radiator Support Front Up to 240mm / 280mm
Rear 120mm
Top Up to 360mm / 280mm
Bottom 240mm
Expansion Slots 7
I/O Ports 2 x USB 3.0
Headphone and Mic
Power Supply Standard ATX (not included)
Clearances Heatsink 165mm
PSU Any
Graphics 430mm
Dimensions (H x W x D) 494mm x 210mm x 497mm
MSRP $119

Test System Configuration

Motherboard Asus Sabertooth Z77
CPU Intel Core i5-3570K @ 4.4GHz
CPU Cooler Arctic Cooling Freezer 13
Memory G.Skill Ripjaws-X 8GB (F3-12800CL7D-8GBXH)
Memory Speed and Timings 1,600MHz, 7-8-7-24-2N
Graphics Cards 2x Sapphire Radeon HD 7950 OC in CrossFireX
Storage 120GB SanDisk Extreme SSD
Optical Drive Pioneer DVR-S19LBK DVD Writer
Power Supply Corsair HX1050W
Monitor Philips Brilliance 272P (2,560x1,440)

Our Z77 test platform consists of an ASUS Sabertooth motherboard, an Intel Core i5-3570K processor overclocked to a modest 4.4GHz, an Arctic Cooling Freezer 13 cooler, 8GB of high-performance G.Skill Ripjaws-X memory and two factory-overclocked Sapphire Radeon HD 7950 OC graphics cards in a CrossFireX configuration.

To find out how well the chassis can cool this particular setup, we record the CPU temperature during a 15-minute stint of the Prime95 small-FFT stress test. In order to provide a stabilised reading we then calculate an average temperature across all cores from the last five minutes of testing.

To get an idea of GPU cooling performance, we then record the highest GPU temperature after 15 minutes of running Aliens vs. Predator. Last but not least, we also measure chassis noise by using a PCE-318 noise meter to take readings when idle and while running Aliens vs. Predator.

All chassis are tested only with the standard manufacturer-supplied fans (any/all of which are set to 'silent' in the Asus BIOS or low-speed using a fan controller if present), and to take into account the fluctuating ambient temperature, our graphs depict both actual and delta temperature - the latter is the actual CPU/GPU temperature minus the ambient. For the record, room temperature while testing today's chassis was recorded as 20.5ÂșC.