Performance
We're off to a good start. Carbide Series 400C's unobstructed front intake is evidently delivering a clean supply of air and the chassis has no trouble cooling our overclocked Core i5-3570K processor.
Taming two factory overclocked GTX 970s is a tougher challenge. During a real-world gaming stint, the GeForce core reached 80ºC in under 10 minutes and the GPU throttled back from 1,380MHz to 1,354MHz while fan speed increased to 50 per cent in order to keep to the target temperature. Nothing to worry about, but a second front intake wouldn't do any harm.
Choosing between the 400C and 400Q might not be as difficult as you'd imagined. Sure, the 400C's side window looks great and provides easy access to your components, but it misses out on any form of sound-dampening and it shows. The bundled fans can be heard when the system idles, and the chassis does little to prevent noise from escaping when the graphics cards are running flat out.