The Corsair Carbide 600Q Case Review: Upside Down But Right On

The concept of reversed and rotated motherboard tray cases is not new. Such designs primarily received attention with the introduction of the BTX form factor, when manufacturers were trying to make their products both ATX and BTX compatible. The prime example is probably the first generation Cooler Master Stacker, both for its design and what followed. The Stacker was successful enough to spawn a whole family of cases, however none of them retained the original’s reversable tray. And, as things turned out, that’s an accurate reflection of the larger market: ever since the BTX form factor has been abandoned, there are very few cases with rotated and reversed motherboard trays. Those few cases that still offer alterable trays are considered unordinary, special designs.

It is just such a special case that we are taking a look at in this review: the Corsair Carbide 600Q Inverse ATX case. Corsair introduced the Carbide 600Q as a high quality product that is focused on utility and low-noise operation. The primary attraction of this case however is its interior design. As the name suggests, the Carbide 600Q has an inversed motherboard tray that, according to the company, should enhance the thermal performance of the system. It goes without saying then that we’ll be paying special attention to that claim for this review, and seeing how it compares against typical ATX designs.

SilverStone Introduces VT01 Mini-STX Chassis for $35

At Computex, SilverStone started to show off its early mini-STX prototype cases. This week it introduced its first commercial product, the VT01. The new PC case inherits classic design elements of SilverStone chassis and despite the fact that Mini-STX is mainly intended for system integrators, SilverStone plans to sell its VT01 in retail as well.

Mini-STX is the latest iteration of form factor for motherboards, decreasing from the 17cm x 17cm of the mini-ITX into a 12.7cm square by ditching the full-length PCIe port as well as moving the power into an external brick for a DC-input. At Computex, especially at vendors such as Silverstone and ECS (who works closely with Intel for the NUC), Mini-STX was being pushed as the platform to have in certain commercial verticals, such as digital signage, where power and adjustability are important. It aims to fit above the Core-M mini-PCs in that regard. 

While the interest for small form-factor PCs is increasing mainly because such systems are small, energy-efficient, and provide good enough level of performance, there is another reason for their growing popularity. Highly-integrated systems are usually pretty inexpensive and have additional flexibility to adjust the socketable CPU in the Mini-STX form-factor. Style, affordability and a certain degree of flexibility is what SilverStone hopes the VT01 is all about.

SilverStone’s VT01 chassis is made of 0.8 mm stainless steel and a weight just 582 grams. The case can fit in one Mini-STX motherboard with a cooler that is no higher than 34 mm as well as one 2.5” SSD or HDD. Theoretically, high-performance 34-mm coolers (such as Scythe Kodati) can support CPUs with up to 65 W TDP, hence, VT01-based Mini-STX systems can be quite powerful when paired with the appropriate hardware. The VT01 has one USB Type-A as well as one USB Type-C ports in addition to an audio in and audio out. Besides, the case has VESA mount mechanism. Initially SilverStone plans to offer the silver version of the case, but shortly it also plans to debut the black one. We also saw a blue one at Computex, which may come later.

Since the case is very small, it naturally does not cost a lot: the manufacturer intends to charge $35 for it in the U.S., once it is available in approximately three weeks from now. In Europe, the case will be available late in September.

Gallery: Silverstone Introduces Vital VT101 Mini-STX Chassis for $35

The BitFenix Pandora ATX Case Review

BitFenix owes a lot of their recent success as a company to the Pandora. It is a case that was loved for its design and price to performance ratio. However, the Pandora was compact and could only take up to Micro ATX motherboards, with limited expanda…