Corsair Air 5400 evaluate
I’ve waited for over a decade for a real successor to the Corsair Carbide Air 540. With loads of room for storage, followers, and a disk drive in its dual-chamber design, the Air 540 was an amazing decide for my very own PC again in 2014. Although I’ve since moved on, and that case has been caught in storage for years. Now, lastly—lastly—now we have a real successor within the Corsair Air 5400.
The Air 5400 is not only a rerun of outdated concepts. It is nonetheless a stocky cuboid, however the place the Air 540 championed a dual-chamber design that has develop into the norm for PC instances, the Air 5400 gives a triple-chamber design. Consider it like three distinct zones: there’s the primary one, for exhibiting off your construct; the rear one, with loads of room for cable administration; and a 3rd one, for mounting an all-in-one liquid cooler’s radiator inside.
It is a slick answer. The radiator is mounted towards the entrance of the case, behind a detachable grill. There is a clear plastic duct sitting simply behind the radiator, which vents out of the case by way of a big opening from the highest to the underside of the case—the novelty of this has not but worn on for me and I nonetheless ceaselessly stick my hand in it.
Corsair Air 5400 specs
Kind: Dice
Dimensions: 467 x 470 x 340
Motherboard assist: Mini-ITX, Micro-ATX, ATX, E-ATX (+ reverse connector)
Radiator assist: Devoted chamber (as much as 360 mm)
Fan assist: 3x 120 mm (high), 3x 120 mm (backside)
Entrance I/O: 1x USB-3.2 Gen2x2, 1x USB 3.2 Gen1, 1x HD Audio
Max. GPU size: 360 mm
Weight: 16.7 kg
Coloration: Black/white
Worth: w/ LX-R RGB: $310/£285 | w/ RS-R ARGB: $230/£240
Cooler set up is a little more concerned than regular, requiring feeding the liquid cooler pump and cooling by way of to the primary chamber whereas securing the radiator into place. A detachable mounting plate helps a bunch right here, as I will mount the followers and radiator to it, then match the remaining to the case with solely two screws.
The Air 5400 is a comparatively tool-free design. Apart from the odd screw used within the preliminary set up, entry to the within of this PC is comparatively unfettered. The panels will be pulled away along with your naked arms, and the windowed facet panel swings open on a hinge. And I am but to say certainly one of my favorite particulars: the smaller glass panel making up the front-left of the case can also be on a hinge and swings open, exposing your complete important chamber for simple tinkering. The rear panel, too, is hinged—as long as you permit affordable area across the Air 5400 for the so-called French doorways, it is extraordinarily straightforward to work on in a pinch.
Corsair calls these French doorways and I am surprisingly okay with this degree of pomposity right here.
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The three chambers are separated from one another by a novel brush design—a minimum of I’ve not used a case with something remotely related. The nylon bristles on this case work one thing like a letterbox right here within the UK, blocking out drafts and preserving mud and light-weight from reaching inside. If this is not a factor in your nation, I invoke you to go looking ‘UK letterbox bristles’ for an actual thrill. It is a intelligent answer for a PC case, masking the gaps left by cables higher than most grommets. I am stunned it is not used extra usually.
Between panoramic windowed panels and straightforward cable administration, it is simple to construct a great-looking gaming PC within the Air 5400. A giant a part of that attraction is the simple structure. It is a chimney design, supposed for cool air to enter by way of the underside of the case and scorching air to be exhausted out from the highest, by way of the 3x 120 mm followers mounted at each areas.
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Moreover, in a barely uncommon try to assist airflow, the Air 5400 contains two ducts, as Corsair calls them, surrounding every set of followers. The concept behind these ducts is that, by containing the airflow generated by the followers, it is higher directed on the graphics card and motherboard, moderately than wasted out the perimeters. The ducts look surprisingly elegant; every incorporates a repeating Corsair ‘Y’ motif that disappears as they taper.
It is a clear look. Furthermore, I’ve no complaints concerning thermals.
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I take advantage of varied mixtures of chips and coolers for testing instances—what I’ve handy on the time, largely. On this case, I’ve put in the Corsair Nautilus 360 RS. Regardless of utilizing one of many extra power-hungry Ryzen processors on this machine, the Ryzen 9 9950X3D, it ran at one of many lowest temperatures I’ve recorded of any construct previously yr. A most CPU temperature of simply 72 °C throughout our benchmarking suite, which incorporates a number of taxing runs of Cinebench 2024. The RTX 5090 FE I’ve used right here hit simply 73 °C—round 5 °C cooler than our open take a look at bench in related assessments.
I’ve added additional followers to finish this construct that aren’t included with the case as customary, and anybody buying this case will want a minimum of three extra followers. There are 9 120 mm followers inside this machine: six in the primary chamber and three on the radiator. Solely three of these are included with the case. The opposite six are LX120 RGB followers that I’ve added individually.
For these three included followers, there are two choices obtainable: LX-R RGB iCUE Hyperlink followers or RS-R ARGB followers. My choice being the non-iCUE fashions, as these are the cheaper of the 2 choices, do not require iCUE, and will be picked up individually for much less. Although I am glad to see reversed followers as customary in a case that completely requires them to look its greatest. For an concept of what I imply, the Hyte X50 seems worse than it ought to for an absence of reverse followers.
Corsair has included some upgrades behind-the-scenes, too. The rear chamber is hidden from sight by way of a hinged panel, for a begin. Corsair is utilizing what it calls RapidRoute 2.0 within the Air 5400. What it means by that is the motherboard tray has a sort-of pegboard design; it is a checkboard of holes for putting in zip-ties or shifting across the ratcheted straps included with the case. These come preinstalled on a cable tidy tray that juts out at an angle from the case and follows the angle of the duct for the radiator.
You are by no means removed from a spot to tie a cable down within the Air 5400. That stated, there’s no need for a lot cable administration in any respect. Every little thing will be secured by way of the offered straps on the cable tray, with ample room beneath the PSU that is virtually surplus to requirement in a standard PC construct.
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The ability provide is mounted excessive up within the case, which shortens the cable run to the CPU connectors however requires a little bit of a stretch for the 12V-2×6 cable. Nothing to fret about, nor do I really feel I am placing an excessive amount of strain on the graphics card’s energy connection, however I did should tinker round with the cable placement and straps to get it sitting in the precise place with loads of slack.
As I discussed, there’s a great deal of room beneath the PSU. As customary, it is partially stuffed up with a storage tray, however it may be eliminated with two thumbscrews if surplus to requirement. This tray helps two 2.5-inch SSDs, a single 3.5-inch HDD, and/or an iCUE System Hub. I did not require the latter as I used to be utilizing Corsair’s new PSU, the HX1200i Shift, which incorporates an iCUE System Hub itself.
Purchase if…
✅ You liked the Air 540: Very similar to its forebear, the Air 5400 is a sturdy dice with heaps of cooling potential.
Do not buy if…
❌ You need larger followers: Attributable to its uncommon ducts, the Air 5400 is proscribed to 120 mm followers all through.
Aspect be aware: in case you are excited about utilizing iCUE in your system management, the HX1200i Shift saves on among the cable mess however is mighty costly.
There are a few issues I do not like concerning the Air 5400. It weighs so much, at 16.7 kg, and the entrance panel solely gives Kind-C ports: 1x USB 3.2 Gen 2 and 2x USB 3.2 Gen 1. Whereas I do respect Corsair driving common adoption of the Kind-C connector, I don’t personal strictly Kind-C units. I nonetheless have a number of Kind-A units that I used to plug into the entrance panel, akin to thumb drives. Alas, sometime quickly I am going to ditch Kind-A for good. That will likely be a superb day.
I respect the inclusion of a built-in GPU bracket, too, although the restricted changes it gives imply it does not at all times play properly with some fashions of graphics card. It sorta simply stabs straight into the fan on an RTX 50-series Founders Version.
However for largely minor complaints, I can discover way more to go with on the Air 5400. It is spacious, stocky and has included inside it some real improvements. The separate chamber for a radiator is great for managing thermals and sustaining a clear aesthetic. Furthermore, small-scale improvements like RapidRoute 2.0, which saves time through the construct course of, or the nylon brushes to separate the chambers, are all very welcome additions I want to see filter into extra instances.
That is Corsair’s case design at its greatest, bringing collectively a number of concepts into one thing fairly extraordinary.
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