Final Thoughts
As I mentioned silent cases are nothing new, I think silent cases really started with Antec and they had some great models. Fractal Design, be quiet!, and Phanteks now offer silent cases, so it is no surprise that Corsair is throwing their hat in the bag. Corsair’s approach is a little different though, they not only wanted to make a silent case, but one that has some current features, mainly the large tempered glass window.
As far as being a silent case Corsair accomplishes that with the 678C. Our test system was extremely quiet and this has a lot to do with the sound-dampening material on the front, top, and back side panel of the case. Half the time I couldn’t even tell if my system was turned on.
Silence is great, but it does come at the expense of airflow. With the front door closed you really don’t have much of an intake and with the top silent cover you block off most of the top cooling in the case. So if you are running multiple GPUS, a hot processor, or even a lot of hard drives you could run into temperature issues. Now if you are gaming or doing anything CPU-intensive you can just open up the front of the case and take off the silent top cover and you should be fine, remember you are getting three included 140 mm fans with this case.
When it comes to storage you can actually install nine hard drives in this case and even a 5.25-inch device if you want. I love cases that offer this amount of storage, but one thing I found odd is that if you plan on not using one of the hard drive trays and want to remove it you are stuck with a hole in your case, the extra covers which you need are not included with this case. Another thing I was not the biggest fan of was the plastic SSD mounts. While their design makes it very easy to install drives, one they are made of plastic, and two your drives can easily more around in them.
At the end of the day I would call the 678C more of a hybrid case. It is not completely made to be silent as it has that large tempered glass side panel so it appeals to not only those who want silence, but also those who want to show off their system. Since it sits sort of in the middle there Corsair might be shooting themselves in the foot as those are two distinctly different groups. There are better silent cases out there and there are better high storage capacity flashy cases out there, but if you want the best of both worlds the Corsair Carbide 678C might be for you. Right now it is selling at our favorite online retailer for $179.99. Overall ThinkComputers gives the Corsair Carbide Series 678C Case an 8 out of 10 score.
Pros:
– Sleek design
– Very quiet during operation
– Room inside for 9 hard drives
– Three included fans and 6-fan controller
– Lots of room inside for watercooling
– USB Type-C connector
– Door and side panel very easy to open
Cons:
– Better silent options out there
– Plastic SSD mounts
– Extra covers not included if you plan to remove any of the 3.5-inch drive mounts
