Installation/Performance

To test out the 350D I installed our Haswell test bench inside the case. Between the GTX 580 and the tower Noctua heatsink it should see how well everything fits inside of the 350D. I started off by installing our motherboard/heatsink/ram/CPU combo into the 350D and I noticed right away that the fit was a little tighter than normal with the armor on our Gryphon. This isn’t something that will be an issue with other boards though and I was still able to get it in after a little time. From there I put in the GTX 580 without any issues, in fact if you look there is more space than I know what to do with. Then it was time to get the PSU in and start wiring everything up, to no surprise the wire management was amazing on the 350D. The space behind the motherboard tray combined with the grommeted holes made getting a clean install easy to do for anyone who was willing to give even half effort. Lastly I dropped in our SDD in the tool-less trays. All in all I don’t think you could ask for an easier install, especially in a smaller case where you would normally run into trouble making the install look clean.

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With everything in I did notice that our 120mm Noctua NH-U12S just barely fit in the case when it was all said and done. This explains the tight fit with the 120mm read exhaust fan as well. If I were to try our 140mm heatsink there is no way it would fit so please keep that in mind if you go with the 2350S. Really though, I think a lot of people are going to be looking at water cooling in this case. There is enough room for a decent 240mm or 280mm kit right on the top or if you don’t need the 3.5 inch drive bays you could work some magic there as well. With the clearances being so tight with that rear exhaust fan I have a feeling that mounting water cooling there is going to be a little too tight though.

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So with everything together how did it all perform? Well with just two fans noise wasn’t too much of an issue. The two fans did cool enough to get the job done as well but I have a feeling that if you were to pack in a pair of hot cards things might get a little warm if you don’t add more. With the two USB 3.0 ports on the front you will have access to fast ports if you need them but I can’t help but miss having 4 ports on the front, even if two of them had to be USB 2.0. The power button felt a little cheap in use to me, I would love to see that whole area re thought out. All in all it performed well with just a few small nit-picks.

 

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garfi3ld's Avatar
garfi3ld replied the topic: #33030 01 Oct 2013 21:29
I take a look at Corsairs mid tower offering

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