Corsair Releases Value-Priced Carbide SPEC-05 Mid-Tower Case
by Joe Shields on May 8, 2018 5:00 PM EST- Posted in
- Cases/Cooling/PSUs
- Gaming
- Corsair
- mid-tower
- Water Cooling
- Carbide
Corsair announced the release of a new case in the Carbide series, which they've named the SPEC-05 Mid-Tower Gaming Case. The $50 chassis adds to Corsair's SPEC value segment with a new exterior design as well as continued flexibility on the interior. The case supports Mini-ITX, MicroATX, and ATX sized boards, has room for up to a 240mm radiator as well as multiple hard drives and SSDs. The exterior uses an edge to edge windowed side panel and smooth flowing design on the front with an asymmetrical line down the front giving way to an attractive and inexpensive chassis.
The edge to edge window design on the tinted side panel will give users an unobstructed view of the interior. The side panel is held on by flat screws requiring a tool to remove. The front panel of the case has a smooth look with a line slicing through the front. Behind it, the included 120mm red RGB fan peeks through the perforated mesh which makes the line. Additional intakes are found on both side of the front panel and include a removable dust filter with another keeping dust out of the PSU on the bottom. Though there is minimal filtering through the mesh on the front, a dust filter is found on the bottom of the case for the power supply. On the top of the case, Corsair has two USB ports, one USB 3.0, one 2.0, along with headphone and microphone jacks, as well as power and reset buttons.
Inside the case, Corsair talks about wire management using multiple tie-down points and cable routing holes to neatly tuck the cables away for any size board. The right side panel also sticks out to allow for more cables to fit without the bowing we sometimes see out of a flat panel. There is a hard drive tray at the bottom front capable of holding three 3.5-inch and two 2.5" drives. Fan support is plentiful with up to six fans (3 Front, 2 Top, 1 Rear - one) when the hard drive cage removed (five otherwise). Corsair states radiator compatibility is 120mm, 140mm, or 240mm with placement in the rear (120mm) or the front (up to 240mm). The SPEC-05 is able to support video cards up to 14.5" long and CPU heatsinks up to 150mm tall.
Users are not going to find multiple included RGB fans, fan controllers, or USB3.1 ports at this price point, but for $50 the SPEC-05 checks off enough boxes for a good entry in the value segment.
| Corsair Carbide SPEC-05 | ||
| Model | SPEC-05 | |
| Case Type | Mid-Tower | |
| Dimensions | (W)199mm (H)433mm (D)483mm |
|
| Color | Black | |
| Material | Steel, Plastic, Acrylic | |
| Net Weight | ~4kg | |
| External Drive Bays | None | |
| HDD/SSD Bays | 5 (2 x 3.5" + 3 x 2.5") | |
| Expansion Slots | 7 | |
| Motherboard Type | Mini-ITX, MicroATX, ATX | |
| System Fan | Front: 3x 120mm / 2x 140mm Top: 2x 140/120mm Rear: 1x 120mm |
|
| I/O Ports | 1x USB3.0 1x USB 2.0 HD Audio Power/Reset Buttons |
|
| VGA Card Support | (L)370mm | |
| CPU Cooling Support | (H)150mm | |
| PSU Support/ | ATX PSU,(L)180mm | |
| Radiator Support | Front: 240mm Rear: 120mm |
|
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Source: Corsair
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peevee - Tuesday, May 8, 2018 - link
It is past time to retire ATX everything. And ITX is not a replacement. Everything has changed since 1990s, and yet they keep that incredibly outdated standard...milkywayer - Tuesday, May 8, 2018 - link
Big companies, please make a sub 10 litre sff case like the Louqe Ghost or the Dan Case A4. I and many others will happily pay $50 extra.peevee - Wednesday, May 9, 2018 - link
It is not so much about volume. It is how much table space a modern ATX case steals. And it is because of ATX standard (on MB etc).ITX has the same problem plus only 2 dimms.
I'd like to have on the new MB standard:
1) single-height, peripheral-only output.
2) standard location of CPU for direct outlet for CPU cooler.
3) 4 dimm/SODIMM slots around the CPU in the square for the shortest possible paths (and thus latency and reliable signal frequency).
4) Just 20V external power supply, for simple power supply, compatible with USB PD for low-power applications. 12, 3.3 etc will have to be on the MB.
5) 3-part PC assembly - base with optional power supply and storage bays, MB with the external border, standard top.
6) 2 single-width PCIe slots (or one for double-width). Possibly even oriented left and right (if MB is placed horizontally). Because in 90% of PCs they will be empty.
mr_tawan - Tuesday, May 8, 2018 - link
I want to run a Core-i7 on my phone.peevee - Wednesday, May 9, 2018 - link
Samsung M3 or Apple A11 are already like core i7 from a few years back.Dragonstongue - Tuesday, May 8, 2018 - link
I still use ATX just because of the size capacity compared to smaller cases which tend to be far too cramped.....nice case and all, but seriously if you go an put a hole on the very top of the case at the very least include a filter for it without the user having to go out an buy one, would cost a maker all of about $.05 to include one, even if it was a "cheap one" as long as it works,
150mm for cpu cooler height is bleck, it may allow "most" users that are only using boxed coolers and some shorter aftermarket coolers, but, most decent coolers all tend to be 155mm or taller. value priced or not (likely depends on where you live cause it might be $50 USD, but the moment it hits other countries shores they have to add a "luxury cost" to it, so a $50 bargain becomes a $105-$120 cost which than becomes no longer a budget/value case when it goes up against superior designs
I say superior as far as what is "in the box" such as Fractal Design Define C which has some of the best filtering included in the package as well as 2 pretty decent 120mm fans, it may not be "as roomy" as others, but comes at a very close price point.
anyways, good start, but they really should have added that 1 or 2 more touches to price it even at $60 to include them makes it from a "meeh just another case" to "hey this would be good for a bargain pc build case"
AdrianB1 - Tuesday, May 8, 2018 - link
I cannot use such a case for my NAS because it does not have enough 3.5" HDD bays. It does not make sense to use it for my desktop because it is too big for the mATX board with m2 SSD and a single expansion card, the video card.But I do not understand why they put one USB3 and one USB2 ports when the onboard sockets are dual-USB3 and dual-USB2, so you waste one port from each. Today I have 6 front ports on my old Antec case, 2 from the case and 2 extra panels (3'5") of 2 ports. 4 ports are always used.
DanNeely - Wednesday, May 9, 2018 - link
as far as the drive bays go, it's a budget model, extra cages that won't be used by 99% of the people who buy it are an easy way to cut the cost by a buck or two. I suspect cost cuttting's also to blame for the retarded USB situation. The only thing that's an upspend on this model is the giant window.Hxx - Wednesday, May 9, 2018 - link
I have the spec 04 for which i paid about 25 bux and use it as a mining rig / NAS device. Its fine for a nas device because i can use 3 HDD in raid 5 and thats fine for me (i have 8 TB of space). Its also a small ATX form factor case perhaps not as small as a normal mini itx enclosure but it takes a standard size board and its smaller than most ATX sized enclosures. Its also a budget enclosure so there are compromises, like the top is deceiving because you can only fit fans, no room for rads, no dust filters , no cable maangement , no psu shroud etc, so for the price im glad it even has usb 3.0 and even a TG panel but its the same as the previous spec 04 enclosure. Personally i would go with the spec 04 that is often on sale because the only thing i see they changed is the front which to me it looks different not betterleviathanprym - Friday, May 11, 2018 - link
another case with a blocked off front panel and shite airflow.