Corsair Carbide Series Spec-04 Tempered Glass Review

Manufacturer: Corsair

UK price (as reviewed): £59.99 (inc. VAT)

US price (as reviewed): TBC

You won’t win any prizes for guessing that in making this case, Corsair has taken the original Spec-04 design and fitted it with a tempered glass side panel, presumably in a bid to stay on-trend. The material is finding its way into nearly every case at the moment and is no longer reserved for premium models. The £60 price tag puts the Spec-04 Tempered Glass in amongst a decent selection of other entry-level mid-towers, including the recently reviewed Antec P8.

Other than the glass panel, the Spec-04 remains unchanged from its initial implementation. You have an angular front panel that’s roughly half mesh and half solid and comes with a red trim, and this is fitted to a mostly plain steel chassis with an extruded right side panel. The mildly tinted glass does add to the case’s build quality, which is a good thing, because elsewhere it’s a little underwhelming. It isn’t poorly made, but the steel and plastic feel fairly cheap, and the case is tellingly light without its glass panel. We’re happy that Corsair has at least tipped the case feet with rubber instead of foam or nothing at all, though.

With the glass panel being on the left side of the case as usual, most people are likely to want to position it to their right. Arguably, this makes the positioning of the I/O panel on the right side problematic. It’s also a negative that only one of the two USB ports meets the 3.0 standard.

We’ve long been proponents of the idea that if your case is only going to have one fan, it should be a rear exhaust one. Corsair seems to disagree, however, as the sole 120mm fan here is mounted as a front intake. We suspect the priority here was aesthetics, as it’s a red LED fan that glows menacingly through the somewhat aggressive front panel, but it’s likely to affect CPU temperatures.

The roof is a basic steel affair with mounting points for two 120mm fans punched through it. No dust filter is provided here, not even a simple external magnetic one, so dust has an easy route in. The front mesh at least has some filtering material built in, and there’s a simple slide-out filter for the PSU as well – clearance here is a little tight but it works well enough.

Specifications

• Dimensions (mm) 196 x 484 x 433 (W x D x H)
  
• Material Steel, plastic, tempered glass
  
• Available colours Black with red
  
• Weight ~5.27kg
  
• Front panel Power, reset, 1 x USB 3.0, 1 x USB 2.0, headphone, microphone
  
• Drive bays 3 x 3.5"/2.5", 2 x 2.5"
  
• Form factor(s) ATX, micro-ATX, mini-ITX
  
• Cooling 2 x 140mm/120mm front fan mounts (1 x 120mm red LED fan included), 1 x 120mm rear fan mount, 2 x 120mm roof fan mounts (fans not included)
  
• CPU cooler clearance ~150mm
  
• Maximum graphics card length 370mm
  
• Extras Removable dust filters