Introduction

Ever since I put Corsair's 600T SE to use in my daily life, it gave me a whole new appreciation for white chassis designs. Where most of the white themed chassis' on the market today are completely white inside and out, it makes the chassis almost sterile looking and reminds me of a hospital environment. An ingenious thing about the 600T is that both the exterior and the interior are a blend of either full on black, or full on white panels and ventilated areas. This mix of large patches of black against the overall white paint job of the case take it to a level of excellence that other manufacturers seem to have missed in their white chassis offerings.

We aren't looking at a Graphite series chassis today, though, we are looking at the second chassis in the Carbide series. For those who follow what I write about, the 400R wasn't all that long ago. In my time looking up information on the 400R, I found myself sitting there admiring its bigger brother more than I was actually looking into the 400R. My feelings were even written when I reviewed the first in the Carbide series that while the 400R offers plenty of bang for the buck, I wanted to see this version of a similarly designed chassis to give a more informed answer as to which of the two I would put my money on.

Even though there is a black and a white version of today's sample, Corsair was nice enough to send me the Arctic White version of the 500R from their Carbide series. This is why I brought up the 600T SE in the first place. I already have a handle on what a white chassis from Corsair can look like day to day, but this time I get a different approach in style to basically the same idea. The wait is over, and I finally get to see just what sets these two chassis' apart and what makes up the price difference. Hopefully in that process I can also give you my perspective as to why you should be willing to spend a little more and use the 500R over the 400R.