Corsair is answering the call for builders who want to assemble a compact PC inside a glass chassis with its new Crystal Series 280X, a small form factor case available with or without RGB lighting.
The 280X looks like a cube from certain angles, though it's actually rectangular in shape, measuring 398mm x 276mm x 351mm. A large tempered glass side panel provides a clear view of the interior, with glass on the front and top of the case as well.
Corsair utilizes a dual chamber design, though rather than separating the sections into top and bottom chambers as found on many mid-tower cases, the 280X consists of left and right chambers.
"A dual-chamber design keeps your system’s core hardware, such as motherboard, CPU and graphics card, on display and directly cooled by up to six cooling fans, with support for multiple 240mm liquid cooling radiators. Meanwhile, the power supply, drives and cabling are easily concealed in the rear chamber, with plenty of room for cable routing that means even a first-time builder can create a clean looking system," Corsair explains.
The right chamber also houses the storage drives—you can install up to two 3.5-inch hard drives and three 2.5-inch solid state drives in the 280X. As for the motherboard, the case can accommodate micro-ATX and mini-ITX boards, but not full-size ATX ones.
Both the 280X and 280X RGB come with a pair of 120mm cooling fans installed in the front. As the name implies, the fans in the 280X RGB are LED fans, and it also comes with Corsair's Lighting Node Pro digital RGB controller. Used in conjunction with Corsair's iCUE software, you can sync your lighting to other compatible Corsair products, and create custom presets that react to system temps.
It costs a little extra for the RGB lighting—the Crystal 280X is available now for $109.99, and the Crystal 280X RGB for $159.99.
