Filling out the 800D
OK, time for some hardware to fill this bad boy up. Since the hot-swap bays were just too cool for me to avoid any longer, I started by installing a hard drive.

After a little lever-pull action, the hard drive sleds can be completely removed from the hot-swap area. They're primed to accept 2.5" or 3.5" drives, so there's no need to break out an adapter—or duct tape—to secure an SSD.

Considering that the rest of the Obsidian is a tool-free affair, I was a little surprised to see screws used to secure drives in the hot-swap sleds. The sleds also lack any form of vibration or acoustic dampening; they're just steel and plastic. Plenty of cases offer built-in vibration absorption and tool-free hard drive mounting options, but then few even high-end enclosures have hot-swap caddies and native support for 2.5" drives.

In addition to the four hot-swap bays, two more hard drives can be more permanently installed in the lower area of the case. Oddly, these drives are secured using drive rails that don't require screws.

To access this lower drive area or pop out the necessary knock-outs in the front panel to install a 5.25" drive, you have to remove the front bezel completely. It pops out with a firm push from behind, which isn't nearly as elegant as the button-released side panels. A simple sliding latch held our optical drive from just one side more securely than I expected. I didn't need to add any screws to the right side, but that's an option for those who really want to lock a drive down.

Connecting the motherboard to the hard drives is slightly different when a hot-swap bay is part of the equation. Four circuit boards host power and data plugs for the corresponding hot-swap bays, and Corsair provides a strip of SATA power connectors that neatly delivers juice to all four bays. Users need only to connect a single power cable along with the data cables, which simplifies things a little and makes for cleaner cabling overall.

The power supply was the next component to go into the system, but I didn't get far before running into a small snafu. Without any extra wiggle room, I started by securing one of the top corners of the power supply. The Enermax unit's top mounting holes just barely lined up with the holes in the back plate of the case, and the bottom holes were far enough off that I couldn't get one of the screws to start. Eventually, I was able to muscle the screw in by manhandling the PSU a bit, but it wasn't easy. Most of the other cases I've worked with have larger screw holes with a little extra tolerance.

Installing the rest of the components in the Obsidian was pretty unremarkable, save for the ease with which I was able to run cables neatly behind the motherboard tray.

Between the modular cables of our Enermax power supply and the massive size and routing features of the Corsair case, this was probably the easiest build I've ever done. I was particularly impressed that even a standard IDE ribbon cable nearly vanished in the Obsidian.

One could certainly do a better job of tidying things up behind the motherboard tray, but the best part of Corsair's approach to cable clutter cleanup is that it's easy to sweep cabling under the rug, so to speak. A few of our cables were just barely long enough to reach their destinations, including both motherboard power leads and our optical drive's power cable. Cable reach is bound to be a problem in a taller case that mounts the PSU below the motherboard and encourages indirect cable paths, but with a little extra planning, I suspect few folks will have a hard time making all the necessary connections.

The Obsidian's fan wiring is a little different than what I've commonly seen on other high-end cases. The Lian Li X500, Antec P180 series, and Thermaltake Spedo all use fans that plug directly into the power supply, while the 800D's fans have three-pin connectors designed to hook into a motherboard. You'll need at least three onboard headers to power the fans or an adapter for your PSU.

After finishing the build, I put the left panel back on and marveled at the size of the Obsidian once more. Notice how even our monstrous Noctua CPU cooler looks reasonably sized inside the 800D.

Speaking of monstrous, it's worth noting that the Obsidian can accommodate larger Extended ATX motherboards. There's also clearance for expansion cards as long as 15 inches, which is plenty of room for even workstation-class graphics cards.