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So I wanted to go to a SFF system where I could do water cooling and have full size video cards.
I have always liked the corsair cases so I went with the Obsidian 250D even though most people complain that it is too big.
So here is my mini build log.

Corsair Obsidian 250D
Asus Z87I-Deluxe
i7 4770k
Samsung 830 120GB
WD caviar black 500GB
Corsair H60
NZXT 200mm case fan
Corsair 8GB ddr3
gigabyte HD7950

Upgrading front intake fan.


I want to say even though this accepted a 200mm fan in the front, The holes did not line up so I had to rig it slightly.
Took off all sides.

Motherboard slides in with tons of empty room

Started installing memory and hooking up some connections.

Went to install hydro and had trouble putting it where the current 120mm fan is I had to move it to the fron to the tubes didn't hit any parts.

Video card fits with room to spare.

And complete it goes.




So I love the case it is very roomy yet still much smaller than my old case.
The motherboard has AC wireless so I can move it anywhere in my house.
Biggest gripes about it are it is kind of hard to have good cable management. You have to just feed them behind the front fan and hope they stay put. Plus you have to be careful about what fan you want to install since the screws may not line up.
Also I have 2 Zalman 80mm fans on the way to exhaust more air out the back.
I would recommend this case for anyone who wants a gaming rig in SFF style.
But I would stay away if this is your first PC build. Some of the case gets hard to move around.
And it is kind of hard to figure out where all the cabling will end up till you start screwing it back together.

Anyone have any questions let me know.

1) I would NOT recommend installing 80mm fans in the back. You have more than enough exhaust with the radiator and 120mm fan on the side. If you have more exhaust than intake, that nice fan filter on the front won't do a bit of good. In fact, I probably would have removed the 120mm fan altogether and put the radiator in it's place. See Corsair pictures for reference. (they're obviously using a H100i, but you get the idea)
2) A fan grille for the 200mm fan will prevent wires from getting in the way.
3) Those small/thin black zip ties work great for cable routing and keeping them out of the way. With windowed cases, this is especially important. Nice and tidy.

Sweet looking rig!

DPete27 wrote:

1) I would NOT recommend installing 80mm fans in the back. You have more than enough exhaust with the radiator and 120mm fan on the side. If you have more exhaust than intake, that nice fan filter on the front won't do a bit of good. In fact, I probably would have removed the 120mm fan altogether and put the radiator in it's place. See Corsair pictures for reference. (they're obviously using a H100i, but you get the idea)
2) A fan grille for the 200mm fan will prevent wires from getting in the way.
3) Those small/thin black zip ties work great for cable routing and keeping them out of the way. With windowed cases, this is especially important. Nice and tidy.

The Radiator is hooked up with the fan bringing cool air from the outside into the radiator. That is what corsair recommends. The front 200mm is also intake. The only exhaust fan is the second 120mm that is close to the motherboard. That is why i was going to do 2 80mm exhaust.

That 200mm front fan looks like it's setup to exhaust in your photos.

CeeGee wrote:

That 200mm front fan looks like it's setup to exhaust in your photos.

LOL looks like I may have reversed all my fans by accident. YAY now i have to take whole thing apart.

Sorry!

It does look like a very nice PC though.

I have the 350D, I think Corsair do some nice stuff atm.

Wow. Reversed fans the way I originally planned and the idle temp went from 35 to 28

Gandolf wrote:

The Radiator is hooked up with the fan bringing cool air from the outside into the radiator. That is what corsair recommends. The front 200mm is also intake.

Suffice to say that the radiator being located right next to the 200mm fan would mean that if you switched the radiator fan to exhaust, the intake would be fresh air directly from the 200mm fan. Then it wouldn't be pumping the CPU heat into the case either....
My personal preference is to use the least fans possible to achieve an acceptable level of cooling. That keeps the system as quiet as possible. If your 80mm fans are very quiet, I suppose it wouldn't hurt for getting the GPU heat out. But keep in mind, the law of diminishing returns applies to case fans/cooling (maybe installing just the 80mm fan closest to the GPU would do the job?). Cooling is a bit of trial-and-error process to find the perfect balance.

DPete27 wrote:

Gandolf wrote:

The Radiator is hooked up with the fan bringing cool air from the outside into the radiator. That is what corsair recommends. The front 200mm is also intake.

Suffice to say that the radiator being located right next to the 200mm fan would mean that if you switched the radiator fan to exhaust, the intake would be fresh air directly from the 200mm fan. Then it wouldn't be pumping the CPU heat into the case either....
My personal preference is to use the least fans possible to achieve an acceptable level of cooling. That keeps the system as quiet as possible. If your 80mm fans are very quiet, I suppose it wouldn't hurt for getting the GPU heat out. But keep in mind, the law of diminishing returns applies to case fans/cooling (maybe installing just the 80mm fan closest to the GPU would do the job?). Cooling is a bit of trial-and-error process to find the perfect balance.

Well after a trial run with the current setup
front fan intake
radiator intake
second 120mm next to cpu exhaust

I am getting temps a bit lower than I thought I would. But I can't find anyone elses number to see if they are good.
i7 4770k
My idle temps are between 28-30 depending on the temp of the room.
My load temps are not fully tested yet but running prime95 for 30 min it didn't get over 51.
To check temps I used the motherboards monitor utility and HWmonitor.
Are these temps average? High? Low?

Don't know about the temps really, but they seem fine. For a case like that, a blower style GPU cooler that blows the heat straight out of your case may be better, but it really doesn't seem like you have temp issues anyway. Guess you'd need to run a tough GPU benchmark to see how the whole rig holds up.

What about the noise? Decently quiet? I have absolutely no need to do an SFF build, but that's part of what makes it so enticing, right?

quiet really depends. When I am just web browsing it is pretty quiet. But if I start doing high intensity gaming the vide card gets quite loud. Also the DVD drive gets loud as hell when I am playing older games that are not digital. I am wondering if there are quiter drives available, I may buy a blu-ray if they make them quieter.

anyone else have any insight on what temps should be?