Corsair launched a new 5000 series chassis during LAST YEAR's CES, including 5000D, 5000D AirFlow, and iCUE 5000X RGB. A year later, the series welcomed the new "family member" iCUE 5000T RGB. Its name is only a word away from the iCUE 5000X RGB, and it is also a mid-tower chassis, so in what ways has it changed? Let's find out.
Parameter specifications
Size: 520mm×245mm×521mm
Fuselage material: steel plate, plastic, tempered glass
Compatible form factor: E-ATX/ATX/M-ATX/Mini-ITX
Hard drive positions: 3.5 inches× 2 or 2.5 inches×5
Heat dissipation position: Front: 120mm fan×3 (3 L120mm fans pre-installed)
Top: 120mm fan ×3 or 140mm×2
Rear: 120mm fan ×1
Motherboard bay: 120mm×3 (cable cover must be removed)
PCI Extension: 2 vertical
Horizontal 7
CPU heatsink height limit: 170mm
Graphics card length limit: 400mm
Power limit length: 250mm
I/O接口：USB 3.0 Type-A Gen 1×4、USB 3.1 Type-C Gen 2×1、3.5mm音频×1
Warranty period: 2 years
Reference price: 2399 yuan (black) / 2599 (white)
Hard-hitting style, solid workmanship
Readers familiar with the Corsair chassis know that its products are designed with a hard-hitting style, as does the iCUE 5000T RGB. iCUE 5000T RGB adopts a black appearance, the body size is 520mm×245mm×521mm, and the weight has reached about 14kg, and the weight of the fuselage can reflect the solidity of its materials to a certain extent. Its main body material is composed of three kinds of materials: steel plate, plastic and tempered glass, the exterior is mainly plastic and tempered glass, and the interior is mainly steel. Among them, the thickness of tempered glass is 4mm, and the thickness of the internal hardware steel plate is about 1mm.
Unlike some chassis of Corsair, which have a simple design, the iCUE 5000T RGB pays more attention to design. Its front face part adopts a large number of groove design, such as on both sides of the chassis, the use of three-stage irregular grooves, the middle of the front face is equipped with a whole ventilation filter, not only can filter dust, but also through the filter to see the fan lighting effect inside the chassis. Its filter has a magnetic design that can be gently cut open from the top, making it very easy to remove to clean the dust.
▲The front face adopts a large number of groove design, and the application of a full filter, magnetic design is convenient for cleaning dust.
At the top of the chassis, the iCUE 5000T RGB differs from the design of many chassis individually removable filters in that it uses the top cover as a whole. The user can open the top cover with a slight upward force from the tail, and when the top cover is opened, you can see that there is a magnetic filter under it, and the double filter can effectively filter dust. At the same time, this tool-free removal method also contributes to the convenience of the user when installing the machine, such as the user can install the top fan or water-cooled radiator more conveniently.
▲The top cover of the chassis adopts a snap design, which can be cut up directly from the tail with a little force.
In addition, the chassis I / O interface is still designed in the front position of the top of the chassis, it is equipped with 4 USB 3.0 Type-A Gen1 and 1 USB 3.1 Type-C Gen 2 and 1 3.5mm audio interface, you can see that its number of interfaces is very rich, and the more popular Type-C interface is also equipped. At the same time, the feedback of the power button and the restart key is also very crisp, and the pressure rebounds quickly, and there is no sense of stuckness like the ordinary chassis.
▲The I/O interface of the chassis is very rich, and the types are relatively complete.
The iCUE 5000T RGB is excellent in terms of workmanship, such as the gap in the opening area is just right, and there are no burrs and craters in the corners, and the side panels on the outside of the chassis are painted to the touch.
Side panels with side door opening type, more convenient to switch
The iCUE 5000T RGB features a full-sided, permeable tempered glass side panel on the left side of the chassis (on the side of the mounting motherboard), while the other side uses plain steel side panels. It is worth mentioning that the side panels on both sides of the iCUE 5000T RGB use the highly acclaimed side door opening design, which can be opened as quickly as the door when disassembling and disassembling without tightening the screws. This design is more convenient for installing, removing, and overhauling hardware.
▲The side panel of the chassis adopts hinges, which are very convenient to open and close in the way of side doors.
This design is not the first time we have seen it in the iCUE 5000T RGB, and we have seen the same design on previous CRYSTAL 680X RGB chassis. Compared with the ordinary screw fixing method, although the side door design is more convenient, but because it will increase the hinge and other structures, the cost will increase, so this side door type design is still only in use by many high-end chassis.
Spacious with pre-installed RGB fans and light strips
Through the tempered glass, you can see the internal space design layout of the iCUE 5000T RGB, which adopts a typical ATX2.0 structure, the power supply is down, and has an independent power supply compartment, including the hard disk cage and the power compartment form a single. Above is the board area, the board area has no other ancillary design, giving people a very transparent feeling.
▲ 2.5-inch hard disk slot on the back.
Although the iCUE 5000T RGB is an ATX chassis positioned in the mid-tower, it is larger than the ordinary ATX chassis in terms of space, and can support a motherboard with a maximum of 305mm × 272mm E-ATX form factor, compatible with ATX, M-ATX and Mini-ITX motherboards, that is to say, it basically meets the needs of the vast majority of players in terms of motherboards. In addition, it is compatible with 400mm long graphics cards and 170mm high processor heatsinks through actual measurements, enough for users to install flagship graphics cards and high-end tower heatsinks.
▲The space inside the chassis is very large, and there is enough space even if it is installed with split water cooling.
In terms of heat dissipation, the iCUE 5000T RGB has been pre-installed with three LL120 RGB fans numbered "31-004802" on the front of the chassis to support lighting effect adjustment. The fan uses hydraulic bearings with a nominal noise value of 24.8db(A) and a speed range of 600 to 1500 rpm, providing air volume up to 43.25cfm. Don't underestimate these 3 fans, the retail price of only 3 fans is close to 700 yuan. In addition, the iCUE 5000T RGB is equipped with RGB light strips on both sides of the front, top and bottom of the chassis, which are combined with RGB fans to make the lighting effect shine more brightly.
▲ Pre-installed 3 LL120 fans, their price alone reached about 700 yuan.
In addition to the 3 fans pre-installed at the front, you can also install 3 120mm or 2 140mm cooling fans on the top, of course, we also recommend installing a 360mm integrated water cooling, and the rear supports the installation of 120mm fan.
▲ After installing a 315mm long graphics card, there is still nearly 100mm of spare space.
It is worth mentioning that the motherboard bay in the chassis can also be equipped with 3 120mm fans (the cable cover must be removed). After installing a cooling fan in all fan positions of the chassis, a relatively three-dimensional cooling air duct will be formed, forming a good cooling environment for the hardware in the chassis. Of course, if you want to install a unified cooling fan, then the cost on the fan is not low.
Built-in lighting controller to support temperature monitoring
Corsair iCUE 5000T RGB Is pre-installed with RGB lighting cooling fans, and it can also support intelligent control. On the back of the chassis, it is equipped with an intelligent lighting controller called iCUE Commander Core XT, which is the core control system of the entire lighting effect system. Compared with corsair's previous chassis with the iCUE Lighting Node Core controller, the iCUE Commander Core XT is more powerful, the controller can be directly inserted into the same RGB fans (4-pin connector) and multiple RGB strips, without the need for a fan hub to control the RGB lighting effect. At the same time, the controller also has 2 temperature sensors to accurately monitor the system temperature, and the cable of the sensor is long enough that you can install it in the area you want to monitor. After installing Corsair's iCUE software, it can not only create personalized lighting effects, but also automatically control the fan speed.
▲ Corsair iCUE 5000T RGB is equipped with an iCUE Commander Core XT intelligent lighting controller, which is more powerful than the previous iCUE Lighting Node Core controller.
We know that Corsair's iCUE lighting effect system is its own faction, and cannot be linked with the mainstream motherboard lighting effect system on the market, but thanks to the iCUE Commander Core XT lighting effect controller, it is more powerful in function and can get a better experience.
Good compatibility, light effect control can be accurate to the lamp bead
How is the actual compatibility of the Corsair iCUE 5000T RGB during installation? I conducted an installation test on it with some hardware to see how it would perform in practice.
In the installation process, corsair iCUE 5000T RGB compatibility with each hardware is very good, such as the use of standard ATX motherboard is easy to load into the chassis, and there is no obstruction, after the installation of the motherboard can also see that there is plenty of space around. The DARK ROCK PRO 4 flagship heatsink we are paired with is 162.8mm high, and I noticed that the heat pipe at the top of the radiator still has a certain gap from the glass. If you're opting for a tower flagship air-cooled radiator, don't worry about the compatibility of the iCUE 5000T RGB.
In addition, with the sapphire RX 6900 XT 16GB D6 poison AIR COOLED graphics card, the measured length reached 315mm, the graphics card can be easily loaded into the chassis when installed, and the top end of the graphics card is nearly 100mm or so from the built-in cooling fan in the chassis. It can be seen that the Corsair iCUE 5000T RGB is very powerful in terms of compatibility with various flagship hardware.
Wiring the Corsair iCUE 5000T RGB iCUE Commander Core XT Smart Lighting Controller is also simple. It has connected three pre-installed fan connectors, just plug the controller's USB connector to the motherboard, and then plug the power cord (powered via SATA) to the power supply. As we mentioned earlier, the iCUE 5000T RGB has an RGB fan and strip, and it is noted below the fan connector area and above it is the RGB light connector area.
When I installed the CORSAIR iCUE software, I was able to control the lighting effects of the fans and strips included with the iCUE 5000T RGB. Whether it is a fan or a light strip, it has preset light effect types, and if you want to design your own lighting effects, you can also customize them. It provides the ability to adjust the color of the light according to the temperature, such as green when the temperature reaches 20 ° C, yellow when it reaches 40 ° C, and red when it reaches 60 ° C. At the same time, it is recommended to attach the temperature sensor of the fan to the peripherals of the graphics card and processor heatsink to precisely control the temperature.
▲The controller comes with two temperature sensors, which can be attached to the graphics card and processor, and the software can monitor the temperature in real time.
CORSAIR iCUE software also provides individual lamp effect control for each lamp bead on the fan (16 pcs) and strip (25 pcs), a feature that is not available in many chassis on the market. At the same time, the speed of the fan provides four optional modes of "silent", "equalization", "limit" and "zero RPM" (stop), such as silent or zero RPM mode in standby or low load to reduce noise. The software can also read system information about the motherboard, processor, graphics card, and memory to monitor its temperature, speed, frequency, and more. It also supports personalized control of the lighting effects of NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 graphics cards, enabling uniform styling with the chassis.
▲CORSAIR iCUE software can adjust the lamp effect, style, speed, etc. of the fan, and the temperature sensor can automatically adjust the fan speed after setting different temperatures.
Write at the end
As a high-end product, corsair iCUE 5000T RGB is mainly reflected in 3 aspects: First, its workmanship materials are quite solid, although the style is hard, but the details are very good. In particular, the addition of 3 LL120 fans has increased the cost of the whole machine in a straight line. Secondly, the chassis has an excellent sense of design, its filter, cover plate and side plate are using snap-on and side-open design, without screws can be completed to disassemble, improving the user's installation experience; finally, the more intelligent iCUE Commander Core XT lighting effect controller, not only can be accurate to the adjustment of each lamp bead, but also through the two temperature sensors, real-time monitoring of hardware temperature, and then with the fan to achieve automatic adjustment of fan speed. It is precisely because of the control of quality, detail and intelligence that the iCUE 5000T RGB lives up to its high-end reputation.