Corsair Spec-04 Mid-Tower Gaming Chassis Review

Complete System

Building a system inside the Spec-04 was nice and straight forward. It’s not exactly packed with fancy features, so everything is really straightforward and beginner friendly. I did run into some cable routing issues due to our thick PSU cables, but it’s nothing a bit of re-routing couldn’t solve and not unexpected for a compact mid-tower like this; even more so for a chassis in this price range.

Cable storage?

There’s a good amount of space behind the PSU for excess cables. Of course, there would most likely be more room for most users, but we’re using a fairly big PSU here.

CPU Cooler

The chassis is fairly slim and supports a CPU cooler of up to 150mm. I managed to squeeze a 155mm cooler in there, but it was touching the side panel a little, whoops. Those wanting to use the top fan mounts for added airflow may want to stick with a more compact CPU cooler though.

As I said, cable routing wasn’t fantastic and the CPU 8-pin routing hole was completely covered by the motherboard. You might get a flat cable through it before you mount the motherboard. However, you may have to re-route the cable like we did.

If you’re running a single GPU, then there’s room here for even the biggest cards on the market. Keep in mind that multi-GPU configurations could conflict with the HDD bays. Of course, you can remove the HDD bay, or pick shorter cards, but keep it in mind.

Look how close that CPU clearance is, seriously, pick a smaller cooler than we did.

All Panels Back in Place!

Don’t worry, the side panel still went on so all is good. In fact, this system now looks pretty fantastic and any cable routing problems or space limitations aren’t hurting the aesthetics here. The front panel looks fantastic and the view of the interior is great for showing off your hardware.

LEDs!

Firing up the power and we can see that lovely red LED bathing the interior of the chassis with light. Of course, it’s enhanced quite a bit here as the motherboard I’m using also has LED lighting. However, it just shows off how handy that side panel window is for showing off your hardware.

It’s a very nice fan, although those with warm hardware may want to invest in a couple more.

Finally, you can see the fan through the front panel mesh, giving it a lovely fiery glow.