Hands-on review: Corsair Crystal 460X
The Corsair Crystal 460X is a beautifully designed mid-tower ATX computer case, featuring tempered glass, a fine mesh to catch dust, modular covers, and RGB lighting.
The tempered glass looks great, and is great for showing off your components in all their glory. Not only that, but it will also reflect the RGB lighting very well and make the entire glass panel glow with vibrant colours. The screws also have rubber gromiting to avoid scratching the tempered glass when unscrewing the panels.
It has a very fine mesh on the top to stop dust getting inside the case, however, airflow could be restricted when the mesh is as fine as it is. No need to worry though; if you need airflow over dust protection, you can simply remove the fine mesh, and the case has some much larger holes built into it.
The Corsair 460X also comes with modular covers to conceal cables and drives so that you can hide any messy cables and make your build look much neater. The Corsair 460X is also liquid cooling capable with room for front, top, and rear radiators.
The Corsair Crystal 460X has RGB lighting with integrated lighting control to change the colour, profile, and speed of each of the three integrated SP120 or HD120 fans (optional), allowing you to coordinate the custom-moulded translucent blades with your build. You can get even more lighting options when you pair Crystal with HD120 fans, which have 12 individual RGB lights and provide tons of lighting combinations and animations.
The optional, but recommended, HD120 fans have customisable RGB lighting for many colour and lighting mode combinations thanks to the 12 individual LEDs. You can set the fans to cycle colours, fade in and out, and more by controlling fading, breathing, blinking, and other LED modes and speeds. The HD120 fans also have pulse-width modulation speed control (PWM) for even more control over the speed when paired with any PWM or motherboard controller.
The fans use a 3-button RGB LED controller, which presumably is the one built into the Corsair Crystal 460X case, and that's why they recommend the SP120/HD120 series. The controller allows you to cycle through modes, speeds, and colours with the touch of a button.
The SP120 fans, on the other hand, have just 4 LEDs and less speed control, but that's about the only difference as far as I can tell. Both the SP120 and HD120 fans also have a high static pressure design tuned for radiators for improved performance, as well as ultra-thin fan blades ensure quieter performance through lower air turbulence and vibration.
In conclusion, the Corsair Crystal 460X RGB PC Case is a well-designed, glass-panel case with space for liquid cooling, and an integrated LED RGB fan controller, should you choose to install either Corsair HD120 or Corsair SP120 RGB LED fans. Rubber gromiting around the screws ensures you won't scratch the beautiful tempered glass when taking the panels off. The case itself goes for about $140 USD at the cheapest, and the SP120/HD120 fans will set you back roughly another $40 USD, so all up it would cost about $180 USD for the case + fans. Not cheap by any means, but not too expensive either.
