Corsair Frame 4500X review

Fishtank cases are everywhere. They must sell well, as every brand is scrambling to release more of the things, Corsair among them with its latest release: the Corsair Frame 4500X. Though some cases are more in the fishtank style than others, Corsair's latest is most definitely right there, with an unobstructed glass panel that transitions elegantly from the side to the front of the chassis.

The Frame 4500X isn't about modesty. No fishtank case really is. You can't hide anything with a window quite this large onto your PC's components. It's a great way to showcase your build, however, and the Frame 4500X wears it well. I've shown a few people this case since building a PC into it for testing, and it quite literally has the wow factor (both people said 'wow' out loud—very satisfying).

There's also a flowing design to the vents, sweeping from the rear of the top panel and down to the front of the side panel. This helps let the case and cooling solution breathe, but, very importantly, helps keep the non-windowed side of the case exciting and more of a match for the windowed side. You'll find the usual Corsair 'Y' pattern stamped into the metal frame elsewhere on the case—the rear expansion slot covers, fan grill, PSU shroud… it's everywhere.

The rear of the case contains plenty of straps to contain cables. That includes straps down the rear of the case, namely for the CPU power cable, which helps to keep my test build tidy under the small rear panel on the Frame 4500X.

Corsair has solved one of my bigger issues with the last case I reviewed in this case lineup, the Frame 4000D. It has reduced the flex to various parts of the case. Notably, the PSU shroud on the Frame 4500X offers far less flex than the one found on the 4000D. It's still using thin metal sheets stamped with that 'Y' design, but flex isn't such an issue on the Frame 4500X. That's good to see.

Following in the Frame 4000D's footsteps, the Frame 4500X offers the so-called 'Infinirail' system for mounting different radiator and fan sizes in the top of the case. It's a neat solution featuring a sliding rail that can be shunted around to fit your cooling solution. Though it is smart, I do think simple mounting holes work just as well. Corsair has adopted those on the Frame 4500X, too. The side mounting position offers room for 120/140 mm fans without Infinirail, though if you choose to put 140 mm fans here, it will make for trickier cable runs, especially for the chunky 24-pin motherboard connector.

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Corsair has been pretty generous with cable cut-outs for various sizes of motherboards (including those with Back-Connect). That said, it'd be good to see some grommets or clever channeling used to help keep these cables out of sight. The front panel connectors are all bunched together into larger tubing, which is a little more visible than I'd like, and to get the cables into the tubing, someone at the factory had to tightly wrap what should be a fairly flat USB cable into an awkward position. It works, anyways.

On the front panel there are two USB 3.2 Type-A Gen 1 ports, one USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-C port, and a 3.5 mm combo jack. There's a power switch, illuminated in white, but no reset switch. It's a good amount of ports and won't be an issue for any modern motherboard, though the lower position of the IO is a bit of a pet peeve of mine. It's best suited to keeping your PC on your desktop, which I almost never do, though I can see why someone that does might find it useful. I'll give 'em a pass, but something to consider if you're going to stick this under your desk.

Corsair has a few options for the Frame 4500X: with RS-R ARGB fans for £120/€140, or with LX-R Link fans for £170/€195. I have the latter option for review, which includes an iCUE Link System Hub installed at the rear of the motherboard tray.

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You'll save a bit of cash with the LX-R option versus buying a triple-pack of LX120-R fans from Corsair: a set of three usually costs £85. So, it's not a bad shout if you do want to go the whole hog and put iCUE everywhere, as I recently did for a PC build. Though I'll make the same complaint as I did then: you need a spare PCIe power connector to use the System Hub, which can be an issue when your graphics card already requires three of them, as many AMD graphics cards do today. This is notably still an issue even if you buy one of Corsair's own power supplies, which often come with only three 8-pin power connectors in the box—odd.

Image credit: Future

Image credit: Future

Something to think about when purchasing either model of Frame 4500X is what you're going to use as an exhaust fan. You could go the cheap option and use any 120 mm fan you have to hand or buy something budget like the Arctic P12. But if you want to maximise the iCUE Link effect, you'll need to buy another LX120 (non-reversed). Those cost £35 a piece, or you can 'save £20' (Corsair's words, not mine) on a dual-pack for £70. What a wonderful saving, cheers.

It's a tough one, as if you're spending this much on the LX version, you might as well go for the full iCUE effect with the extra exhaust fan and compatible liquid cooler. Then you actually benefit from the total ecosystem and singular app control that Corsair offers. Though you need to tack on at least the cost of another iCUE Link fan, ideally an LX120, to do that. Just feels like a miss not to include this in the box and charge slightly more overall.

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Moreover, I'd recommend installing three more LX120 fans for the best cooling in the Frame 4500X. Let me explain why.

For a lack of front panel mounting on a fishtank case, your graphics card and other components have to make do with indirect airflow around the bend. That, or you use a chimney-like layout, as some do, such as the Phanteks Evolv X2 or NZXT H9 Flow RGB+. The Frame 4500X offers a similar solution, if a little less gracefully. There are mounting points for three 120 mm fans at the bottom of the Frame 4500X—two on the PSU shroud, one sitting at the bottom of the case—and while they're a bit clunky to install and limited for airflow, they do help lower temps.

All my tests were carried out using an RTX 4080 Founders Edition and Ryzen 7 9800X3D.

So, with no fans in the bottom of the case, during an extended run of Metro Exodus Enhanced Edition, the RTX 4080 reached an average temp of 58 °C.

With three LX120-R fans installed in the bottom of the case, in this same test, the RTX 4080 reached 54 °C.

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A four degree difference is nothing to be sniffed at. However, the actual benefit to frame rate in this instance is pretty minimal, at a mere statistically shaky 1 fps.

Those four degrees came at the cost of £85 worth of fans. That makes this case and cooling combo, as I have it set-up for testing, and not including the Cooler Master MasterLiquid Core II, a £290 investment. That's as much as the NZXT H9 Flow RGB+, which comes with the equivalent of seven fans as standard—six of which are 140 mm. And that's our pick for the best high-end PC case.

So, the Frame 4500X isn't necessarily an awesome deal if you go for that iCUE Link option. Though, Corsair, like NZXT, offers a cheaper model. The RS-R version is not only more affordable to begin with at £120, a really good price for a fishtank case, but you could fill out the entire chassis with the same fans for £55. Not bad, not bad at all.

Corsair also gets a pat on the back for the packaging used here. No styrofoam that breaks and disintegrates into hundreds of tiny specs that my cats traipse around the house for weeks after. No, just black foam that stays together and sturdy enough to use to transport the PC at a later date. Also Corsair includes the accessories for the Frame 4500X within a small, compartmentalised plastic tub, much like the Arctic Xtender, and I'm totally here for it.

So, with some of my monetary gripes with the LX-R model and the cost of cooling, I do think the RS-R version has some real value. The Frame 4500X doesn't look any cheaper than many fishtank cases out there, and yet it is. At £120, it's tough to beat, and even with the added and likely necessary expense of £15 for a matching exhaust fan, it's still a touch more affordable than the Arctic Xtender (£150 in the UK). I prefer the Arctic for its tinted, almost mirror-like finish and five included fans, but it's close. The Corsair has the quality and finish of a more premium case compared to some under $100/£100.

So long as you don't let yourself get pushed by Corsair's marketing machine to spend double on flashy iCUE Link accessories, this is a darn good buy.

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