Corsair Graphite 380T review

Corsair’s Graphite 380T is a compact variant of the full-height 780T. It’s designed for Mini-ITX motherboards, but don’t let the small size fool you; there’s still room inside for some seriously powerful components, including a full-length graphics card and even water cooling.

The 380T was designed to be portable, with a carrying handle built into the roof for lugging it between rooms or taking it on the road to LAN gaming events. When fully loaded with powerful components, our fully constructed system weighed 9.4kg, which we could comfortably carry around with one hand. Unfortunately, you can’t lock the case, which could be a problem at big LAN events with light-fingered gamers.

A three-speed fan control button joins the two USB3 ports and twin 3.5mm audio jacks on the front I/O panel. At the lowest setting, we could barely hear the internal fans over the sound of the CPU cooler and graphics card, but you can ramp up the speed (and volume) if you need better cooling.

You have to screw down the motherboard, but virtually every other fitting inside the 380T is tool-free; oversized handles pop off the side panels, the graphics card is held in place with thumbscrews and the two dedicated 2.5in drive bays use spring-mounted clips to hold disks in place. The two 3.5in/2.5in combo drive bays have slide out trays, but if you don’t plan on filling them you can remove the whole bay to free up space for hiding cables or improving airflow.

Be aware that there are no 5.25in external drive bays, so you won’t be able to fit an optical drive to this PC. If you want to install games from disc or watch blu-ray films, you’ll need to use an external USB drive.

The 140mm fan at the front is illuminated with white LEDs, while a 120mm fan is fitted to the rear as an exhaust. There are mounts for two further 120mm fans on the side, and each side panel is covered in wire mesh to help maximize air circulation. With the fan controller set to its lowest setting, we were able to keep a Core i5 CPU below 55 degrees at idle using Intel’s stock heat sink – an impressive achievement for a mini-ITX machine. 

Despite the case’s compact dimensions, we could comfortably fit a dual-slot Radeon R9 280X and still have room left over. You should have no trouble fitting the most powerful of graphics cards, and there’s even room for water-cooling if you plan on overclocking.  A 120mm radiator will fit on the back, and there’s room for a 240mm radiator on the side.

Cable management is usually an afterthought on mini-ITX cases, but the Graphite 380T has plenty of room beneath the motherboard tray and enough cable tie loops to create a very tidy system. Combined with the white LED built into the roof to illuminate the motherboard, it’s very easy to quickly swap out components or change jumper positions.

It won’t blend into your home cinema like other mini-ITX cases, but if you want something portable, that will also stand out when you arrive for an evening of LAN gaming, the 380T is an excellent case.