Installation
Starting off our installation process was the the installation of our power supply. Without a power supply shroud to work with, installation was a breeze, and the four rubber pads at the bottom of the case help keep any vibrations from the power supply from making any rattling noise against the case. As you can see, there is not a ton of room between the power supply and the 3.5″ drive cage. And while the SPEC-OMEGA supports power supplies up to 190mm in length, our 140mm Enermax RevoBron shows just how close things can be, even with a smaller-sized unit. There would obviously be plenty of room for larger units with the 3.5″ drive cage removed from the case, and thankfully this can be achieved with the removal of a few thumb screws.
Next on the installation list was our motherboard, which gave us no issues at all. As we have seen in previous Corsair cases, the SPEC-OMEGA’s center motherboard standoff features a peg that helps keep the motherboard in place during installation. We love this feature, as it makes lining up the board with the rest of the standoffs extremely easy.
Depending on your component selection, there may be ample room for both air and liquid cooling solutions to be mounted above the motherboard, as seen below. While the amount of space available is nothing to write home about, there is more room than we have seen in other cases of this size.
Next we installed our single 2.5″ SSD in one of the hidden 2.5″ drive slots. Being able to simply line up the drive with the opening and slide it into place is so much better than attaching a drive tray to the drive and then attaching it to the case. The only thing we didn’t like about this mounting method was that the power and data connectors for our drive were on the top, which made connecting the SATA power connector a bit cumbersome.
The last component to be installed was our videocard, and the use of thumb screws on the expansion slot covers made its installation a breeze. The interior screw design also affords users the ability to install a wide videocard without having to worry about clearances during installation. Corsair has also provided holes in the frame of the case that line up with the thumb screws so that you can use a screwdriver for a bit of extra torque when tightening or loosening said screws.
With all of our major components installed, all that was left was to wire them up. We utilized one of the motherboard cutouts featuring a rubber grommet to feed our motherboard’s 24-pin ATX connector, and also routed our SATA cable and front fan’s 3-pin connector to our motherboard. Our 8-pin CPU power connector was able to easily fit through the large corner cutout in the top left of the case, which is not always the case. We have encountered numerous cases that provide a hole that is barely large enough for the connector to fit through. With no front-mounted USB 2.0 ports, the only cables coming from the front panel are for the USB 3.0 ports, the headphone and microphone plugs, and the standard button and light connectors, all of which installed with ease.
Corsair provides a few zip ties with the SPEC-OMEGA, and we utilized a few of them when working on our cable management behind the motherboard. As we mentioned earlier, there is not a ton of room to work with back here, so you have to get a bit creative with some of your wiring if you want things to stay tidy. Obviously there is much more room to work with if you remove the 3.5″ drive cage, but without a power supply shroud to cover things up, all of your cable mess would be on display via the tempered glass side panel. Overall, we were pretty happy with how clean our install turned out.
With everything installed and connected, it was time to power the system up.
The glow from the front panel’s LED light strip looks amazing, and the light is very evenly distributed; no bright or dim spots to be seen here. Partially visible behind the angular front window of the SPEC-OMEGA was the glowing white LED fan, which gives off a slightly blue glow compared to the front panel light strip.
