So, you have just decided to upgrade your gaming experience – you want to have the fastest scooter on the block and see 1000 FPS in CS2. But when you receive your brand new RTX 4090 graphics card you realize that this behemoth is far larger than the pictures on the internet made it seem. You come to the conclusion that in order to fit it into your current case, you would need to cut away roughly half of the front and side panel – or get a new case. The same situation can occur even if you get a RTX 4070 or a RTX 4070Ti as even these smaller cards can have massive air coolers the same size as their bigger brothers - the RTX 4080 (and it's super variant) and 4090.
So what would be the best case for you? Great question we say, and one with many answers. Because even though a case is listed as compatible with whatever length your new power hungry frame destroyer is, there might be other factors that plays in. This all does not become less complicated from the fact that GPU's comes in a multitude of different sizes, and as mentioned above, even a RTX 4070 or 4080 Super can sometimes be as large as a RTX 4090.
Ignoring the fact that this is clearly not a RTX 4090, this picture shows how a front mounted AIO radiator can put a limit on how long a GPU you can fit inside your case.
For example, if you want to mount a 360mm AIO in the front of your case to cool whatever high-end CPU you have picked to go with your new RTX 4080 Super or RTX 4090 you will loose a bit of clearance and the XXXmm supported GPU length you found on the product specifications no longer apply as you have taken some of that space, and occupied it with a radiator from your AIO cooler.
The easy way out would be to just grab the biggest case you can find (such as our 7000D or 1000D), but you might also prioritize space on your desk. The safest way on the other hand, would be to check our PC builder tool which will allow you to check if your case, motherboard, graphics card and chosen CPU cooler all fits together.
With this tool you can quickly check if your graphics card such as for example the RTX 4080 Super or RTX 4090 fits inside of your case, or if there is a better case for it. It also tells you if you cannot pick a 360mm AIO unit, but would need to go with a 240mm or 280mm instead. We have also written a neat guide on how to use our PC BUILDER tool that you should check out - this describes how it works, and why you might sometime run into a compatibility issue with your chosen parts.
For example, If you pick a case such as the 4000D or 3000D for your RTX 4090 there is a likelihood that you will need to mount your AIO cooler in the top of the case instead of the front.
Complicated question as everyone have different taste. Myself (a mystery man that shall remain unknown) has done many different builds in CORSAIR cases and you can even see my hands in the videos above. From personal experience I really enjoy the 5000D and 7000D series of cases as they are spacious, without being obscenely large on the desk. It is worth mentioning that the newly released 3000D can fit both a 4090 STRIX card along with a front mounted 360 AIO, so you can still build a powerful system in a smaller case.
Where the larger cases such as the 5000D really shines is that they are much easier to build in as there is more room to route cables, and even for placing mechanical drives and similar extra parts you should need. This coupled with extra fan mounts might make these cases a better option for you if you are trying to cool very demanding hardware such as the RTX 4090.
My advice would be go with the larges case you are comfortable with having on your desk/floor and go from there. If you find that your chosen components does not fit into it, then you can re-evaluate if you need a bigger one.
Size comparison between the 4000D and the 5000D
If we where to give some recommendations based on the current CORSAIR case lineup the 4000D and 5000D cases works great for most use cases, but let's go through the different popular graphics cards:
With the somewhat "low" TDP (compared to say a 4090) of the 4070 lineup they also often come in a much smaller size than their larger brothers, so for a 4070, or a RTX 4070 Super you can easily use a 4000D airflow case as it will have plenty of airflow and internal size to fit most of the GPU sizes.
We even recently built 20 systems for our game room in the 4000D that have 4070Ti graphics cards in them.
While you can still easily fit many of the RTX 4080 or even a RTX 4080 Super in the 4000D Airflow you might want a bit more room and airflow to go with these cards. The 5000D Airflow will be a great choice as it also sports three side fan mounts where you can place three 120mm fans, or even a 360mm AIO unit. It also has more room in the top for a 360mm AIO with added clearance where the 4000D "only" supports up to a 280mm, and might interfere with tall RAM modules.
For the RTX 4090 you will almost always find that these cards have the largest air coolers on them, and can be quite massive. For these cards you almost certainly want either a 5000D, or even the larger 7000D depending on what the rest of your system consists of. If you have gotten yourself an EATX board you could fit this in the 5000D, but you will have an easier building experience in the 7000D.
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