Corsair 250d for gaming

[gonemad61]

Is the 250d good for a gaming build would it stay cool over long gaming periods i was thinking of putting a i5 4690 and a gtx 970 evga blower card

 

[i7Baby]

Its more for HTPC. Get a 350D at least

 

[Rammy]

It's a good case if you want to put a H100i+4690K (or similar) along with a full sized optical drive. Other benefits include support for longer than average PSUs.

If you don't want to do that - ie, you aren't overclocking, then it's not as strong a contender. It's quite large, and without using a radiator you don't get any advantage from the extra width. The general airflow isn't amazing, the CPU cooler support is very limited and the motherboard support can also be tricky. Additionally, it's not cheap.

There is no reason why you should need to step up to a mATX(or larger) case.

 

[i7Baby]

Its not that big - http://www.corsair.com/en/obsidian-series-250d-mini-itx-pc-case - 351mm x 277mm x 290mm

 

[Rammy]

It's very big.

The height is low and the depth is about average for ITX cases with full length graphics card support, but it's incredibly wide - a 250D is 277mm wide. To put this in perspective, the Corsair 900D is 252mm wide.
This is a significant disadvantage in a market section which is focused on compact size and proportions, and if you aren't using that extra width (it's almost entirely taken up by side-radiator support) then it doesn't really make a huge amount of sense for most people.

Keep in mind, width is generally the most significant dimension when it comes to a smaller system - if you put a PC on top of or under a desk then most of the time you won't be height or (significantly) depth limited but width may cause issues. It's certainly a factor when comparing it to the immediate market rivals of the Bitfenix cases, Node 304, Elite 130, RVZ01, Hadron Air etc.