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Take a closer look at the controls on the Core 3300 and you'll see they remain in place when the front panel is removed. This means you don't have to deal with trailing wires, which is a blessing.
The simple, angular nature of the Core 3300 means the buttons and ports are arranged on the horizontal, rather than an angle. Finding the power and reset buttons but touch isn't especially easy and it feels a little unusual when you plug in a headset or USB flash drive.
The hard drive mounting plate is retained by three thumbscrews, with two screws at the top and one screw on the bottom of the case. This drive plate mounts to one side of the case to maximise airflow, instead of the usual practice of locating the drives in the front of the case where they act as an obstruction.
As you'll see in the system build photos you mount the 2.5-inch HDD or SSD on one side of the plate and then mount 3.5-inch HDD on the opposite of the plate, installing up to three drives of each type. It is essential you mount the drives in this order because the 3.5-inch drives cover the mounting screws of the 2.5-inch drives.
The number of 3.5-inch drives you install might cause issues if your graphics card uses side mounted power connectors.
That cavernous space inside the Core 3300 can accommodate graphics cards up to 430mm.
On the bottom of the case there is a removable dust filter that covers the power supply and, potentially, a 120mm or 140mm fan, although that will restrict you to using a PSU that is less than 170mm in length.
It is worth taking a close look at this photo of the Core 3300 with the drive plate installed. In theory the Core 3300 can support two a 240mm radiator at the top and either a 240mm or 280mm radiator at the front and these radiators can be up to 31mm in thickness.
The problem here is that if you choose to mount 3.5-inch drives on the drive plate the front radiator is very tight for space. If you settle for using 2.5-inch hard drive or Solid State Drive there are no restrictions on a front mounted radiator.
It may not be immediately apparent however Fractal Design has included a rubber support and gasket to isolate the power supply from the steel chassis.
