Fractal Design Core 3000 Case Review

1. Introduction2. Packaging and Bundle3. The Fractal Design Core 3000: Exterior4. The Fractal Design Core 3000: Interior and Installation5. Testing Methodology, Temperatures and Noise Level6. Closing Thoughts7. View All Pages

Both side panels are secured by two thumbscrews which can be easily removed to reveal the interior.  Like the majority of designs that pass through our labs, the interior of the Core 3000 is painted black. Fractal Design have decided to break away from the trend slightly by painting the hard drive trays and add-in card covers gloss white and by using black and white fans. We like the fact they are trying to be different, but I am not completely sure I have warmed to the white accenting.

Over on the left hand side of the case we find the 120mm exhaust fan located above the ventilated add-in card covers. This means that you can use any of the 120mm factory filled watercooling units, such as the Antec KÜHLER H₂O 920.  The power supply mountings are at the bottom and there is a dust filtered vent in the floor for the power supply fan.  So long as you don't install a 120mm fan behind the power supply, you shouldn't run into any compatibility issues with longer power supplies such as the Corsair AX1200.

Moving over to the right hand side of the case we find six 3.5″ hard drive bays.  The steel hard drive trays feel far superior in terms of quality to the plastic trays that we see on most cases at this price point.  They have rubber grommets to prevent hard drive vibrations and there are also mountings for 2.5″ drives.  There are no screws provided for 2.5″ drives, though, so make sure that you hold on to the ones included with your drives!

We installed an Intel Larsen Creek 311 Series SSD and a Samsung Spinpoint F3 1TB hard drive into the case.  For those who don't require the full six drive bays, the top three drives can be removed altogether to improve airflow in the system.  These drive bays can also be rotated through 90 degrees if you like.

There is only one intake fan included as standard in the front of the case which is a 140mm Fractal Design unit.  To access this we have to remove the front panel of the case.  Fractal design have chosen to use plastic clips to secure this on either side which means that you can only install a 140mm fan in this location.  There is room for an additional 120mm fan directly below it, though, which is secured in the same way.

Above the hard drive bays there is only room for two 5.25″ drives which may not be enough for some people.  They also include an adapter which lets you install a 3.5″ front panel device such as a multimedia card reader.  Unlike most cases there isn't any tool-less mechanism to secure the 5.25″ drives but Fractal Design to provide the screws to secure them in place.

To install our Gigabyte Z68X-UD5 motherboard we first had to screw in all of the motherboard standoffs.  The motherboard features a large cutout to facilitate the installation of a CPU cooler such as the Noctua NH-D14 that we used in our test system.  It also has a number of hooks around the back of the motherboard tray for cable management.  Unfortunately the Core 3000 lacks a good selection of cable management holes.  Sure there are a few but they are small and it is missing one above the motherboard for the CPU power connector.  It is still possible to achieve a very tidy system though if you are willing to spend some time on it.

Finally we installed our AMD Radeon 6950 graphics card into the case using the thumbscrews provided.  With all the hard drive bays in place, the Core 3000 only supports graphics cards up to 270mm in length.  But with the top three bays removed, there is room for graphics cards up to 420mm which is ample for any graphics card currently on sale.  The add in card covers are secured using thumbscrews but these were screwed in too tightly to remove without using a screwdriver.

For those who want a very quiet system, Fractal Design also include a fan controller which fits into one of the add-in card slots in the rear of the system.  This does create quite a mess of cables in your system if you're not careful, though, so it is best to decide whether you are going to use this before you start building a system.  Then you can ensure that most of the cables are hidden away behind the motherboard.

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