Fractal Design Core 3000 Case Review

About 40 minutes was required to build our moderate system into the Fractal Design Core 3000. Installing the motherboard stand-offs was far more awkward than it should have been due to the poor quality of the mounting holes they were being installed into. The area around the graphics card does get cramped, more so if you are using a card near the maximum supported length of 270mm along with the upper HDD cage. Removing the HDD cage does free up some extra room for graphics cards up to a huge 420mm in length.

Our rather large Antec KÜHLER BOX CPU cooler had plenty of room to spare above it and behind it; towards the rear case fan. The maximum supported CPU cooler height is 160mm according to Fractal Design, but if you are lucky, you may be able to get away with 162mm as an absolute maximum. Motherboards with tall VRM heatsinks may cause issues if the heatsinks extend above the board. There is a very slim amount of room spare between the top exhaust fan and our motherboard’s upper VRM heatsink. This is the reason why it will be very, very awkward to fit a 240mm radiator and fan combination, such as the Corsair H100.Cable management was trickier than usual due to the power supply we were using offering very short cables, this is no fault of the case though. A conveniently located cut-out allows all the main cables exiting the power supply to be routed through, en route to their location via the back of the motherboard tray. A 120mm fan should easily fit in the lower fan mount unless you own a very long PSU such as a Corsair HX1050.

Each of the white HDD trays support 2.5″ and 3.5″ drives. The drives are screwed into the tray from underneath with a 3.5″ drive making use of the silicone mounts to reduce vibrations and noise.

Rear cable management is slightly limited due to the fact that only 3 cut-outs are available for the largest cables entering the action areas around the motherboard. A better power supply would allow us to route more cables around the rear of the motherboard tray, but this would then cause problems when trying to close the side panel as we noticed with just a small amount of cables behind there. There is no extra cut-out for the front panel connections meaning that they have to enter via the cramped lower cable management cut-out.

An optical drive with a black bezel fits the general elegant, black appearance of the case’s face. Installing the DVD drive was painless. Screw it in, remove the front panel which is very simple and remove the 5.25″ bay cover.

Always welcomed are the indentations for the IO shield and rear PCI connections. A large area of ventilated mesh provides an extra route for hot air to escape the case. 2 rubber grommets are in their standard location above the rear exhaust fan ready for users relying on external watercooling kits.