Gadgetory

offering only the finest in PC enthusiasts apparel awesomesauce shirts are not only threaded they're hyper threaded and come factory over cloth get yours today at the awesomesauce - what's up guys today I'm checking out the new Core 500 from fractal design being the mini ITX phonetic that I am I was pretty excited when fractal unveiled this case at Computex and now that I finally have one in my hands let's see if this new addition to the core series was worth all of my childlike giddiness starting with the exterior we get a solid steel body with a plastic front panel incorporating the brushed aluminum finish that we're used to seeing by now from good ol FD at the top is a five and a quarter inch drive bay and you get some mesh accents on the sides which appear to be ventilated but are purely for aesthetic purposes talk about meshing around I don't laugh at that don't stop it our front IO lies on top of the case and includes two USB 3 reo Jack's and power and reset buttons on the left side you get generous ventilation that nearly spans the entire depth of the case for a dedicated GPU and on top is an equal amount of ventilation for a dual radiator that will circle back to later both vents also have their own magnetic dust filters which are removable from inside the case you also get some breathing holes on the right side for your power supply exhaust at the bottom are four rubber feet and a dust filter for the PSU that tends to slide out of place when carrying the case from the bottom it's like somebody dipped it in 409 the core 500 s only included fan is this 140 millimeter rear exhaust with mounting holes for a 120 if you're so inclined here we also see two expansion slots and four thumb screws for removing and receding the case enclosure crowbarred not included okay so it's not that bad but after seeing the awesome tool a side panel on the define r5 I think it's time fractal whips up a similar solution for these mini ITX cases to save us all from those few seconds of pain and agony under the hood we see a rigid steel frame and a radiator bracket with flexible mounting strips for either a 240 or 280 millimeter radiator that can be removed with four Phillips head screws for easy installation just beneath has a bracket for the five and a quarter inch Bay that also houses a single three and a half inch drive keep in mind that having a 240 millimeter raid installed will block your five and a quarter inch bay but a 280 millimeter radiator requires you to actually remove the bracket entirely this is done by popping off the front panel and undoing the four screws I personally suggest removing this piece unless you absolutely need it since it takes up more space than GTA 5 underneath the front panel you'll also find a stealthy location for a two and a half inch drive when mounting the drive right side up you'll have to reserve the five and a quarter inch pay for cable routing but you can easily avoid this limitation by flipping the drive upside down and threading the cables through the small cutout on the bottom left here's a quick look at the front panel cables which seems slightly longer than necessary and I really would have liked to see some tie-down points going across the wall at the front of the case to keep them from getting nicked by the radiator fans looming above the core 500 supports ATX power supplies with an AC pass through that routes to the back but fractal recommends units 160 millimeters or shorter as to not interfere with longer video cards while full-size ATX compatibility is appreciated I would urge those with fully loaded systems to consider using an SFX unit instead since you'll need all the extra space you can get when it's time to manage those cables you get four pre-installed motherboard standoffs with support for CPU towers up 270 millimeters tall and dual slot video cards up to 310 millimeters long on the right side of the case is a mounting wall for two two and a half inch and two three and a half inch drives granting you a total of six drives in total totally total the three and a half inch drives have rubber pads and use four screws to mount directly to the bracket while an SSD can be installed with a combination of toolless mounting pegs and screws I would say this bracket accommodates two drives comfortably but at a third or a fourth and it begins to feel like a storage fest especially with all the SATA cables touching tips at the center a key speaking of which the overall cable management capabilities in the core 500 largely depend on several factors including how much Hardware you want to cram into it the physical size of that hardware and how likely it is that the hardware will be gone in the morning and never call you again wait what are we talking about for the purpose of this video I built a moderately full system using a discrete GPU albeit a short one a 240 millimeter radiator a full-size ATX power supply one SSD and one hard drive while you do get several tied downs at the bottom of the case under the GP you and a few at the front most cables still had to be routed in the troughs between the motherboard and power supply and all the excess length was essentially then crammed into a ball besides the graphics card as I mentioned before it would have made sense to also include tie-down points across the front wall and even along the PSU bracket to run some cables directly above the power supply fortunately cabling should be much easier for those omitting the use of an a IO or discrete video card if you don't plan on doing any water cooling however I would suggest introducing one or two intake fans at the top of the case for some healthy airflow so to sum up ladies and gentlemen it appears that the objective fractal had in mind when designing the core 500 was to fit all today's popular full-size ATX Hardware except the motherboard of course in the smallest case possible and based on my findings today they've succeeded at doing exactly that just know ahead of time that you'll have to pour some blood and sweat into the build process to get everything fitted nice and proper but as is often the case when dealing with mini ITX well there's still certainly some things I'd like to see change with a 2.0 version this is still one of the most versatile small form-factor cases to date and in my opinion has been the most promising released so far from fractals often overlooked core line of chassis