Gadgetory

hey guys and welcome back on our review table today we have a micro ATX case from fractal design this is the arc mini tower it is ringing in at just over a hundred dollars so the price may look unconventional for a micro ATX case but the overall design may prove otherwise so let's check it out the external design actually looks very familiar to some of their other cases we have filtered mesh at the front acting sort of as a dust filter along with two five and a quarter inch drive base right above now notice the plastic panel has a brushed aluminum look so that's always a bonus without leaving any nasty fingerprints and keep the price of the case at reasonable levels the panel can easily be removed from the front to reveal spacing for dual 120mm fans with some clearance through the hard drive cage now the panel is where you'll be mounting the fans with these clips they hold the fan in place pretty tight so no worries there and one fan is already included here with a nice sleeve cable also already pre-installed is the three and a half inch drive bracket and I doubt it will come and useful but it might for some people now let's talk connections we have the power and reset buttons standard audio ports and three USB ports one of which is USB 3 the top panel as you can see is completely covered in the mesh and the reel of the dust filters at the top now it can be easily taken off with two thumb screws for cleaning or to get to your top fans what we have here are dual 120 and 140 millimeter mounts so all of you water coolers are going to appreciate this looking at the back we have the exhaust fan tubing holes IO area for expansion slots plus a vertical one and they bottom mount the power supply with dual dust filter now as part of the accessories fractal design includes a fan controller for three fans and it would be perfectly utilized in that one vertical slot so the side panel also supports 120 140 millimeter fan combo it is unfortunate however that this is not a window case now the case stands on excellence rubber feet and is very stable so finally getting inside the cage system is modular and I love it it only requires two screws to rotate the top part for improved internal air flow if you do require to use all six drives and of course the option is yours if you want to completely remove it just keep in mind the additional cable work you will face if the drives are rotated since they are pretty close to the front fan of course removing the front panel will allow for easier access and the drives are mounted onto these brackets this is not a tula system but it works really well indeed especially with rubber grommets to prevent vibrations and of course 2.5 inch drives are supported and moving on we have plenty of rubber grommets around the motherboard tray however the CPU cutout could be expanded to avoid the hassle of this assembly and good news for stock air cooling as both rear and top exhaust fans are included and an optional 120mm fan can be mounted at the bottom however since the case is relatively small you do have to take into account the length of your power supply so anything up to 170 millimeters will still have clearance for that bottom fan and at the back we have many cable tie notches and a lot of area to work with for all your cable management needs there's a large gap between the motherboard tray and the side panel so even if this is your first build you'll find it a breeze and installing our 11 half-inch graphics card was no problem even with the top cage in place spacing will be limited however 2 to 60 millimeters for your GPU if the top cage is rotated and once assembled what we have here is a clean system that still has a lot of potential for future upgrades I really extract those approach towards designing a functional chassis they really have not forgotten about the basics like simplifying your workflow by providing lots of room or a need cable job also we have an excellent modular cage system dust filters on every intake especially one in the top very useful to keep things clean and finally great air flow options with three quality fans included however while the case is designed well for its purpose and priced reasonably well for the function it offers some of you still may not justify the price tag especially if you're thinking of upgrading to fool ATX set up sometime down the road now there are a lot of options at this price tag however if you require a solid and well thought-out chassis the arc mini may be a good choice and since it was an absolute breeze to work with we're giving in the hard okanagan damn good a word so that is it for this review let us know what you think of the arc mini in the comments below or in the heart or Canucks forums and we'll see you guys in the next one