Gadgetory

like any of our case reviews this video about the fractal design core 3500 starts with the package if you know what I mean the Corsair Flash Voyager go is the easy way to move photos music and videos between your Android device and your PC click now to learn more of course I meant the Box fractal uses a hard foam here that isn't my favorite closed cell foam would be that but considering the price point of the case and the expected weight of a completed system it should keep your goods well-protected in transit if you know what I mean innuendo aside though once we get the case out of the box we're greeted by the traditional clean-lined fractal design aesthetic the front features a brushed plastic finish to five and a quarter inch drive bays a small logo that seems to be designed to be easily replaced with something else are we targeting system builders here fractal and long filtered mesh strips that will feed the included front 140 millimeter fan and the optional second mount underneath it with fresh air the mesh looks good but it's the first of a number of things I noticed about the case that just aren't up to the usual fractal design standard much like on my wife's older our committee the dust filter system for those front intakes can't be easily removed for cleaning and because the mesh is so fine you can expect some wicked dust to visibly build up there I'm also not a huge fan of the top of the case as a cat owner top IO is already not my favorite thing in the world but having the power and reset button so close together and so easily accidentally pressed feels like a move from the 2010 case manufacturing playbook rather than the 2014 one and the fan mounts up here which support dual 140 or 120 millimeter fans and up to a dual 120 millimeter radiator just didn't seem robust enough to handle the weight of our closed looped water cooling system the way it flexes might have been fine on a $70 case where I'd be thankful to have rad mounts at all but this one has an MSRP of $90 the outside isn't all bad though the right side panel is solid and black just the way I like them while the left one has large slightly tinted window that I found quite tasteful on the bottom we find plastic feet and what is now a more traditional pull it out of the back when you need to clean it fan filter then on the back we've got a noise isolated power supply mount seven expansion slots a second included 140 millimeter fan and a fan control switch whose location is going to put the core 3500 back on board the pain train let's open her up shall we this this fan controller I don't say this kind of thing often so when I do I hope manufacturers pay attention fractal I love you guys but what were you thinking these are some examples of the 100 more sensible places you could have put this it's got a green PCB that's visible from the window the molex connector sits either next to your power supply or it runs across your PCI slots and the fan leads aside from being impossible to cable manage nah have some of the worst sleeving i've ever seen on a fractal product it's this inflexible heat shrink stuff that doesn't even go to the end of the colored wires the only good thing about the included fan controller is that we use them a sous motherboard in this build which has on-board fan control and the wire harnesses come off so we only have to look at the unsightly PCB instead of the entire thing actually you can take the PCB out too it just leaves a little hole in the case so that's another good thing about it and there's some other bad stuff in here too but five and a quarter inch bays don't inspire much confidence and the clearance for both the top mounted and front mounted radiators could be better with the top rat installed it is impossible to access the top portion of our board we could barely even get it in with the eight pin power connector pre-installed and for the front mounted red you need to ship the hard drive cage in word for it to fit which will interfere with a second high-end graphics card and this could be a problem if your whole reason for installing another radiator in the front is that you want your SLI or crossfire setup to be adequately cooled but like the outside the inside isn't all bad the solidity of the three and a half inch in two and a half inch drive cage is among the best I've ever seen at least when it screwed into the front of the chassis the included rubber grommets ample space behind the motherboard tray and metal loops for zip ties make cable management pretty easy funny note here actually fractal includes exactly as many plastic zip ties in the box as the case has metal loops I definitely lawl about that but then I stopped laughing as I was working on cable management at the back and realized that the dual two and a half inch SSD mounts on the back of the motherboard tray are the older-style screwing from the front oh wait I already have a motherboard installed I guess I'll use velcro motherboard SSD mounts these just plain aren't very good the bottom one can't be accessed if you have a power supply installed even though the cases manual tells you to put the power supply in first and even if you did have the foresight to install your SSD first the connectors are so flat to the back of the motherboard tray that you'd be putting quite a bit of strain on them if you tried to plug them in and they weren't completely flat ones many power connectors are like this this was a disappointment especially when fractal design has cases with much better implementations the good news I guess is that there's a two and a half mount in the second optical drive bay that's unlikely to be used so folks with only one SSD won't have to use up a three and a half millimeter mount and they won't have to use the back of the motherboard tray so with all that said I guess its conclusion time I've spent a lot of this video on nitpicky stuff I don't like like the motherboard standoffs not being pre-installed rather than looking at the bigger picture and I feel like I should take a step back for a moment it's not like the core 3500 is a terrible case if you like the aesthetic you could find much worse options out there at this price but I guess these little issues were so hard for me to accept because fractal isn't new to the case manufacturing game anymore they should be experienced enough to realize that if your PCI thumb screws are installed with power tools at the factory then putting a fan controller in the way of getting a screwdriver in there is going to mean that every builder will need to remove that fan controller to install their graphics card for the first time and that's my problem here I expected fractal to blow me away with their design and innovation again and that just wasn't the case speaking of cases HuluPlus has cracked the case so to speak on delivering top notch content streaming services you've probably tried classic Hulu on your computer but Hulu Plus is much more it works on pretty much any streaming device like your Roku chromecast or smart phone which means you can watch at home or on the go with these they have currencies and episodes of shows like Modern Family and Parks and Recreation as well as entire back libraries of some of my personal favorites like South Park and Doctor Who so whether you're trying to stay up-to-date with current shows or catch up on an entire series Hulu Plus has you covered oh and you'll also get access to originals that you can't get anywhere else like the upcoming hotwives of orlando a parody of The Real Housewives which will be available July 15th sounds pretty good Florida hotwives do you know that Florida is actually one of the fattest states I hope that's not the kinds of anyway I'm sure I'm sure I'm sure that it won't be those kinds of hotwives like like they're too warm and they need to anyway the point is it's only $7.99 a month but right now they're offering you guys a chance to try Hulu Plus completely free for two weeks when you sign up be sure to use the link in the video description Hulu Plus dot-com / - so you get that extra week because they always offer a free week so you don't actually have to give me any credit for sending you over there but I'd really appreciate it if you do in the extra free week is like also great - so that's pretty much it guys thank you very much for watching like this video if you liked it dislike it if you disliked it leave a comment and let me know was I too hard on the core 3,500 did I beat it up too much does it look like a great case to you I mean I hit myself on the fan I mean that the build quality is good I mean there's all you know the metals fold it over like it's it's not a bad case so let me know do you think I do think I judge you too harshly and that's pretty much it guys the link in the video description to support us is down there so you can go ahead and you can give us a monthly contribution you can buy cool t-shirt like this one or you can I'm sure there's a third thing right change your Amazon bookmarks or something with our affiliate code so that we back whenever you buy like I don't know the paper towel or whatever it happens to be thanks again for watching and as always don't forget to subscribe