Fractal Design Core 3500W Review

Up Close:  Interior Overview and Drive bays

Whipping off both side panels reveals the interior to be a somewhat stripped down variant of that seen on both the Arc Midi and Define R4.  There’s a reasonable but not huge sized CPU cut out, and 3 longer than usual rubber grommeted cable management holes.  The Motherboard tray actually only covers the posterior two thirds of the case, with the anterior portion being left open through to the reverse side.  The usually generous depth of the Core 3500W means that conventional tower CPU coolers up to 180mm in height can be accommodated, which means pretty much any cooler on the market. 

    

 

With optical media on the decline, but perhaps still recognising the need for twin bay reservoirs Fractal have included space for two 5.25″ devices.  Brace yourself though, they are not tool free!!!  Fractal have also only included space for four 3.5″ or 2.5″ dives.  This isn’t meant to be a critical statement by any means, with the cost of 3TB and even 4TB drives diving, it seems mad these days for a manufacture to still include 6-8 3.5″ bays.  It also helps that with the 4 drive bay in the lower position air from the 140mm front intake fan has an unobstructed path into the case interior.  The absence of an upper tier of drives also gives the Core 3500W native support for GPUs up to 430mm in length.

     

 

If you have water cooling on your mind you’ll be pleased to see that the front drive bay can be relocated further back into the case creating room for a rad.  Our measurements told us that a 240mm rad up to 50mm thick should fit ok but owing to the location tabs at the front of the drive bay a 280mm rad would be limited to some 38mm thickness.  Moving the drive bay rearwards will of course reduce the max PSU length by 50mm and negate the use of the floor mounted fan location.

     

 

If that’s not enough rad space for you then you could always totally remove the drive bays.  Doing so creates a mahooosive 145mm of room between the front of the case and the start of the motherboard tray.  Plenty we think for even the fattest Alphacool Monsta 240mm or 280mm radiators in push pull configuration.