Reviewed: Fractal Design Core 500

In conjunction with 2 Mini ITX motherboard reviews, I’ve had the opportunity to undertake multiple practical builds in the Core 500. Both builds were quick, trouble-free and really straight forward. Access to components when building with the Core 500 is about as good as it gets with an ITX case.

Airflow was adequate despite a lack of front intake fans. The temperatures were a few degrees better on average with a dedicated intake 120mm in the roof. If you were to use a radiator in the roof, I’d personally set it as an intake to get air into the case and I’d be going for a 240mm unit at the expense of the 5.25″ drive bay.

I tested the Core 500 with 3 different air coolers, the 92mm Noctua NH-U9S, the 120mm Noctua NH-U12S and then just for good measure, the 140mm NH-U14S. The 140mm tower cooler was slightly awkward but I was able to manoeuver it into place and reach the mounting screws without any real issues.

Above: The 92mm Noctua NH-U9S cooler is an easy fit in the Core 500.

Above: The 120mm Noctua NH-U12S fills the main chamber pretty well but there is still a fair amount of room around it.

Above: I was genuinely surprised with the 140mm NH-U14S. It fit and as long as the cables are managed sensibly, all hard drive bays are accessible – there was even room to install a roof mounted intake fan.

Hanging 3.5″ drives in the right hand side is a good use of space and the 3×2.5″ SSD/laptop drive mounts were also well thought out. It is tricky/impractical to use all drive mounts at the same time due to cable header congestion but I really liked the design in this regard. In our final test build, I was able to comfortably fit 2×2.5″ SSDs and a single 3.5″ HDD on the side panel plus another SSD on the mount behind the front panel as well as another 3.5″ HDD in the central drive bay. This was a total of 5 drives (2×3.5″ and 3×2.5″) in the rig at the same time with room for a full length graphics card and 140mm tower cooler. This demonstrates the versatility of the Core 500 and the flexible design of the chassis.

The front drive cage for 5.25″ and 3.5″ devices is removable but I didn’t see the need to remove it unless a radiator is being installed. Whilst I don’t use SATA/Internal optical drives, I do have a collection of 3.5″ SATA drives and would consider installing a tool-less hot swap drive bay in the 5.25 optical slot. Another alternative is a fan controller. One thing that would have been nice here would be an alternate face plate without the drive bay so as to improve the aesthetics.

Speaking of aesthetics, there are a pair of slim vertical mesh vent-like panels on the front panel but they are purely for looks as there is no active air flow from the front of the case.

Front I/O connections are located on the top front edge of the chassis for convenience rather than the side as we have seen on Fractal Design’s Node 304 and 804 cases. 2x USB 3, mic, headphone, power, reset and HDD activity LED are all standard offerings and easy to access. The cables are also a little longer than they probably need to be but you can hide the slack in the front panel and this extra length does make it easier to conceal them for a neater internal finish. Neater cables also mean less impediments to airflow within the case and in the mini-ITX world, that means a lot.

Whilst most of the testing involved using the compact but awesome AMD R9 Nano gaming demon, I did test other larger graphics cards in the Core 500 without any problems. Despite being able to accommodate a standard power supply, it’s worth going for a modular, 140mm long unit like the Fractal Design Integra-M to make the most of the space available.

Dust filtering has also been improved with magnetic dust filters part of the offering. This is a welcome revision from the plastic and often flimsy covers that we’ve seen on many cases (including earlier cases from Fractal Design) in the past. I found that the dust filters stayed in place at all times and the magnetic frames were perfect.

There is some serious modding potential for this case. The front panel wouldn’t be difficult to tweak as both the front plate and mesh grills are removable. Mounts exist for 120 and 240mm water cooling and the drive cages can also be removed with minimal effort.