Fractal Design Core 500 Case Overview
For a full overview of the Core 500 be sure to check out our video below.
The Core 500 is a mini-ITX case so it is quite small. The official dimensions of the case are 250 x 203 x 367 mm. It has that sort of cube-case look to it, but it is a bit longer than a traditional cube. Like most Fractal Design cases it is currently only available in black.
The front of the case has a sort of faux brushed aluminum design to it, which looks pretty good. Towards the top of the case is a 5.25-inch drive bay. Not much else is on the front of the case except a small Fractal Design logo towards the bottom. The front of bezel of the case easily pops off and reveals a 2.5-inch hard drive mount.
Moving up to the top of the case you are going to find all of your buttons and connections. From left to right you have a large power button, smaller reset button, hard drive activity LED, headphone and microphone connections and two USB 3.0 ports.
The rest of the top of the case is ventilated. There are actually some pretty impressive cooling options on the top of the case, which we will get into once we get inside the case.
Each side of the case is ventilated, this is good as the case is pretty small. On the main side you have a large ventilated section that will help cool off your graphics card. On the opposite side there is a smaller ventilated section that sits right in front of where your power supply will be.
Moving on to the back of the case we see a large 140 mm exhaust fan. This is Fractal Design’s own Silent Series R3 fan, which spins at 1000 RPM. The rear fan placement also supports a 120 mm fan if you wanted to swap the 140 mm out. There are two expansion slots so you can install a full-sized graphics card. There is a power connection on the bottom left of the case, you will see why once we get into the case.
Flipping the case over to the bottom there are four small feet, which will lift it off the ground for better airflow. There is also a removable fan filter towards the front of the case, which is for your power supply.
