Fractal Design Epoch XL Case Overview
Taking a first look at the case as you can see we received the white version of the case that has a tempered glass side panel. Fractal Design will also offer the case in a black version. Now the black version has the choice to have a tempered glass side panel or a plain steel panel, while the white version will only be available with the tempered glass side panel. While this case is larger than the original Epoch, it is still not a large case by any means. The official dimensions are 503 x 240 x 509mm, whereas the originals were 447 x 215 x 469 mm.
The font of the case has a mesh front panel meaning that we do have a high airflow design. Towards the bottom of the case you will find a small subtle laser-etched Fractal Design logo badge.
To remove the front panel all you have to do is pull up on it front the bottom and it will easily come off. Once removed we find three of Fractal Design’s Momentum 14 RGB fans pre-installed in the front cooling mount. This is of course because we do have the RGB version of the case, the non-RGB version of the case will ship with three normal Momentum 14 fans (non-RGB). These fans use a simple Type-C connection to daisy-chain to each other and then break-out to a single fan and ARGB connection to connect to your motherboard. The front cooling bracket does support either three 120/140 mm fans or radiators up to 360mm.
Moving up to the top of the case we have our ports and buttons. You get a USB 3.2 gen 2×2 Type-C port, two USB 3.0 Type-A ports, a large power button, and a combination headphone / microphone jack. The rest of the top of the case is ventilated and this ventilation takes up about 80% of the top of the case.
To remove the top ventilated panel on the case there is a nice fabric tab on the back of the case. These tabs are what Fractal is known for and small additions like this really make them stand out from other brands. With the top panel removed we have a cooling mount that supports either three 120/140 mm fans, two 180mm fans, or radiators up to 360 mm. This is a big change as the original version of the case only supported two fans (120/140mm) at the top and only a 240mm radiator.
The main side panel of the case is a tempered glass panel, with no tint at all (the black version of the case will have a slight tint). The panel extends about 80% of the side of the case, much like what we saw on Fractal’s North cases. The opposite side panel is just a normal steel panel.
At the back of the case we have a pretty standard design with a fan mount, lots of ventilation, our motherboard mount, and then a power supply mount at the bottom. The fan mount will only support a 120 mm fan or radiator. We can also see the captive thumbscrews that hold each side panel in place. One thing that Fractal did add back here are the cable ties that allow you to organize all of the cables coming from your motherboard. There is a small filter that pulls out from the bottom of the case for the power supply.
