A Look Inside the Fractal Design Epoch XL Case
As I mentioned the side panel on this case extends about 80% so when you do remove it there is a small plain steel panel on the front of the case. It can be removed with a simple thumbscrew towards the top. While it is not necessary to remove it, it will make it easier to install larger graphics cards and fans / radiators in the front of the case.
When it comes to motherboard support the Epoch XL will support mini-ITX, Micro-ATX, ATX, and E-ATX motherboards. You will notice a bunch of cut-outs in the motherboard tray because the Epoch XL will support back-connect motherboards, the original Epoch did not. There are two main large cable routing holes which do have rubber inserts installed.
This case does have a power supply cover that extends most of the length of the case, but does have a cut-out in the front to make room if you planned to install a radiator in the front of the case. If you did mount a standard sized radiator in the front of the case it does cut-down the max graphics card size from 425mm to 395mm. Compared to the original Epoch Fractal has extended the ventilation the entire length of the power supply cover and removed the mounting for one of the storage brackets.
Moving to the back of the case the seven expansion slots are held in place with thumbscrews.
Removing the opposite side panel one nice addition that is very apparent is that Fractal has included a lot more velcro ties, which is going to make organizing your cables quite easy. Because of all the holes in the motherboard tray Fractal has gone with two single SSD trays back here instead of a single larger one. They are mounted towards the front of the case and are of course removable.
Moving to the bottom section of the case we find two more larger storage trays. These storage trays are also removable and you can move them closer to your power supply to make room for a front radiator. Each one of these trays will support both a 2.5-inch SSD and 3.5-inch hard drive. So out of the box this case supports six hard drives. Finally we have our power supply mount at the back of the case and we do have full ATX power supply support.
