Fractal Design Core 1000: How Little is Too Little
by Dustin Sklavos on April 13, 2012 11:35 AM EST- Posted in
- Cases/Cooling/PSUs
- MicroATX
- Mini-Tower
- Fractal Design
Conclusion: A Strange Balancing Act
Producing a good enclosure for the extreme budget sector of the market is, as far as I can tell, an incredibly difficult balancing act. There's a lot of balancing that honestly goes on with any enclosure south of $150, but the latitude you have with which to work just gets smaller and smaller, and when you eventually get down to the $40 price tag that the Fractal Design Core 1000 is sitting at, you start actually having to see if the case supports everything you specifically need.
I don't think the Core 1000 is a bad case by any stretch of the imagination, and it's definitely in the running for the smallest case you can buy at the lowest price. So if you want something small at the exclusion of virtually all else, I just don't see how you're going to beat it. The cooling system is also, at least on paper and mostly in practice, very efficient and a far cry from the old school cheapo boxes with a single sad 80mm exhaust fan in the back. Finally, the build quality is actually quite good, and Fractal Design includes a lot of trimmings that some of you may appreciate.
The problem is that I feel like those trimmings came at too high a cost, and that in a broader sense I'm just not sure the Core 1000 is competitive with more generic budget cases. Much is sacrificed to get this low, and I'm not talking about niceties, either; I'm talking about not being able to have more than two 3.5" hard drives, the one component users are most apt to keep adding over time. The difficulty of installing a full-size mATX motherboard is also a problem, and putting the I/O ports on the right side of the case is a mistake in our opinion. The only other case we've reviewed in this price bracket is the BitFenix Outlaw, which at $10 more is still a slam dunk over the Core 1000 as far as I'm concerned, unless the jump to full ATX is too much.
At $40 it's hard to necessarily go wrong with the Core 1000, and I have no doubt that some users are going to point to this case and say, "See! You don't need to spend more than $40 to get a good case!" The problem is that the Core 1000 is also difficult to work in and with even by Micro-ATX standards and it's frankly pretty noisy for higher spec components. Basically, you need to choose you components and set your expectations properly if you're in the market for this sort of system; we'd recommend a slightly smaller mATX motherboard along with a modular PSU, a modest CPU and GPU, and don't get a large tower cooler. Even then, we feel Fractal Design makes better cases that are better values, but it's like the old saying goes: you get what you pay for. If what you want is an inexpensive mATX case, the Core 1000 is worth a look; just be sure you understand the compromises made with such a platform.
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Meaker10 - Friday, April 13, 2012 - link
Also once you reach much higher end (gaming wise) you will probably have a large single drive + SSDs or even just SSDs that take a single slot and sit them in an optical bay.Spivonious - Friday, April 13, 2012 - link
Agreed with all but the hard drive comment.Unless you're shooting for overclocking records, the stock cooler that comes with Intel's chips is more than enough, is quiet, and is very short.
Most people building a mATX PC are going to use the onboard graphics, or at most a $100-level video card.
Hard drives are always welcome though. Most start with one or two and then add as they need more space instead of replacing older drives with newer larger ones. Personally, I have 5 drives in my C2D build that I've acquired over the past six years. I appreciate a case that makes room for them.
dave1_nyc - Sunday, April 15, 2012 - link
I wanted to start this with "Do you really find the Intel stock cooler quiet?", but obviously you do or wouldn't have said so, and 'quiet' is in the ear of the beholder. And to be fair, it's free and given how little fin space it has, it works well. But.. maybe I'm just sensitive to the pitch or timbre of the sound, but I hate it.I recently built a file server and decided to go all the way down to an Intel G530. (And tangentially, I've been amazed at how capable it is; far more so than I had expected.)
But I lived with the stock cooler only for about 2 days, and then replaced it with an $18-with-rebate CM Hyper 212 Plus. I know it seems silly to use a cooler that's almost half the cost of the CPU, but it's great: the CM is so understressed that the fan turns about 700 rpm most of the time and I can't hear it at all. Very nice.
Belard - Friday, April 13, 2012 - link
Yep... Empty Optical bays are made for storing cables and such. :)This case is no worse than the typical Dell / HP / Acer budget systems which are quite small, designed to hold 2 optical drives and 2 3.5" drives, nothing more.
zero2dash - Friday, April 13, 2012 - link
It's arguably the nicest most feature rich case in that price range that is a small tower. Obviously you could get a BitFenix Outlaw or a Three Hundred for a little more but those are midtowers, not SFF towers.How many hard drives are people really filling up their PC's with that aren't servers?
I have 2 drives in my Define R3, 1 drive in a Three Hundred, and 1 drive in a CM Elite 341.
I really don't get the whole "8 3.5" HD bays" mentality that people have these days. If you're running a server (and it's not a rack), you're probably buying a large midtower or a full tower.
No one with 8 HD's is going to put together a SFF, at least not without being sorely mistaken as to what they can and can't do.
Also on the thermal performance....I'm assuming that all case reviews are done with stock cooling only and compared that way? I know it's somewhat of a given here but I would expect that if you added the side fan that the spot is there for, the internal thermals would be better on this case. Then again, those thermals would also be better with more fans added to the 1100 as well though, so the point is somewhat moot (but worth mentioning anyway).
Casper42 - Friday, April 13, 2012 - link
I disagree with your statement about the drives. There is a middle ground and I'm right smack in the middle of it.I have a mATX Case and board but I have 5 SATA devices in use.
1 Optical 5.25
1 SSD 2.5
3 HDD 3.5
So while I don't need 8 drive bays, 4 would have certainly been great.
On the flip side, I still dont see why cases need to have more than 2 5.25 bays and in mATX why would you need more than 1?
Pappnaas - Friday, April 13, 2012 - link
http://www.aerocool.com.tw/index.php/products/27-p...Has a spot for a 120 Fan in the back, but no front USB 3.0. Might not be available in the us, didn't check.
kmmatney - Friday, April 13, 2012 - link
This has front USB 3.0 ports and looks like a nice case:http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N8...
I prefer the Antec 300 cases myself - have 3 of tmem at my house.
zero2dash - Monday, April 16, 2012 - link
Almost identical to the CM Elite 341 I have.Nice thing about the 341 is the front CM badge is removable. :)
TrackSmart - Friday, April 13, 2012 - link
From the review: "There's nowhere to mount a fan on the bottom of the enclosure, no openings on the top or the right side, and a single 120mm fan mount on the left side panel."No to be too critical, but Dustin writes this as if it were a bad thing! I'd be happier if they included a cover for the side vent, too. It would cut down on the noise and probably contribute to better front-to-back airflow. I think you have to evaluate "features" like a foolish number of vent openings based on the intended usage of the case. This happens to be a small, very inexpensive case that is clearly meant for modest builds. Just my 2 cents.