Fractal Design Core 1000: How Little is Too Little

Noise and Thermal Testing, Stock

Obviously, looking at our charts this isn't going to be a particularly fair fight for the Fractal Design Core 1000. That's an unfortunate product of the gradual process of building up test results with the recently refreshed testbed. With that said, the Core 1000 does benefit from a positive-pressure cooling design that we've seen prove very effective in the past, and it's at least interesting to see how much performance you lose by going with a smaller, extreme budget enclosure.

Ambient temperatures during testing with the Core 1000 were between 22.8C and 23.2C, in line with the ambient temperatures the other cases were tested under.

Thermal performance for the major components is, thus far, roughly comparable to Corsair's much more expensive Obsidian 550D. Note, however, that the 550D is a larger enclosure with far less ventilation and a much more specific thermal and acoustic design than the Core 1000. SSD thermals aren't stellar, but they're not actually horrible either. A 3.5" drive will be more apt to experience some of the intake fan's airflow; the 2.5" drive is simply too flat to catch any (and really, the SSD doesn't need to stay that cool).

Once again the Core 1000's fan speeds are offering performance roughly comparable to the more expensive Corsair 550D, but look at the noise levels. While idling both enclosures are at the noise floor of our sound meter, but under load the 550D is far more graceful. That's what you're spending the extra money for. There's no way around it: the Core 1000, even at stock settings, is noisy, and the gulf between fan speeds on the Core 1000 and Antec Eleven Hundred demonstrates that the less expensive enclosure also doesn't have anywhere near as much thermal headroom to work with. Which brings us to the overclocked results....