Eyes On with Fractal Designs Core X3 Series
Hot on the heels of its value-priced Core X5 series, Fractal Design launched its Core X3 at Computex Taipei. We wanted to get a look at these cases so we paid Fractal a little visit at Computex in Taipei.
These cases boast an even lower cost than the X5s. The catch is that you'll give up the fan controller. That's probably not even a factor in the decisions of builders who use motherboard-integrated temperature-based fan control, so $10 saved becomes $10 earned. Included are the $60 Core 3300 oversized ATX mid-tower, $50 Core 2300 standard ATX mid-tower, and $40 Core 1300 Micro-ATX mid-tower. Each are made of the same thin steel as most other mainstream cases, and all have a brushed-finish plastic face panel that simulates the appearance of anodized aluminum.
Among Fractal Design's major selling points is that these reduced-price units carry the same drive cages as their pricier siblings.
The top panel features offset fan mounts to provide motherboard-to-radiator clearance for compact liquid-based CPU coolers, and the widest Core 3300 can even fit a gigantic 185 mm tall air-based CPU cooler if desired. Full specs are available today on Fractal's website for each of these new models.
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The Core 1300 is about three times too big to be called extremely compact. Half volume and it may be something you could say but it's huge as (or bigger than) many regular ATX cases.
Too long, sorry.