Fractal Design Core 500 Case Review

Installation
To start installation the first thing that I did was remove the cooling bracket and front drive mounts. The makes a lot more room inside the case to work with. Just remove a handful of screws and you can easily remove both.

Fractal Design Core 500 Case

With more room to work with inside the case the first thing that I installed was my motherboard. It went in without any issues at all.

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Next up is the power supply, which is the Cooler Master V750. It happens to be a little bit smaller than most power supply units. It easily slides in and you secure it at the back.

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Once I installed the power supply I noticed that blocked the SATA Express ports on my motherboard. It would definitely be a tight fit if I was going to make use of those ports.

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Hard drive installation is next. I will be installing both a 3.5-inch and 2.5-inch hard drive. For 3.5-inch hard drive installation you take the longer screws and screw the hard drive into the inside of the case, it is quite simple.

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2.5-inch hard drive installation is pretty easy as well. You line up the hard drive with the mount and install it on the bottom first then secure it with screws on the top.

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With both hard drives installed it is time to wire everything up. Being such a small case wire management is a little more difficult than usual.

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With most things wired it is now time to install our radiator. Since the mounting bracket is removable it is quite easy to install it outside of the case.

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With our radiator installed on the bracket we just reinstall it back into the case and then connect the pump / block to our motherboard. Again this is where wiring gets a little tricky and crowded.

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Here is what the opposite side of the case looks like. You can see how the extension cable plugs right into our power supply.

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The last thing that we need to install in our graphics card. This case does support graphics cards up to 310 mm, but you will need to watch the cabling of your power supply as it might get in the way.

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With everything installed just put the top panel back on the case and you are good to go!

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