A Closer Look - Inside

To gain access to the interior, simply remove both thumbscrews that hold each side panel in place. The Core 2300's interior is completely black and features a vertical hard-drive panel instead of the usual drive bays. The Core 1000 and the Core 3300 use the same approach. There is also a large opening in the motherboard tray to allow for easy access to the motherboard's CPU area. As there is very little space to route cables behind the tray due to the compact design, Fractal even put an L-shaped trench around the area.


This trench gives you around 20 mm worth of space to work with, which should be enough to keep the most disturbing cable mess out of sight. You may also install a 2.5" drive there thanks to four mounting holes. As these will be covered by the power supply, you should really install your storage device before fully assembling the system.


If storage expandability is a concern, I can put your mind to ease. The panel may hold up to three 3.5" and three 2.5" drives. This means that the Core 2300 can hold up to seven hard drives in total. You may remove the panel for easy assembly outside of the chassis. Doing so also reveals the 120 mm air intake fan in the front. You may even install a second such unit there or go for a liquid-cooling setup of up to 240 mm in size instead.


There are also two external 5.25" drive bays that do not come with a plastic-locking system. Instead, Fractal Design includes large thumbscrews for their tool-less assembly.


The PSU bay in the rear is in the bottom. The power supply will rest on four pieces of foam to prevent any vibrations. Above the bay are the seven white motherboard expansion slots. Each of these is held in place by a black thumbscrew. In the very same top is another white-bladed 120 mm fan; it pushes air out the back of the chassis. This brings the total number of pre-installed cooling fans to two, which is plenty for a chassis of this price range.


The two fan-placements possibilities in the top are offset slightly, so you should be able to install a radiator there without having to worry about it touching any on-board components. That said, there are some high-end motherboards with fairly high aluminum cooling blocks, but user with those usually don't go for a chassis of this price segment.


All the cables within are sleeved to match the interior's color. They are of the default variety, so you should not run into any issues while connecting these to a modern motherboard. As I mentioned before, all the USB plugs are fully sized, which will have them occupy a full set of plugs, each, even though Fractal only placed one of each type on the Core 2300's exterior.