The Fractal Design Core 500 is a classical SFF chassis. The format, which was made commercial by Shuttle, used to be limiting. With the rise of Mini-ITX boards, things have changed considerably and many case brands have released their own versions of such a chassis. Fractal Design, while a bit late to the party, is now offering a nearly perfect SFF chassis in the Core 500.

At a price tag of around 60 US dollars, the chassis is really affordable, but of great build quality. The interior—albeit very traditional for a chassis of this shape—is functional. Considering you will always have to make compromises when installing liquid cooling into a case as this, Fractal Design's Core 500 manages to avoid all restrictive issues outside of its sheer size with the exception of the PSU's length. With the ability to install six hard drive and an ODD while opting for a potent, large, and quiet air-cooling solution, the chassis has a lot to offer, coming in at a price/performance/quality ratio that is better than with most of the competition out there.