If you’re in the market for a microATX case with high-end features and a mid-range price,
this might be the case for you.
The Fractal Design Core 1500 is a compact microATX mini tower case with a clean, unobtrusive
black exterior and exceptional cooling.
Personally, I love this style of case rather than bright, flashing LEDs with glass side
panels and obnoxious styling that so many “gaming” cases have.
I prefer something more subtle; a small, quiet, black box that can blend in anywhere.
The Core 1500 is just that.
[intro]
Howdy howdy guys, Ponchato here, and today we’re gonna be taking an in-depth look at
the Fractal Design Core 1500.
This case supports microATX and mini-ITX motherboards, full sized graphics cards, two 240mm radiators,
and full sized ATX power supplies.
The power supply is bottom-mounted and reversible (so the intake can be from inside the case
or underneath), there are four vented expansion slots held with thumbscrews, and the case
comes with a huge CPU backplate cutout in the motherboard tray for easily mounting CPU
coolers.
All that in a package that’s only 7.7" wide, 14.5" tall, and 17.7" deep, and weighing in
at only 11.5 pounds.
First, the exterior features.
Most of this case is simply black powder coated steel.
No windows, no crazy plastic designs, just a straightforward microATX mini tower case.
The front panel is plastic, but has a black brushed aluminum look.
There are two 5.25” drive bays.
Honestly, I’d like to see external drive bays removed; people just don’t really use
physical media anymore.
The vents on either side of the front panel have foam filters
and act as air intakes, but… also not really.
More on that in a little.
It’s not usually a point people are too concerned with but I thought it’s worth
nothing: the feet on this case are just plain, hard plastic, instead of rubber.
It’s a cost cutting measure, no doubt, but one that I actually welcome.
I rearrange my desk all the time and cases with rubber feet don’t slide.
This one does, easily, and even on carpet.
For some people this may be a downside, but the good news is that replacement case feet
are only a couple bucks and you can find them basically anywhere, if you need your computer
to stay put.
On the front panel you have the power and reset buttons, hard drive activity LED, microphone
and headphone jack, and 2 USB 3.0 jacks.
The front panel cables are easily long enough to reach across the case – I didn’t have
any trouble plugging them in.
The power LED is built into the power button, and like the hard drive activity LED, it’s
bright white.
In fact, they’re a little too bright for me.
If you have your computer under your desk, the lights may be a bit distracting.
A really nice thing about the Core 1500 is that the front panel is separate from the
front panel I/O.
That means you can take off the front panel without disconnecting any wires or dealing
with plugs getting stuck; it just comes off as its own completely separate piece.
The inside of the case is where you find a lot of nice features.
Both side panels come off easily with included thumbscrews, and reveal a nicely finished,
black interior with white highlights from the fans, hard drive cages, and expansion
slot covers.
The case comes with two quiet 120mm fans, front and rear, with 3 pin headers.
Fractal Design included a built-in 3-speed fan controller mounted just above the rear
fan.
Fan speeds can be toggled with a switch on the back of the case, and the controller offers
three 3-pin fan headers.
Note that 4-pin or PWM fans will not fit into these fan headers without an adapter.
Power for the fans is taken from a SATA power jack.
The SATA power cable and two of the fan headers are 17” long – easily long enough for
front intake fans, and the third fan header is 9” long.
With the Core 1500, your air and liquid cooling options are quite extensive.
For air cooling, depending on your selection of 120mm and 140mm fans, you can have up to
7 fans in this case.
For a case this size, that’s really impressive cooling.
The front panel can support either two 120mm fans or a single 140mm fan, the top supports
two 120mm or two 140mm fans, the back can take a 120mm fan and the side panel can accept
a 140mm fan.
A side panel fan probably won’t fit if you have a tower cooler - my Deepcool GAMMAXX
400 only leaves about 10mm of clearance and case fans are 25mm tall.
The bottom fan mounting locations are a bit more complicated – if your power supply
is less than 155mm long, you can drop in a 120mm fan without moving anything.
If it’s longer than that or you want to use a 140mm fan on the bottom, you’ll need
to remove the lower hard drive cage.
It’s held in place with 4 screws, so it’s easy to take out.
Liquid cooling options are likewise very extensive.
The front and top panels support radiators up to 240mm and the rear panel will support
a 120mm radiator.
Installation of the front and top radiators comes with some restrictions.
To install the front radiator, the lower 5.25” drive bay must be empty, the upper hard drive
cage needs to be removed, and the lower hard drive cage needs to be moved to its secondary
position, slightly further toward the back.
The hard drive cages are easy to move or take out as they’re simply held in place with
4 screws each.
With those minor changes the front can support radiators up to 45mm thick.
The top radiator doesn’t require anything to be removed, but it does come with a condition:
if the radiator and fan assembly are thicker than 32mm, and components on the motherboard
taller than 35mm, the radiator will run into them.
For reference, standard RAM height is around 31mm, so this shouldn’t be a problem unless
you have memory with big, wild heat spreaders.
The Core 1500 comes with a dust filter on the bottom for both power supply intake and
any extra intake fans you might add.
The filter on the bottom is lackluster.
It’s a fairly coarse plastic mesh that really won’t stop anything smaller than pet hair.
My suggestion to Fractal Design: use foam filters.
They’re still cheap, they actually work, and they don’t restrict airflow any more
than these plastic sheets.
Anyway, The Core 1500 supports CPU tower coolers up to 162mm tall – easily enough to fit
my Deepcool GAMMAXX 400.
Now, back to the front panel and its foam filters.
The issue with the front panel and its foam intakes is that there’s a hole in the bottom
so you can grab it to take the front panel off.
What ends up happening is a large portion of the intake air just comes through this
hole, instead of coming through the dust filters.
My ham-fisted attempt at forcing the air to intake through the filters is just a piece
of paper taped over the hole.
My suggestion to Fractal Design: close off the hand grip compartment so air can’t be
drawn in through the hole and instead has to come through the filtered vents.
Space for storage is provided by two removable hard drives cages.
The split hard drive bays offer excellent cooling capacity and space for graphics cards
up to 380mm (just under 15”) long – more than enough for almost any card available
today.
There are 4 total spaces for 3.5” drives; two in the top cage and two in the bottom.
The thing I love most about these removable drive bays is that they come with silicone
vibration damping grommets.
These physically isolate hard drives from the case and dramatically reduce the amount
of noise you have to deal with when using old fashioned mechanical hard drives.
Slots between each drive allow for ample airflow to keep the drives cool and the bays also
support installation of SSDs.
There is one hidden mounting position for a 2.5” SSD behind the power supply, though
I question the ease of routing cables to a drive down here.
Speaking of cable routing, the Core 1500 offers middle-of-the-road cable management options.
There’s a large hole near the bottom-mounted power supply, two smaller holes along the
front of the motherboard tray, and two along the top.
Silicone grommets would have offered better aesthetics, but for a mid-range case that’s
not to be expected and not too big of a deal.
There’s 18.5mm of space around the motherboard tray and 13.5mm directly behind it – enough
to fit most cables but it’s a bit of a squeeze for thicker ones like the 24 pin ATX motherboard
cable.
There are a few slots for zip ties on the back of the motherboard tray, but it would
have been nice to have more.
Minor quip.
The case comes with all the screws you might need: standoffs, motherboard screws, power
supply screws, hard drive screws, and even the long screws you’d need for another front
intake fan.
It’s all neatly organized into reusable bags – a very nice touch for keeping things
together.
They also include a few black zip ties.
A small, but very very helpful thing they included is an adapter so you can tighten
down the motherboard standoffs with a regular Phillips head screwdriver.
That’s much nicer than trying to grip them with pliers and tearing them up as you build
your computer.
One thing that I really appreciate is the high quality, detailed manual and build guide
that Fractal Design included.
In addition to step-by-step instructions for putting together a computer, they include
a list of contents with pictures, so you know which screws are for which thing.
It also has the possible fan locations, dust filter locations and maintenance, and water
cooling radiator options, along with measurements and limitations.
Best of all, everything has very easy to understand and well-designed pictures.
Even though the Core 1500 is a mid-range case, this gives off a very high quality feel.
My most recent PC build, The Tank, went into this case.
Click the card in the top right of this video or the link in the description, to see that
build and more in-depth coverage of assembly in the Core 1500.
Overall, this is a very high quality case with no deal breakers and in fact, very few
downsides.
The subtle styling is great, it has many smartly designed features and excellent quality perks
(not the least of which is the isolated hard drive mounting), and it’s very reasonably
priced.
Fractal Design has a good reputation in the case business because they do things that
make sense.
They spend money and design power on the features that matter, and cut costs on things that
don’t.
This case was a pleasure to build in, its compact stature means I can put it almost
anywhere, and with that subdued styling, it won’t ever look out of place.
You can pick up the Fractal Design Core 1500 from Amazon for around $80, and the link for
that is in the description below.
So guys if you liked this video hit the like button, if you want to see more hit subscribe,
and if you have any questions on this case or if you want me to review a different case
for you, leave a comment below.
Thanks for watching, I hope I helped, and I’ll see you in the next video.