Final words and conclusion
Final words and conclusion
So as we stated on the previous page, the Fractal Design Core 3000 is an elegant, simple and definitely feature rich for a mid-tower chassis. You get a matte black designed chassis with features wise options to put in many HDDs and devices. The chassis is fairly tool free, but does not have say easy click-in Optical drive clips. You'll still be using the good old thumb-screws, that works fine of course... but it's not as modern as some of the others in the competition seem to be able to manage.
The inside of the chassis leaves room for improvement, I find that there is not a lot of space to maneuver in and cable routing options are there, but it surely is minimal. More grommet holes for cable routing in the motherboard tray would have had my preference. The HDD/SSD drive cage work simple enough, though you do need screws to secure the actual HDDs, installation should be very easy otherwise.
The looks are decent but remains to be just that, however it is a complete chassis for its size alright. I mean this mid-tower offers plenty of features and plenty of cooling. You can easily fit seven fans in here, and the upper HDD cage is removable and rotatable. There's room for six 3.5" HDDs, tons of USB 2.0 ports, seven expansion slots and support for even the largest of graphics cards.
The paint job is of average quality, after placing the chassis on it's back and after the photoshoot puttin' her back on her feet, we noticed scratches. So do be careful if you purchase one and are installing the motherboard and other components, that paint is easily damaged, so use a cloth or something during installation of the PC.
So let's finish up this conclusion then. Features wise the Core 3000 chassis is okay and decent, but we miss out on the x-factor here a bit, I mean the black and white design is tasteful... but just that. And that makes the Core 3000 feel like it is your average run of the mill chassis, and after the R2 and R3 that's just not what we expected from Fractal Designs -- the proper word I'm seeking for is "a bit plain" I guess. But taste does differ, and you might feel its a spectacular chassis though.
It is a decent sturdy build and the overall design is stylish enough for those that like it. So yeah, it's up-to you. We can definitely recommend the product as honestly nothing is very little wrong with it, you just need to really like the design I guess. With an average price tag of almost 60 EUR we feel the Fractal Design Core 3000 is priced fair, but it would be better if that price came down to 50 EUR, after which it starts making true sense. It's an okay to good chassis, but remains to be just that.
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