Fractal Design Core 1000 Micro ATX Computer Case w/ 1 x 120mm fan

Pros: Spacious Cheap Does its job very well Fits a full size video card comfortably.

Cons: none that I can think of.

Pros: Got 2 of them for $25 each! With Free Ship! Fantastic case for a MicroATX build. Great quality/feel, especially the paint. Included front mesh insert for 3.5" reader/fan controller. Thumbscrews for everything important. Unique HDD/SSD mounting location. Quiet 120mm fan included CMOS speaker included! I love the placement of the power button, USB, and audio connectors. It gives the front of the case an exceptionally clean look. One 100mm and one 120mm fan can be added.

Cons: Poor routing location for front panel wiring. I drilled a hole down at the bottom for much neater cable management. Heatshrink on all included wires except PWR/RST/HDD. They made everything else look nice, why not these? Blue LED is blinding! Good thing its on the side of the case.

Overall Review: This is likely to be my go to case for MicroATX builds. Some may not like the placement of the power, USB, and audio connectors. If you didn't want/need an optical drive, and with some creativity, you could easily fit 2 closed loop water coolers or a dual radiator in the front of this case.

Pros: Inexpensive, yet still has a lot of the fit and finish you'd expect a lower end case to skip: PCI slot covers are real, reusable covers rather than cheap knockout aluminum, they're even painted. They didn't scrimp on screws and thumbscrews. The rubber HD mounts worked great and I like knowing there's some level of vibration damping going on. Their vertical orientation is also good for airflow and has made for a much roomier case in the end than I expected. And it's a very good looking and dignified case, matte black with no unnecessary baffles or spoilers, controls tucked away nicely on the front-right.

Cons: Complaining about the filter on a case this inexpensive is looking a gift horse in the mouth, but if you plan to use a higher speed fan up front consider: The filter is the spongy sort you have to wash rather than blow out, and not particularly fast to remove. Also if you do your best to build dust-free systems, this will challenge you. There are many holes throughout the case, even the PCI card covers are perforated. The case is great for heat dissipation but I suspect it will take on a lot of dust without measures taken (see below). Finally, the user's manual is essentially useless- like two pages per language giving little more than a mission statement. Normally wouldn't care, but I did end up using Newegg's video twice for reference.

Overall Review: Installation notes: 1) Clearance was tight between motherboard and optical drive bays when trying to dip it under the rear panel cover's aluminum tabs, this forced me to put the mobo's back panel across its inputs BEFORE installing, then pop the panel frame the rest of the way in. 2) The front panel comes off a little hard, I spent some time squeezing the inserts hoping it'd come out gently to no avail; turns out you just grab from the underside and force it out. 3) Note the vertical drive mounting, I wasn't expecting it and I wonder how long it'd have taken me to figure it out without the video haha; first time I've even thought to use the bottom mounts on a 3.5" HD.

Pros: Everything else is as-described and it's a great quality case at a steal of a price.

Cons: The listed dimensions are a bit off. It's basically 14.75" tall, 17.5" deep, and 7" wide. No wonder it fits a little more snug into the space I chose than I thought it would. If it were the dimensions it's supposed to be, I wouldn't have to jigsaw out the fiberboard backing of my enterainment center for the plugs that will stick out the rear I/O.

Pros: Well made for an inexpensive case. Looks nice. Nice black interior (rare on an inexpensive case). Also, uses almost all the same screw sizes. No sharp edges. I recommend a modular power supply to reduce cable clutter although the supply I have in now is not modular.

Cons: Others have mentioned it but to fit a standard MATX MB in this case you really have to push hard and it scratches against the upper drive cage. I was afraid I would damage the board getting it in and am now afraid to remove it, for fear of damage. How they could not have seen this when designing the case is beyond me. To be fair I did get the board in without damage. There is no cutout on the MB backing sheet metal to easily change the CPU cooler. The board must be completely taken out to change the cooler. Proper air flow through this case is a concern. I put a Gigabyte 880GM-USB3 board (9.6" x 9.6") in this case.

Overall Review: They don't make this clear but it takes a standard size ATX power supply (approx. 3" H x 5 " W). I'm using an Ultra 750 that I took from another standard size build.

Pros: Low price, quality construction (for its price, e.g. no sharp edges), easy/simple cable management, small physical size and low weight, included fan is high quality, excellent thermals.

Cons: For the price? None whatsoever.

Overall Review: At this price range the Core 1000's competitors are not very well-built. They often have sharp edges ready to slice apart unwary fingers, power buttons fall off, and sometimes holes and cutouts aren't aligned well. The Core 1000 suffers from none of these flaws. I was especially surprised to find a 5.25" to 3.5"/2.5" adapter in a budget case. This lets you easily mount an SSD or HDD in the second optical drive bay. (Who uses more than one ODD nowadays? Regardless, the flexibility is very nice.) The innovative HDD mounting design does limit the number of HDDs you can install (three using the ODD bay adapter) but at this price, that's not a substantial concern. It does, however, also facilitate excellent airflow and therefore HDDs, GPUs, and CPUs stay cool. This case is my new preference for budget builds - in its case, cheap doesn't mean garbage!

Pros: I have recently purchased quite a few cases, from high-end NZXT to the low-cost Thermaltake V3 to a Rosewill. I was attracted to the Fractal Design for, well, its design. It's minimalistic, and the interior paint shows the attention to detail. This case is definitely closer to the quality of the NZXT than the Thermaltake/Rosewill I have mentioned. The case is well built with great attention to little details. The damping grommets for the harddrives work, and they make the case quiet. The harddrive "tray" is held in tension, so it is very rigid when in place. the engineers who designed this case definitely gave serious thoughts to make a budget case that is well beyond other cases. It is not "tight", it is an mATX case, that's normal. In fact, I found this to have plenty of space for this motherboard size. There also isn't a lot of plastic on this case, which is a plus. Overall, I think this case represents the best value for money at this price.

Cons: At this price, none.

Pros: With this case you get a bit more than what you pay for. Clean simple design. I installed an Asus 1155 micro ATX Mother Board, i5 2500 processor, 8 Gig of RAM, and a crucial M4 160Gb SSD (Main storage lives on a file server with a RAID1). I used a modular Power supply to keep it clean, plus I added 90mm and 120mm fans for extra cooling (not required but I like redundancy). Installing Win 7 64 makes all this add up to be a great little general purpose machine. Thanks Fractal!!

Cons: Just remember to buy the case that fits your needs, nothing more nothing less.

Overall Review: I like the fact that it has a clean appearance, it's black inside and out, and doesn't have any of those see through sides and annoying fan lights. Also this is my 3rd Fractal Design case, I have two of the larger ones that I used to build a couple of NLEs.