Specification and Test Methodology
Fractal Design Core 500 Specification |
|
|---|---|
| Motherboard Compatibility | Mini-ITX |
| Expansion Slots | 2 |
| 3.5in Drive Bays | 3 |
| 2.5in Drive Bays | 3 |
| 5.25in Drive Bays | 1 |
| I/O Ports | 2x USB 3.0 Audio in/out Power button with LED (white) HDD activity LED (white) Reset button |
| CPU Cooler Support | up to 170mm |
| ATX PSU Support | up to 170mm |
| Graphics Card Support | up to 310mm |
| Case Volume | 19.5l |
| Case Dimensions | 250mm x 213mm x 380mm |
| Net Weight | 4.4kg |
| Cooling System | |
| Rear | 1x 120/140mm fan (140mm Silent Series R3 fan included) |
| Top | 2x 120/140mm fan |
| Water Cooling Compatibility | Top - 280, 240, 140 or 120mm radiator (thickness limitation of 100 mm for both radiator + fan). Rear - 120mm radiator |
Comparison Chassis |
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|---|---|---|---|---|
| Chassis | Form Factor | HEXUS Review | Reviewed Price | Product Page |
| Fractal Design Core 500 | Mini-ITX | October 2015 | £50 | Fractal-design.com |
| Fractal Design Node 202 | HTPC | July 2015 | £115 | Fractal-design.com |
HEXUS Mini-ITX Test Bench |
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|---|---|---|---|
| Hardware Components | HEXUS Review | Product Page | |
| Processor | Intel Pentium G3258 and reference cooler | June 2014 | Intel.com |
| Motherboard | MSI Z97I Gaming AC | - | MSI.com |
| Memory | 16GB Adata XPG (2x8GB) DDR3 @ 1,600MHz | - | Adata.com |
| Graphics Card | MSI Radeon R9 270X Gaming 2G | June 2014 | MSI.com |
| Power Supply | be quiet! Straight Power 10 (500W) | - | Bequiet.com |
| Storage Device | 120GB Corsair Force Series 3 SSD | June 2011 | Corsair.com |
| Monitor | Philips Brilliance 4K Ultra HD LED (288P6LJEB/00) | - | Philips.co.uk |
| Operating system | Windows 8.1 (64-bit) | October 2012 | Microsoft.com |
Test Methodology
We're starting our mini-ITX chassis benchmarks from scratch and begin with a straightforward two-way comparison between Fractal Design's Node 202 and Core 500. It'll be interesting to see how the Cube form factor compares to a HTPC solution and we expect to see a noticeable improvement in terms of cooling performance.
Putting recent components to the test, our Z97 test platform now consists of an MSI Z97I Gaming AC motherboard, an Intel Pentium G3258 processor with reference cooler, 16GB of Adata XPG DDR3 memory and an MSI Radeon R9 270X Gaming 2G graphics card.
To find out how well the chassis can cool this particular setup, we log CPU temperature while encoding a large 4K video clip. This task puts full load on all available CPU cores and in order to provide a stabilised reading we then calculate an average temperature across all cores from the last five minutes of encoding.
To get an idea of graphics-card cooling performance, we log GPU temperature while playing Aliens vs. Predator at a 1080p resolution with maximum quality settings. Last but not least, we also measure chassis noise by using a PCE-318 noise meter to take readings when idle and while gaming.
All chassis are tested only with the standard manufacturer-supplied fans (any/all of which are set to 'default' in the MSI BIOS or low-speed using a fan controller if present), and to take into account the fluctuating ambient temperature, our graphs depict both actual and delta temperature - the latter is the actual CPU/GPU temperature minus the ambient. For the record, the ambient temperature while testing Fractal Design's Core 500 was recorded as 19.6ºC.