Fractal Design Core 1100 Case Overview

The front includes the same brushed aluminum finish found on other Fractal Design cases. Starting from the top, there are two available 5.25″ expansion drive bays. Moving down is a variety of front panel I/O ports. This includes a power button, hard drive activity LED light, a USB 3.0 and USB 2.0 port, and standard headphone and microphone. The side of the front panel consists of two air-intake filters. These will feed cool air to the front 120mm preinstalled fan. The Fractal Design logo is then located at the very bottom.

At the back of the Core 1100, we see the power supply unit will be mounted at the top of the case. There is a rear fan mount compatible for an optional 80mm or 92mm case fan. At the bottom is total of four expansion slots for graphics cards, sound cards, and other expansion cards.

Taking a look at the side panel, we can see there is an available slot for a 120mm case fan. This fan is optional and will provide better airflow to the internal components, such as the graphics card.

On the other side of the case, there is not much to see here. This side panel may be removed to help route and manage the cables from the front intake fan or the cables from the storage devices.

Because the power supply unit mounts on the top of the Core 1100, top fan mounts are not present on top of the case. Even if there were to be top fan mounts, there is just not enough clearance between the motherboard to mount the fans.

The bottom also remains primitive. Micro-ATX cases normally do not include extra fan mounts at the top or the bottom due to space limitations. This is only standard and will still meet the needs of a basic computer user.

Now that we have seen all around the exterior of the Core 1100, let’s go into more details and talk about the interior features.