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Fractal has chosen not to use thumbscrews to secure the top panel of the case in place. This makes it a little more complicated to access the inside of the case. This may actually be preferable to some users, though, as HTPC users will rarely require the same level of unrestricted access as their mid-tower counterparts.
The top panel itself features a thick layer of sound proofing material on the inside which should help to ensure good acoustic performance.
Once the top panel has been removed, it becomes clear that there is a fairly generous amount of space to work with inside, at least for a home theatre PC case.
Installing a motherboard into the case is a simple process. We are first required to screw stand-offs into the appropriate locations before securing the motherboard down with screws from on top.
As the motherboard tray is actually the bottom of the case, it would be impractical to have a cut-out for installing CPU cooler backplates.
As a result, you must install your CPU cooler onto the motherboard before putting it in the case. You also need to be careful when choosing a CPU cooler as there is limited headroom.
We only just managed to squeeze our Arctic Freezer 7 Pro into the case so you would probably be best off looking at the C-type coolers from Noctua and Phanteks if you're looking for a performance option.
It's simple to install hard drives and solid state drives into the system. The white caddies must be removed from the case before the drives can be screwed into place.
We had a little more trouble when installing the power supply into the system as it forced us to remove one of the hard drive caddies, even though the Corsair GS800 is a standard sized unit.
Therefore, this case isn't ideal for those looking to build a home theatre system with multiple hard drives as this reduces it's capacity to two (including SSDs). Additionally, the lack of a space behind the motherboard tray means that cable routing can be quite difficult.
Finally we installed the graphics card into the system which was pretty much trouble free. It was a little tricky to get the power cables into place so we would consider attaching them before putting the graphics card in if we were to build our test system up again.
