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Removing the front panel reveals the pre-installed front in-take fan. Fractal Design have chosen to use a Silent Series R2 140 mm fan. This fan is rated to deliver 66 CFM at 1000 RPM with a maximum noise level of 18.5 dBa.
Turning the front panel around shows a layer of soft padding. This acts as both a dust filter and offers minor sound proofing.
Moving to the inside and starting at the bottom left we can see a large rubber grommet behind the power supply. Directly above the power supply mounting position are the 9 white expansion slot brackets and the second pre-installed fan.
Interestingly, an additional rubber grommet is available directly to the right of the expansion slots to aid builders with standard ATX boards. A large CPU cut-out is available to facilitate the installation of a cooler without removing the motherboard.
Along the center of the case we find three additional rubber grommets. The drive caddies are identical to those found in the Arc Mini R2 and Arc Midi R2.
A better look at the rear exhaust fan reveals that is also a Silent Series R2 140 mm.
The pre-installed top exhaust fan is also a Silent Series R2 140 mm. Users can replace this fan with a thick 240 mm radiator, a slim 280 mm radiator or a 360 mm slim radiator. The use of a 360 mm radiator will block the top drive bay.
Directly below the top exhaust fan we can see two more smaller rubber grommets.
The drive cages are held in place with thumb screws and can be removed easily to facilitate the installation of either a thick or slim or 240 mm radiator.
It is also possible to install a 120 mm radiator in the bottom of the case if the lower drive cage is removed.
Around the back of the case we can see two additional SSD mounting positions directly below the CPU cutout. These are surrounded by a healthy number of cable tie points.
As always we aim to find out how forgiving a case is by deliberately stacking cables and only applying minimal cable management. This proved to be impossible with the Arc XL as the layout of the case resulted in a clean look without much effort. All in all, this is one of the fastest builds we have done with the least clutter.
