Fractal Design Core 3300: Review | Test | Specs |Hashrate | Set-Up | Pros & Cons

Test – Fractal Design Core 3300: Review| Specs| Test| Hashrate |Price On Amazon| Pros & Cons| CPU Performance| Config | Advantage (Pros) and Disadvantages (Cons) and other important features that will help you make better decision.

After a rather convincing Core 2500 I will present to you one of its big brothers, the Fractal Design Core 3300! Higher, wider, more spacious than the 2500, it should lend itself more easily to large configurations, on the other hand the “x3xx” series of Fractal Design differs from the “x5xx” series by its hard disk mounting system and the ‘no integrated rheobus on the “x3xx”.
Offered at a price of around 53 € and equipped with 2 fans, it should be very interesting if the results are conclusive, let’s see what the Core 3300 has in the belly!

Specification: Hashrate -Fractal Design Core 3300

The Fractal Design Core 3300 is a medium tower case of a good size without being excessive with 51.7cm in length, 45.1cm in height and 23.3cm in thickness, it is compatible with motherboards up to E-ATX ( 29.5cm wide), 2 5.25 ″ slots are available as well as a plate that can accommodate 3 3.5 ″ / 2.5 ″ drives and 2 2.5 ″ SSDs.
The interior is very spacious when we see that the processor cooler can reach a height of 18.5cm (all coolers on the market) and the graphics card 43cm if a hard disk is not installed in front of it, as much. to say that it would almost be necessary to do it on purpose to find components that do not fit!
In terms of ventilation Fractal Design provides 2 original fans, namely 2 Silent 2 models with a diameter of 14cm and rotating at a maximum speed of 1000 RPM, there are then 5 places left for the madmen of cooling (2 in top, 1 bottom, 1 on the side panel and 1 on the front). Filters are present on the front as well as below, on the other hand the locations above and on the side panel do not leave the field free to dust, too bad!
ATX format requires we are entitled to 7 expansion slots, the front panel has 2 USB 3.0 ports in addition to the 2 3.5mm audio connectors.

The cardboard is very classic, on one side we can see an exploded view of the beast with a detailed listing of all the features in addition to the model and the brand, on the other a profile view of the beast.

2 handles are present in order to facilitate transport, a listing of the technical specifications is present (dimensions, heatsink compatibility, power supply and graphics card as well as a detail of the fans supplied, everything is there!).
The cardboard is quite strong and should therefore survive transport without problems, a good point!

When opening the box we find the Core 3300 packed in its plastic bag and between 2 polystyrene molds, we do not say no to protections and with that it should arrive in one piece!

Here is the beast! The Fractal Design Core 3300 looks like two drops of water to the 2500, but a little larger. No frills here, plastic frontage of good quality and the rest of the steel frame. Like the 2500, the whole thing is not “cheap” like some entry-level boxes, a good point.

Again the resemblance to the Core 2500 is striking, good quality plastic front with brushed aluminum effect rather successful. On the sides there are 2 grids equipped with dust filters.
Once the front has been removed, we can see that the Core 3300’s chassis is wider than its little brother, a 14cm fan and a 12 / 14cm slot are included, no grilles in front of the fans that could hinder the flow of air.

Above 2 honeycomb-shaped grids capable of accommodating 12 or 14 cm fans, unfortunately there are no dust filters or covers here, dust will be free!

Here is the front connector, 2 USB 3.0 ports, 2 3.5mm jack connectors as well as the eternal power and reset buttons as well as the disk activity LED.

Underneath we find the hard plastic feet (no rubber unfortunately) as well as the removable anti-dust filter, unlike the Core 2500 the filter here is much more practical to remove and is much more solid, once again a good point. On the left we can see a ventilation hole for the front, making the filters behind the 2 grilles a little obsolete.

On the side, we can see the location for a 12 / 14cm fan, no dust filter here, not much to say except that everything is very sober, the panel is fixed by hand screws, which is rather handy during assembly / disassembly. Note, however, that the panels are thicker than those of the Core 2500, making the whole a little more rigid.

At the rear it is rather classic, only the white brackets contrast with the black of the chassis. Unlike the Core 2500, there is no honeycomb grid above the brackets, and no rheobus!
It’s time to open up the beast and take a look at what’s going on inside.

Here is the interior of the beast! Fractal Design is fond of mixing black and white in its cases, the Core 3300 is no exception to the rule, white brackets and fans with white blades are part of the game. Everything is very classic here, grommets, openings at the back of the motherboard for the installation of a cooler etc.
The only thing that differs from a classic arrangement is however the plate which is used to install the drives. hard, they are indeed fixed vertically and not horizontally as we will see later during assembly.
The build quality is quite good for a product of this type, however the steel is thin but no sharp edges in sight which is generally the case on entry-level cases.

Here is the plate which is used to install the hard disks / SSDs, 3 slots for 3.5 ″ / 2.5 ″ disks equipped with silentblocs towards the inside of the case and 3 2.5 ″ slots towards the outside. Everything is fixed via 2 hand screws inside and 1 hand screw located under the case.

The power supply section provides good ventilation, no problems in sight if the power supply fan is down. It will be possible to install a fan if the power supply is at most 17 cm, in case an additional air flow is required.

The 7 white brackets are fixed by hand screws very practical, the quality is at the rendezvous with a white glossy paint of the most beautiful effect, they are all equipped with ventilation allowing the possible flow of air. escape.

The ventilation grilles seen from the inside, still no dust filters!

A classic for the front connector cables, however, everything is black which will at least have the elegance of not distorting the black of the box with white cables 🙂

The 2 fans supplied as standard are Silent Series R2 14cm of the brand, 1000RPM maximum for a consumption of 3.6 Watts.

Another good point regarding the cables of the fans, indeed they are all sheathed which shows that Fractal Design has the attention to detail.

At the back not much to say, the opening behind the processor is practical in case the installation of a cooler is necessary without removing everything. The cable glands which have now become almost compulsory in a box are of course present.

The space between the back plate of the motherboard and the side panel is really very generous, no need to rack your brains to find out if everything will fit, there will be room in 99% of cases!

The configuration used during the tests is as follows:

A rather large configuration therefore due to its huge cooler and the 3 slots taken by the graphics card. The Fractal Design Core 3300 will be tested once with 5V fans and once in 12V with only the SSD connected. Another test will take place at 5V with the Raptor hard drive connected, it being literally hell in terms of its vibrations, which will allow us to see the effectiveness of the silentblocs.

The assembly of the test configuration went rather well, however, we must be careful to install the spacers before installing the motherboard otherwise the equipment will burn out, which is not really the goal!

Once all the spacers are in place, you have to tackle the plate supporting the hard disks, nothing could be simpler, just unscrew it from the chassis using the 3 hand screws and put in place the different hard disks / SSD, like this:

The rest is just a walk, the case is spacious so it is very easy to install all the components, not to mention the rear space of the motherboard which allows cables to be tidied up with little onions, judge the final result instead:

And There you go! The test configuration is set up and ready to torture the little Fractal Design Core 3300, it’s time for testing

In order to test the box, I will carry out an OCCT Power Supply test for 30mins and then take the temperatures of the main components such as the processor (average of the 4 cores), the motherboard, the graphics card as well as the hard drive.
Regarding noise pollution, I will proceed as in the file on silent PCs namely 1 statement in front, right, left, rear and above. All these tests will be done with the 6 fans set to 5V and 12V.

The Fractal Design Core 3300 will face the case used for the silent pc backrest, the Corsair Carbide 300R in the original version and modified for the needs of the same backrest as well as the Antec P100, Antec GX500, the Silverstone PS10 as well as the small brother, the Fractal Design Core 2500.

Temperature

At rest, the temperatures of the components inside the Fractal Design Core 3300 are quite normal, the 14cm fans rotating very slowly at low speed the air flow is not enormous however once in 12V the breath is well present and drops the temperatures to 30 ° for the processor, 32 ° for the graphics card and 38 ° for the motherboard. The openings all over the case (side panel and below) greatly help with these good temperatures.

Ambient sound level: 31dB

As we can see the Fractal Core 3300 is also very good in terms of noise pollution, indeed with 35dB maximum at the rear in 5V noise is clearly contained. In 12V, on the other hand, the 14 cm fans are heard particularly at the rear, which is normal, with 41 dB. It should be noted that the vibrations of the raptor are surprisingly well contained, only 1 small dB taken with the raptor installed, the vibration noise is not totally absent but the plate which holds the hard drives is very effective.
The fans however fish a little with a noise coming from the motor when they are strongly undernourished (in 5V in particular), it will be good practice to adjust the animals well so as not to have too many parasitic noises.

Nothing to report here, as the vast majority of cases in the test, the fans remain at their base RPM, ie 600 RPM for the processor and 500 RPM for the graphics card.

Charge

Thanks to its many openings the Fractal Design Core 3300 does a very good job under load to cool the different components of the test configuration. The processor proudly displays 62 ° in load with the fans in 5V and the graphics card 68 ° which is very good, once again thank you for the multiple openings. In 12V we gain another 2 ° on the processor and the graphics card to fall to 60 ° and 66 ° respectively. Suffice to say that the test configuration does not scare the Core 3300 in the least, the internal space as well as the openings do a very good job.

Ambient sound level: 31dB

In 5V the Core 3300 does better than its little brother the Core 2500 except at the back of the box which goes up to 40 dB, the box is however very pleasant, the vibrations are only very little present even with the raptor installed and this is really no small task. Once the fans are set to 12V, the sound level increases logically but remains very contained, with 43 dB maximum at the rear, it will be heard but the noise generated is not unpleasant.
Note once again that given the ventilation of the case if components that blow loudly are installed, the noise will escape much more easily than in a well closed case, such as the Antec P100 for example.

The ventilation is very good in the Fractal Design Core 3300, 906 RPM maximum for the CPU fans in 5V and a small 732 RPM in 12V. The graphics card for its part remains at a small 640 RPM whether in 5V or 12V, at all good.

Here we are at the end of this test, what about the Fractal Design Core 3300?
So we take a Core 2500, we save it a few pounds, we enlarge it by a few centimeters and hop the Core 3300 is born! The performance is good, the fans present are silent except at very low speeds or a clicking noise is heard, the interior is very spacious and will allow the installation of a large configuration without the slightest problem and the plate of the discs hard handles vibrations very well. The steel of the panels is a little thicker than the Core 2500 and therefore more rigid.

The only real weak point of this box is in the absence of dust filters / covers, indeed it will be necessary to open the beast and dust fairly regularly, moreover according to the installed components the noise will be able to escape more easily.

In the end, the Fractal Design Core 3300 is an excellent entry-level box, offered at a price of around 53 € it is very well worth its price and the small defects in no way affect its excellent quality / price ratio, a choice quite relevant lros of the motnage of a config gamer.

Advantages

• Quiet for its price
• Good performance
• Hard drive vibrations contained
• Spacious
• Price
• On

Disadvantages

• Lack of dust filters

A big thank you to Federica from Fractal Design who allowed me to do this test.

Where to find the Fractal Design Core 3300?

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