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Welcome to an unboxing that took me a little while to get to. The Fractal

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Design Arc MIDI was actually

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out a very, very long time ago. I think

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the first time they showed this was actually CES 2011. But better late than

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never, as I always say. I don't always

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say that, but in this case, it makes sense. Better late than never. I'm going

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to be having a look at the Fractal Design Arc MIDI midtower case. So,

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Fractal Design's cases are all about simplistic looks. The first one that hit

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the market was the Define R3. So, the Define R3 was kind of an ultimate

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compact, silent case. It took a lot of the It took a lot of cues, there's no

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denying it, from the Anttech P18X series. However, what it did also

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do was add a few things of its own, such as the modu vents, which were a way to

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choose whether you wanted optimal air flow or silence. It also added uh sort

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of a different way of doing the noise damping that was lower cost and thus

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resulted in a less expensive case. At the end of the day, they dramatically

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altered the interior layout, which is was entirely their own design. And one

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thing that Fractal is really good at with all of their cases is a good

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balance on the interior design. So

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Fractal opts for using the space in a

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way that is beneficial to the user rather than sort of going with the

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status quo. They were one of the first ones to take a case and instead of

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filling the front of it with 5 and 1/4 in bays and then doing some 3 and 1/2 in

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in the bottom, they just do a couple 5 and 1/4 in bays and fill the rest of the

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case with 3 and 1/2 in because most users are putting in not six DVD drives,

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but more like eight hard drives. That is that is a more likely scenario. So,

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let's have a look at the outside of the Ark. This is more like I guess a second

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generation Fractal case. that has um a better internal layout than the Define

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R3. And uh here we go. So, we've got,

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see this? This is cool. So, we've got a honeycomb mesh on the top of the case

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with a noise dampening as well as dust filtering foam on the inside of it. So,

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what that means is that even though this is an ultimate airflow, more of a gamer

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style case than a Define R3, you can see that same foam here. Tons of air flow,

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you're still not necessarily going to totally give up on the noise, the noise

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compromise that usually comes with a more like a gaming case. The front uses

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that brushed plastic that I'm actually a huge fan of because it looks really

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good. You guys, can you see it in the uh in the camera? It looks great. The

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fingerprints don't mark. It's much easier to clean and I and it costs less.

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It's like winwinwin. Um, in the front you see a

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single Whoops. Uh-oh. I'm going to have to I'm going to have to check what sort

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of a fan that is. It looks

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like a 140, but I could be wrong. It

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could be a 120. Look at that. No, it is a 140. Okay, so there's a single 140

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there and probably mounting for another one. We're going to get it open. I'm not that familiar with this case. Front

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panel IO. So, we've got Oh, looks like there's a little bent piece of metal

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there, but we can probably fix that with a a needle. So, front USB 3, two front

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USB 2, power switch, headphones, microphone, as well as a reset switch.

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The sides are pretty straightforward. So, you got your standard black side

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panel over there. You got your standard

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rear, so you can either mount a 120 or a 140. It comes with a 140. There's your

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IO. There's a couple of water cooling tubing grommets. Most people don't use

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those, but they're there. We've got seven + one PCI slots. So, if you have

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like a fan controller or something, you can put it there. Obviously, you can't

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actually install an expansion card there, but seven standard slots. Bottom

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power supply, which can either be mounted one way or the other way. You

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can see all the holes are present. And then you can either use the filtered

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bottom. So, that's a removable filter. And mount it that way. So, it draws air

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from the bottom. You can see we've got nice tall rubber feet here. So, you're not going to be restricted in terms of

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air flow. This is smart, too. Look at this. It's a nice touch. It's really,

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really wide at the front, so it's easy to position when you're putting it in.

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Uh, or you can flip it around the other way, should you prefer that. On the

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side, we've got what looks like a 140 or

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a 10 something something bigger than that. Hold on a sec. Yeah, that's 140

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or 180 mm on the side. So, it doesn't come with a fan there, but you can

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install one should you see fit. So, here

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is my screwdriver, and let's get it opened up. Big fan of Fractal Cases. I

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might as well just say that up front here, guys. I love the Define R3 and

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pretty much everything they've released since then has lived up to my

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expectation that was set back then with the Define R3. Here we are on the

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inside. So, if you if you have a Define R3 or if you know the Define R3, this

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will look pretty similar, but they upgraded some significant things. So,

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these front fans are 120 or 140s now,

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which is awesome cuz the Define R3 is only 120s. This hard drive cage can

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actually be rotated if you prefer to mount the cables in a different set.

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Oops. Sorry about that, guys. This is not a magnetic screwdriver, which is

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what I'm used to using. There we are. Uh, so it can

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be rotated this

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way or actually removed completely if

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you have a long graphics card or if you want to mount like some kind of weird

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accessory here. And uh then this these plastic pieces can actually also be

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removed which is very very cool. Not only that but it also gives completely

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unrestricted airflow access to the video cards from this front 140 mm fan. So you

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are taking sort of your ultimate airflow case removing obstructions if you're

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only going to have four drives. And what kind of drives you use doesn't really

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matter because the uh the included hard

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drive sleds are a little bit stuck right now. Hold

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on. That's funny. Oh, look at that. They're screwed in on this one. So, on

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the Define R3, there aren't screws here to hold them in. But on this one, there

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are. So, you can either use those and that'll give you more safety and

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shipping, or you can not use those, and they

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do clip into place, and they won't come out until you do this. So, they are

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compatible with either 2 and 1/2 in using these holes. Oh, this is cool.

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Look at that. The holes are centered instead of being off to the side, so they don't interfere with the rubber

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grommets. I've seen this overlooked time and time again. Whether it's grommets or

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whether it's those uh those little pokey pieces from the side, you know, the ones

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where you bend them open to put the drive in. A lot of the time the SSD

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mount is over here and it interferes with it. You can't even put it in without removing the hard drive mounting

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piece. So, that's very, very smart. Uh so, there you go. So, they're compatible

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with whatever you want. So, if you have like two SSDs in RAID and then a couple

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hard drives in RAID, you can take this whole thing out and get better air flow

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and more space inside what is already a fairly compact and efficiently laid out

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case. I'm just going to remove this bottom one so that we can get out the

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accessories there. I'm going to have to find that screw I dropped at some point.

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And I'm going to have to find that other screw I dropped at some point as well. So, let's shake things up a little bit

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and I'm going to have a look at the accessories before we continue looking

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at the inside of the case. And they're all pretty much laid out here.

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But I've actually never used this case

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before. I only knew it from sort of looking at it and going, "Yeah, that

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looks nice. Those look like cool features." But I'd never seen one in

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person yet. All the screws are here. So, you got all your fan mounting screws,

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all your thumb screws, your little speaker. They include a speaker, which

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isn't part of the case, but hey, if you want one, then you have one. Uh they

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include a 5 and a/4 to 3 and 12 in adapter. Also the nice brushed plastic.

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Couple of reusable cable ties. Okay. Uh

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fan controller that can be mounted here that is uh connects to up to look at

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that. Three fans. Cool. Neat. Can be powered either by

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Molex or by a fan connector. And there you go. That's pretty much it for the

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included accessories. So let's finish up with the inside here. We've got our 5

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and 1/4 in base. Um, one of which actually includes a 3 and 1/2 in adapter

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inside it. I don't know if you're going to be able to get a good angle, but you can take that out by removing these

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thumb screws. It's also got SSD mounting

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on it or hard drive mounting. So, that's a pretty cool thing there. Um, so

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basically your options are as follows. You can do dual five and a quarter,

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three and a half external, three and a half internal, five and a quarter, three

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and a half external, or three and a half internal finds. Okay, I don't know what

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I said. But you you've got all kinds of options with the included adapters and

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with the included pieces. Oh, wait. No, you can't do that. Okay. Okay. Okay.

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Okay. So, this goes on the front with the adapter that's bolted in here

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already to make it a 3 and 1/2 external. There we go. Now I got it. We have a CPU

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cutout. Not the biggest one I've seen in the past, but I think they've made a

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reasonable compromise here by putting cable management loops here instead of

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expanding this because you should still be able to reach from the back if you

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need to. They've also reinforced the motherboard tray just by putting in

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these bends. That does make it stronger. Cable management is a fairly strong

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point with the Define R3 and it looks like a fairly strong point with the Arc

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as well. We've got nice flexible rubber, tons of space in the back. That looks

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like plenty of space for a 24-in connector or 24 pin connector. Nice

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flexible rubber here, here, here, and here. These are a little bit less

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flexible than the bigger ones, but they should still look okay even after you run something through them. Dual 120 mm

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fans supported in the top or dual 140s. You see, you've got a lot of different

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fan mounting options here, which is really cool. So, we have full support

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for dual 120 mil rads, which is a huge

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one for me. That is very, very important for me. And uh in a chassis this small,

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there aren't too many competitors where you're going to have room to do that. So

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very, very cool.

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Um yeah, let's have a look at it from the other side. So I might need my

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screwdriver again from the factory. These are pretty tight. Although you

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don't have to put them back in that tight yourself, so it'll be easier to

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remove without using a screwdriver

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later. Okay, there we are.

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Like I said, lots of room for cable management here in the back. There's

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those screws. And I'll also show you guys the

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front panel connectors. So, we've got an internal header, USB 3, USB 2. There

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going to be another USB 2 somewhere in all likelihood. Oh, no, there isn't.

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Sorry. USB 2, front panel, audio, power

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switch, power LED, and got to be a reset hard drive LED and reset switch right

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there. Uh, only the USB 3 one is blue. Everything else is black, which is nice

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to see. And I think that pretty much covers it. So, thank you for checking

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out my unboxing of the Arc Midi. And uh

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the reason that I'm unboxing this now is actually so that I can use this case for

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an upgrade to my wife's PC. So, she's going to be going from socket 1156 to

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socket 1155 and getting a 2600 K going

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on in there. So, should be good. I'm looking forward to using this case. I'm

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actually replacing the 800D because it's there's not as much space in our

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computer room anymore now that I have my tech table in here. So, we wanted to get

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things a little bit smaller. So, we're going to be going with the Arc Midi.

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Very exciting. Don't forget to subscribe to Linus Tech Tips for more unboxings, reviews, and other computer videos.

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Sorry, guys. I'm already outfitting it with its sexy matching PC power and

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cooling power supply for awesome black and white internals. Uh, but something I

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forgot to mention is how to get at the front fan. So you just do the clips

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here. One, two, three, and then pop off the front. So

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the fans are installed just by clipping them into place and then running the

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cables into the rest of the case. Very,

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very, very, very straightforward and easily compatible with a number of

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different kinds of fans. So there you can see one that's empty. Very very easy to clean as well because it comes off

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even with one hand in the other hand trying to hold a camera