Welcome to an unboxing that took me a little while to get to. The Fractal
Design Arc MIDI was actually
out a very, very long time ago. I think
the first time they showed this was actually CES 2011. But better late than
never, as I always say. I don't always
say that, but in this case, it makes sense. Better late than never. I'm going
to be having a look at the Fractal Design Arc MIDI midtower case. So,
Fractal Design's cases are all about simplistic looks. The first one that hit
the market was the Define R3. So, the Define R3 was kind of an ultimate
compact, silent case. It took a lot of the It took a lot of cues, there's no
denying it, from the Anttech P18X series. However, what it did also
do was add a few things of its own, such as the modu vents, which were a way to
choose whether you wanted optimal air flow or silence. It also added uh sort
of a different way of doing the noise damping that was lower cost and thus
resulted in a less expensive case. At the end of the day, they dramatically
altered the interior layout, which is was entirely their own design. And one
thing that Fractal is really good at with all of their cases is a good
balance on the interior design. So
Fractal opts for using the space in a
way that is beneficial to the user rather than sort of going with the
status quo. They were one of the first ones to take a case and instead of
filling the front of it with 5 and 1/4 in bays and then doing some 3 and 1/2 in
in the bottom, they just do a couple 5 and 1/4 in bays and fill the rest of the
case with 3 and 1/2 in because most users are putting in not six DVD drives,
but more like eight hard drives. That is that is a more likely scenario. So,
let's have a look at the outside of the Ark. This is more like I guess a second
generation Fractal case. that has um a better internal layout than the Define
R3. And uh here we go. So, we've got,
see this? This is cool. So, we've got a honeycomb mesh on the top of the case
with a noise dampening as well as dust filtering foam on the inside of it. So,
what that means is that even though this is an ultimate airflow, more of a gamer
style case than a Define R3, you can see that same foam here. Tons of air flow,
you're still not necessarily going to totally give up on the noise, the noise
compromise that usually comes with a more like a gaming case. The front uses
that brushed plastic that I'm actually a huge fan of because it looks really
good. You guys, can you see it in the uh in the camera? It looks great. The
fingerprints don't mark. It's much easier to clean and I and it costs less.
It's like winwinwin. Um, in the front you see a
single Whoops. Uh-oh. I'm going to have to I'm going to have to check what sort
of a fan that is. It looks
like a 140, but I could be wrong. It
could be a 120. Look at that. No, it is a 140. Okay, so there's a single 140
there and probably mounting for another one. We're going to get it open. I'm not that familiar with this case. Front
panel IO. So, we've got Oh, looks like there's a little bent piece of metal
there, but we can probably fix that with a a needle. So, front USB 3, two front
USB 2, power switch, headphones, microphone, as well as a reset switch.
The sides are pretty straightforward. So, you got your standard black side
panel over there. You got your standard
rear, so you can either mount a 120 or a 140. It comes with a 140. There's your
IO. There's a couple of water cooling tubing grommets. Most people don't use
those, but they're there. We've got seven + one PCI slots. So, if you have
like a fan controller or something, you can put it there. Obviously, you can't
actually install an expansion card there, but seven standard slots. Bottom
power supply, which can either be mounted one way or the other way. You
can see all the holes are present. And then you can either use the filtered
bottom. So, that's a removable filter. And mount it that way. So, it draws air
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
air flow. This is smart, too. Look at this. It's a nice touch. It's really,
really wide at the front, so it's easy to position when you're putting it in.
Uh, or you can flip it around the other way, should you prefer that. On the
side, we've got what looks like a 140 or
a 10 something something bigger than that. Hold on a sec. Yeah, that's 140
or 180 mm on the side. So, it doesn't come with a fan there, but you can
install one should you see fit. So, here
is my screwdriver, and let's get it opened up. Big fan of Fractal Cases. I
might as well just say that up front here, guys. I love the Define R3 and
pretty much everything they've released since then has lived up to my
expectation that was set back then with the Define R3. Here we are on the
inside. So, if you if you have a Define R3 or if you know the Define R3, this
will look pretty similar, but they upgraded some significant things. So,
these front fans are 120 or 140s now,
which is awesome cuz the Define R3 is only 120s. This hard drive cage can
actually be rotated if you prefer to mount the cables in a different set.
Oops. Sorry about that, guys. This is not a magnetic screwdriver, which is
what I'm used to using. There we are. Uh, so it can
be rotated this
way or actually removed completely if
you have a long graphics card or if you want to mount like some kind of weird
accessory here. And uh then this these plastic pieces can actually also be
removed which is very very cool. Not only that but it also gives completely
unrestricted airflow access to the video cards from this front 140 mm fan. So you
are taking sort of your ultimate airflow case removing obstructions if you're
only going to have four drives. And what kind of drives you use doesn't really
matter because the uh the included hard
drive sleds are a little bit stuck right now. Hold
on. That's funny. Oh, look at that. They're screwed in on this one. So, on
the Define R3, there aren't screws here to hold them in. But on this one, there
are. So, you can either use those and that'll give you more safety and
shipping, or you can not use those, and they
do clip into place, and they won't come out until you do this. So, they are
compatible with either 2 and 1/2 in using these holes. Oh, this is cool.
Look at that. The holes are centered instead of being off to the side, so they don't interfere with the rubber
grommets. I've seen this overlooked time and time again. Whether it's grommets or
whether it's those uh those little pokey pieces from the side, you know, the ones
where you bend them open to put the drive in. A lot of the time the SSD
mount is over here and it interferes with it. You can't even put it in without removing the hard drive mounting
piece. So, that's very, very smart. Uh so, there you go. So, they're compatible
with whatever you want. So, if you have like two SSDs in RAID and then a couple
hard drives in RAID, you can take this whole thing out and get better air flow
and more space inside what is already a fairly compact and efficiently laid out
case. I'm just going to remove this bottom one so that we can get out the
accessories there. I'm going to have to find that screw I dropped at some point.
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
and I'm going to have a look at the accessories before we continue looking
at the inside of the case. And they're all pretty much laid out here.
But I've actually never used this case
before. I only knew it from sort of looking at it and going, "Yeah, that
looks nice. Those look like cool features." But I'd never seen one in
person yet. All the screws are here. So, you got all your fan mounting screws,
all your thumb screws, your little speaker. They include a speaker, which
isn't part of the case, but hey, if you want one, then you have one. Uh they
include a 5 and a/4 to 3 and 12 in adapter. Also the nice brushed plastic.
Couple of reusable cable ties. Okay. Uh
fan controller that can be mounted here that is uh connects to up to look at
that. Three fans. Cool. Neat. Can be powered either by
Molex or by a fan connector. And there you go. That's pretty much it for the
included accessories. So let's finish up with the inside here. We've got our 5
and 1/4 in base. Um, one of which actually includes a 3 and 1/2 in adapter
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
thumb screws. It's also got SSD mounting
on it or hard drive mounting. So, that's a pretty cool thing there. Um, so
basically your options are as follows. You can do dual five and a quarter,
three and a half external, three and a half internal, five and a quarter, three
and a half external, or three and a half internal finds. Okay, I don't know what
I said. But you you've got all kinds of options with the included adapters and
with the included pieces. Oh, wait. No, you can't do that. Okay. Okay. Okay.
Okay. So, this goes on the front with the adapter that's bolted in here
already to make it a 3 and 1/2 external. There we go. Now I got it. We have a CPU
cutout. Not the biggest one I've seen in the past, but I think they've made a
reasonable compromise here by putting cable management loops here instead of
expanding this because you should still be able to reach from the back if you
need to. They've also reinforced the motherboard tray just by putting in
these bends. That does make it stronger. Cable management is a fairly strong
point with the Define R3 and it looks like a fairly strong point with the Arc
as well. We've got nice flexible rubber, tons of space in the back. That looks
like plenty of space for a 24-in connector or 24 pin connector. Nice
flexible rubber here, here, here, and here. These are a little bit less
flexible than the bigger ones, but they should still look okay even after you run something through them. Dual 120 mm
fans supported in the top or dual 140s. You see, you've got a lot of different
fan mounting options here, which is really cool. So, we have full support
for dual 120 mil rads, which is a huge
one for me. That is very, very important for me. And uh in a chassis this small,
there aren't too many competitors where you're going to have room to do that. So
very, very cool.
Um yeah, let's have a look at it from the other side. So I might need my
screwdriver again from the factory. These are pretty tight. Although you
don't have to put them back in that tight yourself, so it'll be easier to
remove without using a screwdriver
later. Okay, there we are.
Like I said, lots of room for cable management here in the back. There's
those screws. And I'll also show you guys the
front panel connectors. So, we've got an internal header, USB 3, USB 2. There
going to be another USB 2 somewhere in all likelihood. Oh, no, there isn't.
Sorry. USB 2, front panel, audio, power
switch, power LED, and got to be a reset hard drive LED and reset switch right
there. Uh, only the USB 3 one is blue. Everything else is black, which is nice
to see. And I think that pretty much covers it. So, thank you for checking
out my unboxing of the Arc Midi. And uh
the reason that I'm unboxing this now is actually so that I can use this case for
an upgrade to my wife's PC. So, she's going to be going from socket 1156 to
socket 1155 and getting a 2600 K going
on in there. So, should be good. I'm looking forward to using this case. I'm
actually replacing the 800D because it's there's not as much space in our
computer room anymore now that I have my tech table in here. So, we wanted to get
things a little bit smaller. So, we're going to be going with the Arc Midi.
Very exciting. Don't forget to subscribe to Linus Tech Tips for more unboxings, reviews, and other computer videos.
Sorry, guys. I'm already outfitting it with its sexy matching PC power and
cooling power supply for awesome black and white internals. Uh, but something I
forgot to mention is how to get at the front fan. So you just do the clips
here. One, two, three, and then pop off the front. So
the fans are installed just by clipping them into place and then running the
cables into the rest of the case. Very,
very, very, very straightforward and easily compatible with a number of
different kinds of fans. So there you can see one that's empty. Very very easy to clean as well because it comes off
even with one hand in the other hand trying to hold a camera