A Look Inside the Fractal Design Mood
To get inside the Fractal Design Mood you’ll want to pull on the back panel of the case from the bottom and it will pop off. Once removed we can see that this panel does have a magnetic filter on it. This filter can be removed if you want even better airflow.
With this panel removed you’ll see two screws towards the bottom of the case. If you remove these they will release the 3-section exterior of the case. You simply pull up on it and slide it off the case. Unlike other cases like this I’ve reviewed in the past the sliding mechanism works quite well and actually feels like the exterior is on some type of track. I also like this 3 section design over multiple panels as it is quicker and easier to remove.
With both panels removed we can get a better idea of how the inside of the case is designed. The “back” of the case where we initially removed the first panel will house your graphics card. This is made possible by a PCIe riser cable. As far as graphics cards go the Mood will support 2.7-slot graphics cards up to 325mm in length.
Moving over to the opposite side you’ll first find a cooling bracket as well as a hard drive cage. The hard drive cage does support either a 3.5-inch hard drive or 2.5-inch solid state drive. Now in order to make full use of the cooling bracket you’ll have to remove the hard drive cage, so it is a sacrifice if you want to fully populate it with fans or use an all-in-one liquid CPU cooler. The cooling bracket is fully removable from the case and will support two 120 or two 140mm fans as well as radiators up to 280mm (148mm max width).
With the cooling bracket removed we can see where we will mount our SFX or SFX-L power supply and mini-ITX motherboard. Your power supply will be mounted at the top of the case while your motherboard will be closer to the bottom. We can also see how the PCIe riser is routed between the two sides of the case.
If we look at the case from the side we can see “through” the case and see its overall design. The optional 2.5-inch bracket can be installed on the side of the case so if you planned on making full use of the fan mount you won’t lose the ability to have off-board storage. The other optional .5-inch bracket can be installed under the top fan, this will however have an impact on airflow. So in total this case will support up to three drives, two if you make use of the cooling bracket. You can also see how Fractal has routed a power cable extension to the bottom of the case so you can easily connect power to the system.
Taking a closer look at the top fan it is a very large 180mm fan that is 38mm thick, which is set in an exhaust position. It is Fractal’s Dynamic X2 GP-18 which is a PWM fan that will spin between 300 – 1200 RPM with a max airflow of 44.9 – 153.7 CFM, and max noise level of 16 – 35.4 dB(A).
