Alright I posted this up on ars forum a couple weeks back, I will repost it here, with some pics. Unfortunately I have been gone on vacation and haven't had much more time to fool with the fans and get more in depth but so far I like
the arc mini alot! I think these are great cases for the money...
Alright I have had my case a few days and thought I'd share some opinions of it. Now keep in mind this is the mini case but these are the same design as the mid. First of all the case arrived for once without dents in it, first case I have gotten in awhile that that was the case I like the design elements of the white coloring here and there on different parts of the case, but I will say that you have to be extra careful, because the white paint can very easily come off. I read about this in another review, where someone had removed one of the drive bays alot, and it was transferring some white paint onto the case. I did not have this problem yet, but I can see how if you got very aggro with it, or stuck the drive holder in at a angle this could happen easily. I do like the fact that the drive bays are setup with 2.5 mounting holes, because crazy as it is alot of ssds still do not come with adapters. I used a owc mercury pro6g you would think a 300 dollar drive would come with a adapter, but it doesn't. Also for some reason the bottom mounting screw holes are a weird size or something so I had to use laptop case screws for that. That is not fractal's fault, but I do think that cases by now should have provisions for 2.5 drives so I was glad to see I didn't have to find a adapter.
It's amazing also how many new cases still do not have usb 3.0 support, and this one does have a front 3.0 port. It does not help me because my asrock pro3m doesn't have a front 3.0 header, but it's still a nice option for later if I change boards etc. I can see with the size of the 3.0 header how it would be hard to find space on a matx board to add it. You can tell from this case right off that there is going to be tons of airflow capability to keep things cool IF the fans are good quality. Everything is filtered which is nice. Unfortunately the fan quality is a area I cannot comment on, as I have only had time to get the system built and still have not routed wires or tidied up anything or put the sidecover on. With that being said, it is a nice feature that you get a fan controller with this case. Since I am shooting for low noise I appreciated this. This is the first time I have gotten one included before and it is a nice option to have. I used a x-400 seasonic fanless psu and it fit fine and has plenty of space for airflow to keep it cool.
Now for the negatives, I was a bit disappointed in the thumbscrews. One of the features of higher end or nice cases is the tool-less features and this case comes with thumbscrews galore. However, most of the threads do not seem machined perfectly, so the screws do not go in and out smoothly. I had to bust out a screwdriver on most of them, which takes away the whole benefit and point of it. Another thing that really bugged me was that when I mounted the psu, the thumscrews they included are not quite long enough to get through the case and into the psu! There was barely enough thread to get a bite, but at least on one corner because of tolerances or whatever I could never get any of the screws started at all. I had to end up using two other thumbscrews I had from another case, which had longer threads and worked perfectly, but it looks stupid since they are chrome and not black. I will paint them later or something. It seems the flange or part of the case that the psu mounts against is thicker than most and this is what leads to the issue, but Fractal really needs to send screws a few mm longer and the problem would be eliminated. The only other gripe I have so far is the size, I had expected this case to be a bit smaller, but to be fair the measurements are given obvously on the frontend. This seems more to me like a smaller mid tower, with maybe one of the top optical drive bays missing. Now for some this will probably be a plus, I know alot like this case because you can run water cooling, and run bigger video cards etc. Personally I would have rather see them lower the height and width of the case some, I think they could have gone at least a inch or two more with both but I know why the width is there, with the size cpu coolers some are running these days. Everything is a compromise I guess and alot of people that are used to full towers and the like would probably hold a different opinion. Compared to my last case, a lian li pc-k62 this one is tons lighter and shorter. Anyway here are some pics I took so far...
http://www.fototime.com/inv/3D9CEDED31B1FA5