I joined the Fractal North army

[Turbof1]

Private turbof1 reporting for pc-building, sir!

 

Like probably many, I got sold on the Fractal Design North case. Those wooden slats on the front... . djeez Fractal, can it get it any more sexy?

 

So I bought one last weekend and spend roughly 3 hours on transferring the parts from my older Aerocool Cylon Pro. That case is unlike its name would suggest a sweatbox with barely any front airflow. This is the older build:

 

I mean, the little holes that should get some air inside are half covered by a plate... .

 

Behold the magic of 3 hours hard labour of moving all the parts over:

 

I got myself the tempered glass chalk one. To my dismay I figured out this version does not come with a fan hub. Why Fractal why.

 

But, Fractal does ship the case, and all versions of it, with 2x 140mm fans. Thank you Fractal thank you.

 

I had some issues with cable management. The space under the psu shroud provides ample room to stuff the excess cable length away, but the space between the mobo backplate and the side panel at the back is quite tight, especially around where the connectors of the psu cables and cable extension fit into one another. Luckily, I just had enough room to get the side panel on without any bulging.

 

To my dismay, my mobo neither has a usb 3 type c internal header, with the front I/O of the case having that. That is left unused now. Should be fixed once I deem an upgrade necessary.

 

Temperatures dropped around 7 degrees on idle, and over 10 degrees under load. The Aerocool case, although never resulting in anything hitting too high temps, just did not allow good airflow to have decent temps. This case however performs strong in that department.

 

Oh you want to know specs? But this topic is solely for my need to show off the pc case! Fine... Here it is:

 

-Asus B550 strix gaming-A

-amd ryzen 5 5600X

-gigabyte 3070ti vision

-16 GB Trident Z royal ddr4 3600mhz RAM.

-WD Blue SN570 1tb

-2x samsung evo sata ssd's

-Enermax T50 cooler + 3x exhaust case fans.

-Fractal Design Ion Gold 750 watt PSU

 

I am happy with the specs as they are. In a time where a 4060ti is often worse than a 3060ti, I am not bothered with getting anything new. We'll see if the next generation of cpu's and gpu's have enough of a performance jump to get something new in it.

[Agall]

12 minutes ago, Turbof1 said:

Private turbof1 reporting for pc-building, sir!

 

Like probably many, I got sold on the Fractal Design North case. Those wooden slats on the front... . djeez Fractal, can it get it any more sexy?

 

So I bought one last weekend and spend roughly 3 hours on transferring the parts from my older Aerocool Cylon Pro. That case is unlike its name would suggest a sweatbox with barely any front airflow. This is the older build:

 

 

I mean, the little holes that should get some air inside are half covered by a plate... .

 

Behold the magic of 3 hours hard labour of moving all the parts over:

 

 

I got myself the tempered glass chalk one. To my dismay I figured out this version does not come with a fan hub. Why Fractal why.

 

But, Fractal does ship the case, and all versions of it, with 2x 140mm fans. Thank you Fractal thank you.

 

I had some issues with cable management. The space under the psu shroud provides ample room to stuff the excess cable length away, but the space between the mobo backplate and the side panel at the back is quite tight, especially around where the connectors of the psu cables and cable extension fit into one another. Luckily, I just had enough room to get the side panel on without any bulging.

 

To my dismay, my mobo neither has a usb 3 type c internal header, with the front I/O of the case having that. That is left unused now. Should be fixed once I deem an upgrade necessary.

 

Temperatures dropped around 7 degrees on idle, and over 10 degrees under load. The Aerocool case, although never resulting in anything hitting too high temps, just did not allow good airflow to have decent temps. This case however performs strong in that department.

 

Oh you want to know specs? But this topic is solely for my need to show off the pc case! Fine... Here it is:

 

-Asus B550 strix gaming-A

-amd ryzen 5 5600X

-gigabyte 3070ti vision

-16 GB Trident Z royal ddr4 3600mhz RAM.

-WD Blue SN570 1tb

-2x samsung evo sata ssd's

-Enermax T50 cooler + 3x exhaust case fans.

-Fractal Design Ion Gold 750 watt PSU

 

I am happy with the specs as they are. In a time where a 4060ti is often worse than a 3060ti, I am not bothered with getting anything new. We'll see if the next generation of cpu's and gpu's have enough of a performance jump to get something new in it.

Not to shame anyone for buying the best mid tower on the market, but you did buy the wrong version.

 

Mesh panel FD North is like the rich Lord in the castle compared to the TG version being like the filthy peasant squabbling in the mud.

 

Have to unveil for a photo, but with the mesh side panel, you can do kinky stuff like this and allow each tower of your dual tower NH-D15 to have their own intake/exhaust through the side mesh. Since this photo I've swapped the fans for FD 4x140mm case fans and disabled the RGB.

[Turbof1]

Let the king have its long, weary, covering drapes. My peasant build has all the good looking bits and is not afraid to show it off in all of its glorious nudity.

[Agall]

20 minutes ago, Turbof1 said:

Let the king have its long, weary, covering drapes. My peasant build has all the good looking bits and is not afraid to show it off in all of its glorious nudity.

I enjoy knowing that most normies would look at my no RGB mesh panel side build and think, "Oh that's a nice looking office workstation".

 

Yours looks good though, I just like to kid. I bought the North specifically for the mesh so. I can respect the aesthetics even as an extremist on the function > form argument. 

[Agall]

29 minutes ago, Turbof1 said:

Let the king have its long, weary, covering drapes. My peasant build has all the good looking bits and is not afraid to show it off in all of its glorious nudity.

One gripe I did have with the case that I imagine you agree with is the lack of a hole where the VGA aux power cables could travel perpendicularly, forcing you to go farther back with the cable route. Might be worth getting the dremel over if the diagonal nature required bothers you enough.

 

My solution you can kind of see in that photo, since I even zip tied the 12VHPWR to the front fan grate so its perfectly straight out the side. Really like that setup since it doesn't impede the CPU or GPU at all.

 

GPU 8 Pin U Turn 180° Connector (Reverse) - 3 PACK – EZDIY-FAB

 

food for thought (looks like yours are the RVS or 'reverse' configuration if any).

 

[Turbof1]

You mean the system panel header? I solved that with using the perforation for the zip ties:

 

Ideally the cable management holes could have been placed better. Also slightly more room above the actually psu to push the cables through without first moving the psu would have been preferable.

 

Then again, I am using this horizontal anti-sag gpu support that hides any of the smaller cables.

 

I do like your gpu cabling! That looks really tight, and perfectly angled to the rubbered hole.

[Polderviking]

That is a sick looking build, the glass here also works well with the white interior.

I normally prefer (and have...) this case black and with the mesh side panel.