Absolutely. I was surprised that a twenty-year-old case with no native cable management could finish in the middle of the pack, albeit with a 3dBA advantage in the threshold for the noise-normalized testing. I wish they would have added a fan controller to match that threshold exactly, instead of relying on the 3-way switch of the 2006 stock fans.
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Antec Flux Pro - Noctua edition.
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PeP7VGCH3D4
TLDW: It's basically identical performance to non-Noctua version. . Buy it if you like the color brown.
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PeP7VGCH3D4
TLDW: It's basically identical performance to non-Noctua version. . Buy it if you like the color brown.
https://www.techpowerup.com/review/fractal-design-pop-2-vision-rgb/
Fractal Design Pop 2 Vision RGB. This style of chassis has been done many times so understandable if this one does not stand out, however, the performance and value both look pretty on-point ($100, both thermals and noise look between competitive and excellent).
Fractal Design Pop 2 Vision RGB. This style of chassis has been done many times so understandable if this one does not stand out, however, the performance and value both look pretty on-point ($100, both thermals and noise look between competitive and excellent).
Gamers Nexus did their review recently on the non-RGB version. It’s an odd bird - excellent build quality in a lot of areas, and some obvious cost cutting in others to reach the price point. And the thermals… well. They could be better, per their testing.
View: https://youtu.be/EYFO_xSeafc?si=0QWZmCDHjQ1BWRg1
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hdwlJSnHviM
Phanteks EX5 and 6 preview. The suite lighting is a bit poor, so will need to wait for full reviews to get a clearer look at some of the internals. Still, interesting looking cases and I suspect the base models with hardline tubing would look pretty nice.
I'm somewhat tempted for an upcoming build.
I love it. It’s pretty rare to come across a case that’s not another rectangular box. And the slim profile of the motherboard section is elegant.
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oIiRzKUMY5M
GN came through, 7 minutes into the video they have a pretty excellent deep dive with Phanteks on the design/engineering about the cases.
I think only really the base EX5/6 needs to be reviewed, the higher end models just throw extra stuff in.
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I dig it too. I usually kind of hate their designs, but this is pretty cool looking.
Gamers Nexus dropped a review of the HAF II 500 from Cooler Master.
And... yeah. 220mm x 40mm front fans. A 180mm rear exhaust. And Steve and Co had some issues, but overall? They like it. A lot of neat features here. Oh, and some chart-topping noise-normalized performance.
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9xuK_-RBuPA
And... yeah. 220mm x 40mm front fans. A 180mm rear exhaust. And Steve and Co had some issues, but overall? They like it. A lot of neat features here. Oh, and some chart-topping noise-normalized performance.
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9xuK_-RBuPA
At least this time they didn't put a chonking great glass panel right in front of the fans!
Hopefully those fans are either super-reliable or CM will sell you replacements at a decent price (ideally both!)
The chonky 180mm by 40mm fans on my HAVN BF 360 are $30/1 or $50/2. Cheaper than Noctua, but that’s about it.
I expect CoolerMaster to be the same-ish with their Mighty40 V180 (the rear exhaust), with the V220 being a touch more. If they sell tge fans individually.
$20-$30/fan probably is a semi-reasonable price for such a big fan, considering everything that goes into making it and that you don't get to amortise that over such a large number of units as you do with more popular fan sizes. Plus, there's no particular incentive for manufacturers of such fans to try that hard with their pricing given there's not much competition in the first place.
I suppose I just like to see case manufacturers stand behind their products with a certain level of spare part availability. Kudos to HAVN for that at least, let's hope CM follow suit.
I suppose I just like to see case manufacturers stand behind their products with a certain level of spare part availability. Kudos to HAVN for that at least, let's hope CM follow suit.
I am definitely a fan of 35-40mm thick case fans. Better performance, better acoustics, and they should have better longevity too but only time will tell if they all do. The 180x38mm fans on the Torrent were what sold me on it. Of course the GP-18 180x38mm Fractal fan is a whopping $50 if bought individually, makes me wish Noctua made a 180mm size as even their 200x30mm fans are ~$30.
It's hysterical that for all the HUEG these cases have become, 2.5" SSD & 3.5" HDD drive space is basically an afterthought.
Couldn't agree more. I tried an HDD in the Fractal Torrent but the only place for it was behind the motherboard, whereupon it promptly overheated. There wasn't any reason to put three 140's in the bottom, couldn't easily had a small HDD tray.
Genuinely curious, what spinning drive couldn't cope with being behind a motherboard tray?
Quite a few I’d imagine, especially 7200rpm drives, due to basically to lack of airflow…
It's a toasty space as there's a GPU cooking the motherboard which heats up the back of the tray in that area, there's zero airflow back there due to space even in a full size Fractal Torrent, and it was a 7200RPM drive. They might handle zero airflow in an open area, but they absolutely need airflow if you stuff them in a tightly confined area where heat will build up.
It's a Seagate 320GB 7200RPM that has over 13 years of power-on hours count. It's 20 years old now. But it is heat sensitive, it will work perfectly up until near 50c, after it will be unable to read anything and will drop from the system. Temps in the screenshot are high because this was my attempt to put it in the Torrent, any other case its temps stay under 40c. Sorry for the giant size, not sure how to fix that.
The reallocated sector count was from its first major overheating event when the house AC failed during a Texas summer and the NAS it was in couldn't keep the drives cool enough. Been using it as a desktop scratch disk ever since until 2023 when my choice of computer case didn't have a place for HDDs that made any kind of sense. I had really wanted to keep it in my desktop just to see how much higher the counter would go...
Worse than a USB drive by far.It does around 80-85MB/s sustained writes. I just wanted to keep it around to see how much higher the power-on hours would go. People loved to hate on Seagate drives from those model generations, but I had great experiences with mine. I sold the five others on ebay a long time ago, but didn't sell this one because of the reallocated sectors count. It made for a good scratch disk back when SSDs were even smaller capacities, for about a decade I had mapped the Windows Downloads folder to it.
The Phanteks EX5 with separated compartments sounded like a nice idea, but the implementation hasn't worked out - CPU and GPU temperatures are higher than on a Corsair Frame 4000
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8tO43L4zHCk
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8tO43L4zHCk
I guess the big windy box approach is still the best. Too bad too, since I do like the design.
I’m also kind of surprised that the CPU temps aren’t closer in parity. Besides a little blocking by the other compartments on the AIO intake, the only difference is the mesh vent on the exhaust side. Even meshed, those compartments must be trapping & recirculating air.
I’m also kind of surprised that the CPU temps aren’t closer in parity. Besides a little blocking by the other compartments on the AIO intake, the only difference is the mesh vent on the exhaust side. Even meshed, those compartments must be trapping & recirculating air.
I’m always glad to see innovation in case designs, but sometimes the only way to know is to try them out and see how they work. I would hope that the case designer/vendor would do at least a bit of it prior to launch though!
The Level 10 had a lot of iterations before, and reimagining's after. Thermaltake engineers gave plenty of public discourse on the engineering challenges they had to sort out with that one which Phanteks could've just referenced in the initial design phase.
At least someone has the guts to try new concepts and iterate them, I'm happy to see that.
Performance doesn’t matter. A few degrees difference won’t ruin anyone’s enjoyment of anything other than benchmarks. A shame I have no reason to get one.
My PC case is on the floor next to my desk. It's for functional purposes, not an art installation.
This design only interested me as far as it might potentially improve the functional aspects. It seems this design is noisier and lower performing. For me, sound and performance vastly outweigh "it looks cool".
Was the NZXT H2 Flow the only SFF release of the year? That space has been pretty stagnant.