Impressive Fractal Era 2 & Mood Mini Cases
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Date: 2024-06-05
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Comments and reviews: 20
sadlerbw9
Dear Fractal: Could you please make a cube-style case that will fit an ATX motherboard mounted horizontally rather than vertically I don't care if it is part of one of the lower cost lines like Core or Focus, I just want something that is competently designed and returns the motherboard to the original horizontal orientation it was designed for back in the AT days. I do own a Core 500, but since it only supports ITX and 2-slot GPU's, it was a little limiting. I replaced it with a Thermaltake Core V21 so I could fit a larger GPU and a motherboard with a larger VRM. That case is not bad, but it doesn't support full ATX motherboards, and the quality isn't quite up to what I would call Fractal standards.
I know I could just buy one of your regular cases and lay it on its side, but that tends to put the front panel I/O in an inconvenient place, and takes up a lot more floor space than it really needs to. While a case with a horizontal ATX motherboard would need to be at least 300mm wide to fit the motherboard, The majority of traditional Fractal cases that can take an ATX board would be over 400mm wide if I laid them on their side, with some being over 500mm. There is still a lot of floor space that could be saved by a case that was designed for a horizontal ATX motherboard rather than taking a tower case and laying it on its side.
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Dear Fractal: Could you please make a cube-style case that will fit an ATX motherboard mounted horizontally rather than vertically I don't care if it is part of one of the lower cost lines like Core or Focus, I just want something that is competently designed and returns the motherboard to the original horizontal orientation it was designed for back in the AT days. I do own a Core 500, but since it only supports ITX and 2-slot GPU's, it was a little limiting. I replaced it with a Thermaltake Core V21 so I could fit a larger GPU and a motherboard with a larger VRM. That case is not bad, but it doesn't support full ATX motherboards, and the quality isn't quite up to what I would call Fractal standards.
I know I could just buy one of your regular cases and lay it on its side, but that tends to put the front panel I/O in an inconvenient place, and takes up a lot more floor space than it really needs to. While a case with a horizontal ATX motherboard would need to be at least 300mm wide to fit the motherboard, The majority of traditional Fractal cases that can take an ATX board would be over 400mm wide if I laid them on their side, with some being over 500mm. There is still a lot of floor space that could be saved by a case that was designed for a horizontal ATX motherboard rather than taking a tower case and laying it on its side.
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SirAndras
I've used Fractal for cases throughout my PC life and have gone with their best ones mostly but for the love of god, increase cable management depth. Torrent, which I got now, has a glass side on the cable side(why) and it has to be kinda squishing the cables. It's the only downside of anything Fractal so far. I don't even have much cabling. Zero drives except M.2s so SATA isn't there. No RGB, no water stuff. Just fans and the essentials!
As for their booth, I like the chair! Love perforated backs for breathability. The cases are so elegant I kinda want to build an mATX one right now, damn. Even the Pi case is so cool. Actually nothing that isn't eye catching in their booth really. Love the designs and their ability to be top performers when it comes to airflow. Just make sure you enable the cases to have cabling without having to force it. Literally give it like one more cm of depth and it's done.
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I've used Fractal for cases throughout my PC life and have gone with their best ones mostly but for the love of god, increase cable management depth. Torrent, which I got now, has a glass side on the cable side(why) and it has to be kinda squishing the cables. It's the only downside of anything Fractal so far. I don't even have much cabling. Zero drives except M.2s so SATA isn't there. No RGB, no water stuff. Just fans and the essentials!
As for their booth, I like the chair! Love perforated backs for breathability. The cases are so elegant I kinda want to build an mATX one right now, damn. Even the Pi case is so cool. Actually nothing that isn't eye catching in their booth really. Love the designs and their ability to be top performers when it comes to airflow. Just make sure you enable the cases to have cabling without having to force it. Literally give it like one more cm of depth and it's done.
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C-M-E
You need a fan with pretty serious capability to pull a decently low pressure through fabric to be effective, more than you'll get out of general purpose PC case fans. Something like a 2.1amp server fan will do the job, but that exterior of the fabric will fairly quickly imprint a dust cake of the area of draw and look notably gross (and be unbearably loud most of the time). Think of something like a mini lint trap on a dryer, except right in your face. With a low-power draw PC case fan, the fabric will end up being another surface that air will pass around rather than through.
I'm not a particular fan of the the SFF pc case, but that one (the upright mini tower) does intrigue me just on wonder of managing thermals more than anything. Packaging will always be a compromise, and you'll start to hate life when you get towards the end of the build.
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You need a fan with pretty serious capability to pull a decently low pressure through fabric to be effective, more than you'll get out of general purpose PC case fans. Something like a 2.1amp server fan will do the job, but that exterior of the fabric will fairly quickly imprint a dust cake of the area of draw and look notably gross (and be unbearably loud most of the time). Think of something like a mini lint trap on a dryer, except right in your face. With a low-power draw PC case fan, the fabric will end up being another surface that air will pass around rather than through.
I'm not a particular fan of the the SFF pc case, but that one (the upright mini tower) does intrigue me just on wonder of managing thermals more than anything. Packaging will always be a compromise, and you'll start to hate life when you get towards the end of the build.
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conorstewart2214
I just had an idea, I have a fractal meshify 2 for my next build when the ryzen 9000 series are available. It could be cool to convert it to storage mode and rather than mount drives I could 3D print brackets to mount a raspberry pi instead or really anything else. I am a student so I have very limited space in my room so it could work quite well, it would be protected and have good airflow and be easy to take in and out as needed. There should be enough space to fit in even a pi cluster and power it off of a molex connector.
It may even be a good option for mounting a device that can connect to the power button and other front panel connectors or a serial port on the motherboard to allow remote control.
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I just had an idea, I have a fractal meshify 2 for my next build when the ryzen 9000 series are available. It could be cool to convert it to storage mode and rather than mount drives I could 3D print brackets to mount a raspberry pi instead or really anything else. I am a student so I have very limited space in my room so it could work quite well, it would be protected and have good airflow and be easy to take in and out as needed. There should be enough space to fit in even a pi cluster and power it off of a molex connector.
It may even be a good option for mounting a device that can connect to the power button and other front panel connectors or a serial port on the motherboard to allow remote control.
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BemisShmemis
I have a Silverstone Alta G1M that had a stock fan failure, and I ended up replacing it with that same Fractal fan. It's been great for removing heat efficiently, so I'm curious to how Fractal's in-house design will do. Reviews on it will be interesting in general, since that style of GPU mounting can be tricky for thermals.
Edit: the Mood review might be a good place to try testing various orientations of the case, to really test the effect of mounting GPUs vertically like that. I know there's variance to be considered in GPU models, though, so it might be tricky to get to GN standards.
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I have a Silverstone Alta G1M that had a stock fan failure, and I ended up replacing it with that same Fractal fan. It's been great for removing heat efficiently, so I'm curious to how Fractal's in-house design will do. Reviews on it will be interesting in general, since that style of GPU mounting can be tricky for thermals.
Edit: the Mood review might be a good place to try testing various orientations of the case, to really test the effect of mounting GPUs vertically like that. I know there's variance to be considered in GPU models, though, so it might be tricky to get to GN standards.
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KellicTiger
Oooo I'm really interested in the mood. I'm looking at moving into a smaller form factor desktop and I want it in my home theater setup The mood really looks like something that could fit into that really well assuming the thermals are okay. It looks like they're trying to turn it into a wind tunnel which is fine
Dear fractal please bring out that raspberry pi case. I want something that I can put that looks good alongside my home theater for retro gaming.
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Oooo I'm really interested in the mood. I'm looking at moving into a smaller form factor desktop and I want it in my home theater setup The mood really looks like something that could fit into that really well assuming the thermals are okay. It looks like they're trying to turn it into a wind tunnel which is fine
Dear fractal please bring out that raspberry pi case. I want something that I can put that looks good alongside my home theater for retro gaming.
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PinataOblongata
Wood can be stabilized. They put the piece in a pressure chamber with a bunch of epoxy and the pressure forces the epoxy into the pores of the timber, such that it no longer expands and shrinks with temperature and humidity changes and is way less prone to cracking. They do this for a lot of knife handles, but I doubt Fractal is doing it here, given the stiffening steel backing and a desire to keep manufacturing cost low.
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Wood can be stabilized. They put the piece in a pressure chamber with a bunch of epoxy and the pressure forces the epoxy into the pores of the timber, such that it no longer expands and shrinks with temperature and humidity changes and is way less prone to cracking. They do this for a lot of knife handles, but I doubt Fractal is doing it here, given the stiffening steel backing and a desire to keep manufacturing cost low.
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The_Murdoch
I wonder how well you can clean the fabric... There is going to be a fair amount of dust and polen and stuff sucked into that material.. i cant imagine they thought it would never need to be cleaned... But i can see a damp cloth wouldnt end up working well... I like the aesthetic, but i think after a year or two it wont look great...
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I wonder how well you can clean the fabric... There is going to be a fair amount of dust and polen and stuff sucked into that material.. i cant imagine they thought it would never need to be cleaned... But i can see a damp cloth wouldnt end up working well... I like the aesthetic, but i think after a year or two it wont look great...
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BlackSmokeDMax
If companies really want to show internal volume, they should just list both separately. i.e.:
Total build vol: xx Liters
Internal volume: xx Liters
But the total enclosure size that the product occupies should absolutely be listed just as Steve has been saying for quite a while now.
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If companies really want to show internal volume, they should just list both separately. i.e.:
Total build vol: xx Liters
Internal volume: xx Liters
But the total enclosure size that the product occupies should absolutely be listed just as Steve has been saying for quite a while now.
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pl0dman925
If Fractal don't release the PiNorth case some ripoff merchant will. Also, they might wan't to think about selling it in two sizes, a slim case and a wide case that will allow room for a PiHat. I just hope the case doesn't cost more than the Pi itself (but it if does I'd still but it).
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If Fractal don't release the PiNorth case some ripoff merchant will. Also, they might wan't to think about selling it in two sizes, a slim case and a wide case that will allow room for a PiHat. I just hope the case doesn't cost more than the Pi itself (but it if does I'd still but it).
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Anomnomnomaly
Speaking as some one who keeps meaning to build a raspberry pi for home assistant to control heating, solar and battery systems in my home... I really... Really... REALLY... want to buy that little case. It looks awesome and would sit on top of my normal PC case.
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Speaking as some one who keeps meaning to build a raspberry pi for home assistant to control heating, solar and battery systems in my home... I really... Really... REALLY... want to buy that little case. It looks awesome and would sit on top of my normal PC case.
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Trancefreakeh
Wondering what the max. GPU clearance will be on the cases, I need it to house a Top end Sapphire Nitro.
Also interested in the chair and especially the Pi Case!
Fractal never disappoints :). Love my Ridge and just bought a family member a Meshify.
A fan!
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Wondering what the max. GPU clearance will be on the cases, I need it to house a Top end Sapphire Nitro.
Also interested in the chair and especially the Pi Case!
Fractal never disappoints :). Love my Ridge and just bought a family member a Meshify.
A fan!
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EXOgreenMC
Fractal, just give us the digital files and sell us the face plate! Literally the best of both worlds. We get the cool face we want, you only have to create one new item to sell instead of every part in the case, another set of screws and hardware, ETC
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Fractal, just give us the digital files and sell us the face plate! Literally the best of both worlds. We get the cool face we want, you only have to create one new item to sell instead of every part in the case, another set of screws and hardware, ETC
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lego_minifig
I want that raspberry pi case! If they sold it I would buy a new pi to give to my 10 year old sister as her first computer as we always joke about her being tiny. I personally think she would love the case! (And hate the subsequent tiny jokes)
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I want that raspberry pi case! If they sold it I would buy a new pi to give to my 10 year old sister as her first computer as we always joke about her being tiny. I personally think she would love the case! (And hate the subsequent tiny jokes)
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BeefIngot
God, why do all office chairs have that punch you in the back of the head type cushion. Please please let me adjust the headrest to go forward and backwards at least to the point it is flush with the chair backing. No more head punching.
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God, why do all office chairs have that punch you in the back of the head type cushion. Please please let me adjust the headrest to go forward and backwards at least to the point it is flush with the chair backing. No more head punching.
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user-eu5ol7mx8y
Reallly not a fan of these wooden panels, or having wood on my electronics in general. Era in particular looks strange with the top wood panel, like an XBOX made by IKEA, I hope they'll offer a metal mesh option for it
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Reallly not a fan of these wooden panels, or having wood on my electronics in general. Era in particular looks strange with the top wood panel, like an XBOX made by IKEA, I hope they'll offer a metal mesh option for it
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scott2100
With the sudden popularity of wood panels for PC cases, and eventually it will happen for things like keyboards, I'd like to see some certifications for sustainability for the sourced wood, because why not at this point
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With the sudden popularity of wood panels for PC cases, and eventually it will happen for things like keyboards, I'd like to see some certifications for sustainability for the sourced wood, because why not at this point
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fwiler
That mood case is huge when you consider it only take a 2 slot gpu. Looking forward to the chair though if headrest comes off. The headphones look nice especially with charging dock. Tired of GAMERZ! looking headphones.
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That mood case is huge when you consider it only take a 2 slot gpu. Looking forward to the chair though if headrest comes off. The headphones look nice especially with charging dock. Tired of GAMERZ! looking headphones.
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neuroflare
My biggest takeaway from Paul's Fractal video was WHAT'S THAT TINY CASE I NEED IT and finding out it's a Pi case I 100% agree that Fractal needs to make them. I'll buy a dozen! (not really, maybe a couple though)
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My biggest takeaway from Paul's Fractal video was WHAT'S THAT TINY CASE I NEED IT and finding out it's a Pi case I 100% agree that Fractal needs to make them. I'll buy a dozen! (not really, maybe a couple though)
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hazonku
I was literally thinking about making a Raspberry Pi OBS box to stream my cat watching the bird feeder. I would LOVE for it to match my North. At the very least sell the wood and give us the .STL for the case.
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I was literally thinking about making a Raspberry Pi OBS box to stream my cat watching the bird feeder. I would LOVE for it to match my North. At the very least sell the wood and give us the .STL for the case.
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