Fractal Design Arc Midi: The Mid Tower You've Been Waiting For?
by Dustin Sklavos on October 7, 2011 12:45 AM EST- Posted in
- Cases/Cooling/PSUs
- mid-tower
- Fractal Design
Testing Methodology
For testing ATX cases, we use the following standardized testbed in stock and overclocked configurations to get a feel for how well the case handles heat and noise.
| Full ATX Test Configuration | |
| CPU |
Intel Core i7-875K (95W TDP, tested at stock speed and overclocked to 3.8GHz @ 1.38V) |
| Motherboard | ASUS P7P55D-E Pro |
| Graphics Card | Zotac NVIDIA GeForce GTX 580 (244W TDP) |
| Memory | 2x2GB Crucial Ballistix Smart Tracer DDR3-1600 |
| Drives |
Kingston SSDNow V+ 100 64GB SSD Western Digital Caviar Black 1TB SATA 6Gbps Samsung 5.25" BD-ROM/DVDRW Drive |
| CPU Cooler | Zalman CNPS9900 MAX with Cooler Master ThermalFusion 400 |
| Power Supply | SilverStone Strider Gold 750W 80 Plus Gold |
A refresher on how we test:
Acoustic testing is standardized on a foot from the front of the case, using the Extech SL10 with an ambient noise floor of ~32dB. For reference, that's what my silent apartment measures with nothing running, testing acoustics in the dead of night (usually between 1am and 3am). A lot of us sit about a foot away from our computers, so this should be a fairly accurate representation of the kind of noise the case generates, and it's close enough to get noise levels that should register above ambient.
Thermal testing is run with the computer having idled at the desktop for fifteen minutes, and again with the computer running both Furmark (where applicable) and Prime95 (less one thread when a GPU is being used) for fifteen minutes. I've found that leaving one thread open in Prime95 allows the processor to heat up enough while making sure Furmark isn't CPU-limited. We're using the thermal diodes included with the hardware to keep everything standardized, and ambient testing temperature is always between 71F and 74F. Processor temperatures reported are the average of the CPU cores.
For more details on how we arrived at this testbed, you can check out our introductory passage in the review for the IN-WIN BUC.
Last but not least, we'd also like to thank the vendors who made our testbed possible:
Thank You!
We have some thanks in order before we press on:
- Thank you to Crucial for providing us with the Ballistix Smart Tracer memory we used to add memory thermals to our testing.
- Thank you to Zalman for providing us with the CNPS9900 MAX heatsink and fan unit we used.
- Thank you to Kingston for providing us with the SSDNow V+ 100 SSD.
- Thank you to CyberPower for providing us with the Western Digital Caviar Black hard drive, Intel Core i7-875K processor, ASUS P7P55D-E Pro motherboard, and Samsung BD-ROM/DVD+/-RW drive.
- And thank you to SilverStone for providing us with the power supply and SATA power cable.
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cjs150 - Friday, October 7, 2011 - link
Jared you are making things worse for yourself.Radiators come in various thicknesses typically from about 34mm up to fat boys at 60mm. According to the Fractal website and other reviews the Arc supports up to 60mm thick radiators (although then it is tight). So a 34mm thick radiator would have about 1" of clearance
If we take you at face value then surely you should be consistent and say that any case which has air cooling with clearance of less than 1" or 25mm is too tight and you would not recommend it.
The price of the case is not as important as the quality of the design. If the side panels are a bit thin then stick some dampening foam on them (cost maybe $50 at worst). Up to now one of the best water cooling cases (maybe the best) has been the Silverstone TJ07 which is a lot more expensive, internal air flow is dreadful and needs some careful modding to make the water cooling work best. For someone like me who uses micro-ATX boards and storage is an SSD plus one HD, the Silverstone is completely overkill.
The way Fractal have thought about the design is impressive and makes for a great case for watercooling without ANY (or at worst ditching one of the drive cages) modding. It could be better, but then again virtually every case on the market could be improved one way or another.
whatthehey - Friday, October 7, 2011 - link
Spoken like a true watercooling zealot. Thanks for that subjective evaluation, CJS!Just because something FITS doesn't mean it fits WELL. And just because you can pour a lot of money into a Honda Civic and turn it into a rice racer doesn't mean you won't end up looking like a douchebag. For the 1% of the market that uses water-cooling, the pertinent question is this: does the Arc Midi work better or worse than other options?
There are always exceptions, but most watercooled PCs that I've seen are in large full-tower cases, and the people use such cases because:
1 - You want all the room you can get for the radiator and reservoir.
2 - You're not going to move the PC around much anyway.
3 - More room to build means you can put the watercooling to good use by having dual GPUs and the chipset all cooled by the same loop.
I don't dispute that the Arc Midi can use a 240mm radiator, but I would strongly dispute anyone claiming that it's one of the better cases for watercooling. Perhaps Anandtech could have worded things better, but I'm in agreement with them on not recommending this case for watercooling.
cjs150 - Monday, October 10, 2011 - link
Zealot - I wish. At home I run 3 computers, one is passive, one is aircooled and one is water cooled.The passive one is a server, never gives any trouble but the mini-ITX case design (and integrated PSU - have these guys not realised that the world moved to 24 pin ATX cables years ago) could be a lot better.
The air-cooled one is old faithful. It is noisy, needs the dust bunnies cleaned out every 6 months but is still going strong after 8 years, it is in an old coolermaster case and the design was pretty basic back then, for starters the "stealth" optical drive bay covers were useless.
The water cooled one is the power house and gaming machine and to be honest a hobby. Although it only needs cleaned every 6-9 months, cleaning is a bit more complicated than the air cooled one. But it is very very quiet. It is in the Silverstone and anyone who has used that case knows that the design is deeply flawed (lack of airflow), it looks beautiful but not all the holes line up perfectly.
Anyway back to the Fractal. People who know a lot more about water cooling than me are very impressed. The top rad placement is excellent because it is not dead centre of the top but shifted away from the motherboard to allow more room for bigger radiators.
I probably would not use this case for a full ATX motherboard and quad SLI, but as I said I prefer micro-ATX boards. The only things that defintely need water cooled are the CPU and GPU(s). These days I am not convinced the chipset needs cooling, some people water cool the power delivery capacitors, but with a top radiator you are going to have a fan directly above them so that looks unnecessary. There is bags of room for a reservoir - use of the 5.25 bays or, given that the rear fan goes if you have a radiator up top, maybe where the rear fan is
As I said the Fractal is not perfect, not convinced by the plastic front - and the front should definitely be re-tooled to support a front mounted radiator. But it is a lot better designed than many much more expensive cases. I have one on order for my next build
Zebo - Sunday, October 9, 2011 - link
I've water cooled since athlon XP days and never had a leak and that was when manufactures were clueless about galvanic corrosion. Today with delrin tops and like metals you should have zero issue.Tigashark - Sunday, October 9, 2011 - link
Agree, if you end up with leaking issues you didnt put your loop together properly. Galvanic corrosion is one thing anyone looking into water SHOULD know about before they buy.I spent ~ 12 hours cutting, checking, rechecking, dissasembling, fittting, testing on my 1st custom loop, at that has been running 24/7 for the last 2 1/2 years.
For those who dont get WHY you watercool, its simple , Water is 100 times more efficient at transferring heat than air.
Running CPU/Chipset/GPU under water and temps are *significantly* better than air for 24/7/365 operation.
Water is definitely worth the investment in time and money, and for those who dont have direct experience, you simply cant judge water performance on the pre-made "water cooling" loops such as those offered by Corsair.
The diff between those sealed units and a custom loop is night and day.
Other than that looks like a nice case, not sure how it would go with a custom loop however, looks like it would be cramped.
Kiste - Friday, October 7, 2011 - link
Looking at the gaping hole in the side panel (which doesn't even seem to come with a dust filter), I don't buy the statement that with "the "low" fan setting it's among the quietest". That's simply not possible, unless Fractal Design innovated some magic anti-sound tech that changes the laws of physics.KamikaZeeFu - Friday, October 7, 2011 - link
I think that statement was meant as "compared to other sub $100 enclosures"Kiste - Friday, October 7, 2011 - link
There are sub $ 100 enclosures without these idiotic side panel cutouts. It's a problem with the cutouts, not the price.Kegetys - Friday, October 7, 2011 - link
In the R2 you can flip the side panels, ie. put the one with the fan grille to the right side. I find this helps to silence the noise quite a bit if you dont need the side fan. It looks like it might be possible to do it in this as well.UNHchabo - Monday, October 10, 2011 - link
Hmm... I have an R3, and I never even thought of doing that!I still have the grille cover on, so I doubt it will make any difference to noise, but it will make a difference to the aesthetics!
I'll try it out; thanks!