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
Conclusion: Almost There
In a way, reviewing the Fractal Design Arc Midi feels like I'm reviewing two different cases: the one that ships, and the one enthusiasts will tinker with. One of these is good but not great, while the other has the potential to be a stellar investment. Break it down into two parts and you can see where Fractal Design went right and where they went wrong.
The case design itself is stellar and leaves little to be desired. It's a little cramped, sure, but that's the price you pay for getting a healthy amount of expansion and flexibility in a mid tower format. In exchange you do get that expansion and flexibility, all in what I think is an extremely attractive package with a smart aesthetic that feels at worst frugal rather than cheap. Build quality is excellent, with a lot of attention paid to the little details. It's easy to assemble, it looks good, what more can you ask for?
Well, you can ask for better fans. I think the fan controller included is a nice touch, but I suspect the fans Fractal Design uses are less than ideal for this enclosure. I keep feeling like we could see better performance out of the Arc Midi if we just pulled the stock fans, pulled the fan controller, and added better fans. The acoustics just don't fall in line with the cooling performance, but thankfully this is one place where the dedicated enthusiast can probably get a lot of mileage out of the Arc Midi.
Unfortunately, replacement fans cost money, and when you start spending up you begin to wonder if you shouldn't have just gone with something like the Corsair 650D or my personal favorite, the Rosewill Thor v2. My answer? Frankly, I like the way the Arc Midi looks, so I'd be more inclined to tinker with it. $99 is fairly inexpensive for a quality case, and the Arc Midi is well-built, looks good, and is easy to use.
If you want the best case you can get for under $100, as it ships, I'd probably suggest going with the Corsair Carbide 400R or In-Win BUC. But if you're willing to put in the time and energy and invest a bit, the Fractal Design Arc Midi should serve you well.
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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!