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I won’t quite say that I have grown tired of companies taking the safe route by slapping a fine mesh front panel on cases. But I admire creativity, which is what Fractal has brought to airflow-focused cases. Not only does the front panel look good, but it also performs really well, without even adding an exhaust fan. Since Intel’s 12 Gen “Alder Lake” has shaken up the desktop landscape (and taken prominent spots on our best CPUs for gaming list), we’ve updated our case testing hardware. We’re now using an Intel i7-12700KF, which is being cooled by a Noctua U12s air cooler. Our graphics card is a Gigabyte RTX 3070 Ti Gaming OC. The Torrent Compact is built to air cool your compact build as efficiently as possible through an open front grille and two of our 180 x 38 mm Dynamic PWM fans (Prisma for RGB version), making it a perfect fit for air cooling aficionados looking for a compact case.
The acoustic results of the Torrent Compact are awe-inspiring. As you can see in our chart, the 180 mm fans on the Torrent Compact do a great job at minimizing sound while providing more airflow than a 120 or 140 mm spinner would. When we cranked the fan speeds up, it's obvious that the larger surface area of the fans is going to make more noise than smaller 120 or 140 mm fans. The thing is, as you’ll see next in our thermal tests, there’s no need to turn the fans up that high. Thermal Results The Torrent Compact does technically allow for E-ATX motherboards. However, be prepared to lose out on some cable routing options if you go that route, as larger boards end up covering a portion of the routing grommets. And as we’ll see later, cable routing space is already scarce. If you want to use a large motherboard, you should opt for the larger original Torrent, or another large case instead. Below is what Fractal had to say about their Ion 2 Platinum series power supplies in a recent press release.Fractal Design Torrent cases allow you to install 180mm fans in the floor and front of the case and house the power supply in the roof so if – like us – you're not much fussed about that feature you may well be feeling a touch of meh. Expansive base intakes and extra-large bottom fan support offers exceptional GPU cooling potential (with bottom PCI slot free)
Our acoustic test consists of three scenarios: We run the CPU at full load, the CPU and GPU at full load and an optimized idle. The CPU full load test runs the CPU and case fans at their maximum speed. For the CPU and GPU full load acoustic test, we also stress the Gigabyte RTX 3070 Ti Gaming OC and set the fans at 75% speed, because in gaming the fans never run at 100% and are far too loud when they do. Up to 360x120/280x140 mm (360 mm front radiators (push / push-pull) supported up to a max length of 403 mm) I will never again buy a case with power supply on the top. It becomes top heavy and a royal pain in the bottom to do anything with cooling as well as some mobo plugs becoming cramped. However, no RGB controller or hub is present, so you will be relying on the A-RGB ports of your motherboard. This isn’t an issue if you opt for any other version of the Torrent than we’re testing today, but if you want this RGB variant, do make sure you have two A-RGB ports on your mainboard.
Smaller size, still a large amount of airflow
Two sturdy steel drive trays with vibration-damping rubber grommets for smooth, quiet and reliable operation Since you don’t have the option to mount a radiator to the top of the case (remember, that’s where the PSU lives), you’re limited to impractical mounting options for liquid cooling, either in the front of the case or at the bottom. We couldn’t fit our EK 240mm D-RGB AIO in the front since we’re using a Gigabyte RTX 3070 Ti Gaming OC, which is 12.5 inches (320 mm) long. I even tried mounting the AIO first, then installing the GPU, but that didn’t work either. Meet Fractal’s Torrent, an all-new enclosure design that revives the classic PSU-on-top chassis designs of old to create an airflow-optimised case that’s designed to keep your PC’s graphics card cool under load.
mm or 2x 180 mm (3x Dynamic GP-14 PWM included in standard version, 3x Prisma AL-14 PWM included in RGB version)To put this case through its cooling paces we will be using a test system consisting of an AMD Ryzen 5 5600X, Sapphire RX 6800 XT 16GB and an SSD. This system allows us to produce a substantial amount of heat and effectively test the Fractal Design Torrent Compact ‘s cooling capabilities.
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