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Fractal Design Torrent Nano Black - Dark tint tempered glass side panels - Open grille for maximum air intake - 180mm PWM fan included - Type C - mITX Airflow Mini Tower PC Gaming Case

£59.995£119.99Clearance
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About this deal

Air cooling is an excellent option for this system due to the large intake fan on the front of the case, while options for adding a water cooler are quite limited. You can't add a fan or radiator to the top of the case. You could install up to a 240mm radiator on the front, but this would require removing the preinstalled fan.

Fractal Design's new Torrent Nano is an interesting case that does a decent job of cutting the original Torrent down to size. The end result is a small case that is supplied with a single 180mm fan and which supports Mini-ITX/Mini-DTX with full sized hardware in the other departments. I've been using the Fractal Torrent Nano for the past 3-4 months with hundreds of hours of gaming and tens of hours of benchmarking. Now that I've seen its strengths and weaknesses (versus receiving the case and immediately publishing a YT review), here are my thoughts and recommendations. I also have one more comment - I don't see how you would (easily) fit a front-mounted 240mm AIO in this case without a lot of planning. Obviously it fits because Fractal says it fits. If you want to go this route (which I wouldn't recommend, this case is designed for airflow), you should install the AIO before you install any other components. Also, you can only fit a bottom-mounted AIO (which you shouldn't do) if you don't install a graphics card. If there’s a criticism of the eye-catching design, it’s that angular motifs typically result in large swathes of plastic. Though the front fascia looks incredible, the slithers that make up the vent do have some flex to them, and the chassis’ plastic top panel doesn’t carry the high-quality feel of a metal build. The noise readings are illuminating. Fractal’s large 180mm intakes are practically silent at low speed, and even at 800rpm the smooth hum is far from distracting. The decibel meter reacts accordingly as fan-speed rises, and you need to get closer to full pelt for noise level to rise above 40dB, which we deem off-putting.

Building Inside the Torrent Nano

If you buy this case, you should 100% buy 2x 140mm front intake fans if you want to get maximum cooling performance for your GPU. Also, make sure you buy fan splitters and aRGB splitters because you're going to need them. This case would look fantastic with cable extensions or custom cables. However, it will be tough to fit your custom ATX power cables in these cable management channels. My second issue is that, given space constraints, you can't install a modern GPU and bottom case fans. Technically you might be able to install extremely slim fans, but there will be 1 or 2 mm clearance between your GPU's fans and the case fans. Your GPU might even be sitting directly on top of the fans. Those slim fans don't really do a great job cooling, and the close proximity of the fans to the GPU won't necessarily improve thermals.

I ran this configuration for the first 3 months and overall got very good performance. My CPU temps were 29 - 32 C at idle, 45 C during gaming, and peaked at 70 C during 1-hr Cinebench R23 runs. My GPU ran very hot and was thermally throttling while playing games and benchmarking. I decided to undervolt to 950 mV at 1980 MHz. This reduced my CPU temps to 60 - 65 C during gaming, and it peaked at 68 C during about 30 minutes of Unigine Superposition runs. To put this case through its cooling paces we will be using a test system consisting of an Intel Core i5-11600K, 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 Nano‘s cooling capabilities. A sturdy, vibration-damped drive tray supporting a single HDD or dual SSDs with two optional mounting positions

The Fractal Torrent Nano is a solidly built, extremely well-designed PC case that excels in air-cooling your components. It supports the mITX form factor but it definitely isn't a "small" case by any definition of the word. It supports a standard ATX PSU which is nice for your budget (or maybe not!). In terms of looks, it has the sex appeal of Angelina Jolie or Idris Elba, depending on your preferences. The cable management is superb with a main cable channel and a ton of space at the bottom, right side, and top of the case.

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