discussion Fractal Design Define 7 / XL

[Alpine]

Maybe the Fractal Node 304 or 804? They're more compact so you can potentially tuck it away easier. Depends whether you have a full ATX size motherboard or not.

I think the XL series of cases from Fractal would be pretty wasteful for space, they're more designed for watercooling.

too small for my future needs

 

[Alpine]

Holy crap ! I know that case was huge but not like that ! I can make a bedroom for my kids in that.

Approval from the cat too

 

[ipaine]

Did I not say the box was cat approved?

 

[Solace]

I have the 7 XL.

Very good quality, tons of space and very nice to build in. Works nice with a bunch of layout options and rad options if water cooling.

As for the front door, I have mine closed when just working or casual interneting. I do open it when playing games as it does make a few degrees difference with the extra airflow.

One thing I will say if you have a GPU with one of the AIO options, like EVGA hybrid cards, you have to get creative due to the size of it if you want front intake.

This is what I had to do with my 1080ti hybrids: (now just a single 3080ti on air)
View attachment 33257

Of course if you are doing air or custom loops then you don't have to worry. Also in that picture you can see the one panel behind the rad, but when done I had it in front like this:

View attachment 33259

So lots of different possible configs/layouts and lots of room.

Most importantly the box is cat approved:
View attachment 33258

How is the CPU/GPU for temps? I presume the CPU is still under the AIO? What CPU is used in the build?

 

[ipaine]

How is the CPU/GPU for temps? I presume the CPU is still under the AIO? What CPU is used in the build?

Well I have changed things since those pictures. I really should put up new pictures somewhere.

Currently have a 5900x being cooled by a Arctic Liquid Freezer II 420mm. I still have to play with settings and such for overclocking/undervolting but with my current all core 4.6GHz @1.2875V it is sitting at about 48c idle and for load umm, lets see. Ok so quick run of Cinebench R23 and it tops at 75c but I have a really quiet fan curve so I could drop that temp if I had a more aggressive curve. As for when gaming in the mid 50's

GPU, that is now the 3090 FTW3 Hybrid. It is running push pull (cause I needed the extra fan due to hose length) on the 240mm. That sits at about 22-23c @idle and about 50-55c when under full load.

 

[Solace]

Well I have changed things since those pictures. I really should put up new pictures somewhere.

Currently have a 5900x being cooled by a Arctic Liquid Freezer II 420mm. I still have to play with settings and such for overclocking/undervolting but with my current all core 4.6GHz @1.2875V it is sitting at about 48c idle and for load umm, lets see. Ok so quick run of Cinebench R23 and it tops at 75c but I have a really quiet fan curve so I could drop that temp if I had a more aggressive curve. As for when gaming in the mid 50's

GPU, that is now the 3090 FTW3 Hybrid. It is running push pull (cause I needed the extra fan due to hose length) on the 240mm. That sits at about 22-23c @idle and about 50-55c when under full load.

Thanks for the details, it makes me wonder if the voltage/top panel is the main issue on the case for myself more so than just the cooler, I'm sure the AIO does a bit more than on air as the heat is getting shifted and expelled easier. Cinebench never has really stressed the CPU to most real world scenarios, even playing resident evil village put more load on the cpu than that did. Still the voltage you run for a static OC instead of letting PBO boost to about 5ghz is significantly different than stock by about .175.

 

[ipaine]

Thanks for the details, it makes me wonder if the voltage/top panel is the main issue on the case for myself more so than just the cooler, I'm sure the AIO does a bit more than on air as the heat is getting shifted and expelled easier. Cinebench never has really stressed the CPU to most real world scenarios, even playing resident evil village put more load on the cpu than that did. Still the voltage you run for a static OC instead of letting PBO boost to about 5ghz is significantly different than stock by about .175.

I really haven't played around with letting PBO do its thing and playing with volts much. The all core thing was a quick play around and I haven't had time to tweak things. But yea leaving things at stock seems to push way more voltage than needed. Just have to find time to play around more.

Also I have both cpu and gpu rads as intakes. Both pull cooler air in and then rear exhaust pushes it out.

 

[Solace]

The PBO voltage is actually needed for the boost frequencies hit given its 4.9+, a considerable amount of more voltage is needed for those cores to spike that high. I've seen mine hit as high as 5150 a few times and others 5200 if you increase max boost. Better for gaming/single core apps, worse multi core performance as the headroom is less from the heat/power increase.

 

[Alpine]

I'm building a media server with that case. Nothing fancy except looking for add hdd at the full capacity of the case. I am currently waiting that the price of the hard disk drop.

For now the hardware is :

Intel i5-2680 v4 @ 2.4GHz 35mb of cache @ 14 cores / 28 thread cooled with a Noctua NH-D15S Chroma.Black
Temps on idle never reach 20c. This is what coretemp says. can i trust ?

Huananzhi X99-F8 Gaming motherboard. China Mb. was a bit scare when i'd buy it but it is working great so far.
16 GB of XPG Spectric D60G. DDR4 @ 3200 Mhz. Another 16gb will be add soon.
Gigabyte GTX 1050 Ti
Old Corsair Force F3 120GB for testing purpose. Mvme will be add for final setup
The Fractal Define XL7. I really love it.

 

[QuestionAsker]

I loved the 7 XL, not so much the 7. I Kind of wish I bought another 7 XL over the torrent or even a Meshify 2 XL.

Just curious, why didn't you like the Fractal 7 that much, versus the 7 XL?