**Tempered Glass Case Review: A Good Option with Some Drawbacks**

The tempered glass case is a popular option among PC enthusiasts, and for good reason. It's a strong thermal performer that can handle a wide range of components. In this review, we'll take a closer look at the pros and cons of using this case, as well as its performance in comparison to other similar cases on the market.

**Cable Management: A Major Pain Point**

One of the biggest drawbacks of the tempered glass case is its cable management system. As we've mentioned before, it's not designed to handle a lot of cables at once, and adding too many components can make it difficult to manage the cables in a way that looks good. This is especially true for builds with a lot of RGB LEDs, fans, or water cooling components. The case's designers have acknowledged this issue, stating that it's "just a pain in the ass" to deal with.

However, if you're building a simpler system with fewer components, you may be able to get away with the cable management system without too much trouble. For example, if you're only using one GPU and a few CPU power cables, you may not need to worry as much about cable management. On the other hand, if you're adding a lot of extra components or using LED hubs, fans, or water cooling equipment, you'll need to be prepared to spend some time managing your cables.

**The Human Factor: A Major Concern**

Another issue with the tempered glass case is its impact on the human factor. The designers have stated that they've added unnecessary stress to the system by using glass instead of steel on one side of the case. This can cause the glass to buckle or warp, especially when it's subjected to thermal stress. While this may not be a major issue for most users, it could be a problem for builders who are particularly sensitive to aesthetics.

In contrast, the steel panel on the other side of the case is more durable and less prone to warping. This makes the tempered glass case less attractive to builders who prioritize durability over style. However, we still think that this case is an excellent option for those who want a strong thermal performer with a compact design.

**Comparison to Other Cases**

So how does the tempered glass case compare to other similar cases on the market? In terms of performance, it's one of the top results in our charts, and it performs similarly or better than some of its competitors. However, when it comes to price, it starts to fall behind the competition.

The Digital Dark Knight is an excellent alternative that offers more cable management space for a similar price. The Fractal Meshify C, on the other hand, offers a slightly different design with more room for cable management and a lower price point.

**Conclusion**

Overall, we think that the tempered glass case is a good option for builders who want a strong thermal performer with a compact design. However, it's not without its drawbacks, particularly when it comes to cable management. If you're building a simpler system or prioritize durability over style, this case may be a good choice for you.

However, if you're looking for a more affordable option with even better cable management space, we would recommend considering other cases like the Digital Dark Knight or Fractal Meshify C. Additionally, builders who want to take advantage of water cooling or RGB LEDs should look into other options that are specifically designed for those needs.

**Recommended**

We think that this case is an excellent choice for most builders, but with one caveat: it's not ideal for builders who prioritize cable management space or have a lot of extra components. If you're willing to compromise on these aspects, however, the tempered glass case is definitely worth considering.

**Price Comparison**

The tempered glass case is priced at $150-$170, which is slightly cheaper than its competitors like the Fractal Meshify C and Digital Dark Knight. However, it's still more expensive than some other options in this price range.

Here's a comparison of prices for similar cases:

* Fractal Meshify C: $130

* Digital Dark Knight: $140

* Tempered Glass Case: $150-$170

**Purchasing the Case**

If you're interested in purchasing the tempered glass case, we recommend checking out the following retailers:

* Store.gamertexas.net (directly from the manufacturer)

* Newegg.com

* Amazon.com

We also have a Patreon account where we offer behind-the-scenes content and exclusive updates. You can support us by becoming a patron at patreon.com/gamersnexus.

**Conclusion**

That's it for this review of the tempered glass case. We hope you found our analysis helpful, and we look forward to seeing your builds in the comments below!

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: entoday we're reviewing the fraxel torrent compact so this is the smaller version of the fraxel torrent that we reviewed previously we also have the fractal torrent nano that's for mini itx we're not reviewing it today but now there are smaller options for the torrent which we reviewed very positively previously it was the probably the highest scoring case we reviewed last year or even in the last couple of years so the torrent got high praise but this one it's still two 180 millimeter fans it's priced in the 150 to 170 range depending on the option you buy and today we're going to be reviewing it in depth there's one major aspect of it that we really dislike but the rest of it is pretty interesting before that this video is brought to you by squarespace we use squarespace for our own gn store and juggle complex multi-piece orders all the time with it squarespace makes it fast for us to roll out new products with detailed pages full of galleries videos and descriptors it's also useful for your own resume sites for photographer or project portfolios or for starting your new small business idea there's never been a better time to try and start your new business than right now and we can vouch that squarespace makes it easy visit squarespace.com gamersnexus to get 10 off your first purchase with squarespace so right up front the differences between the versions the 150 dollar versions of this case are just without rgb fans that's basically the difference and 170 you get the one we have which has the rgb led fans technically the fans have very slightly different specs in their cfm and their pressure specifications but uh they're basically the same so they'll test about the same regardless of which one you have so then the cheaper one lines it up with a lot of very competitive cases on the market things like the cooler master td 500 the h 500 p mesh the h 500 blank all from cooler master fractals previous lineup like the meshfi 2 series including its own compact the phantax 400a and the later p500a corsairs 4000d airflow 5000d airflow there's a lot of really good cases that are both cheaper than this and around the same price as this so this is a fierce market to compete in for any case this is functionally a shrunken version of the larger torrent the panels come off just as easily they have roughly the same design as the original one it's got the same fan sizes up front it only has two fan stock and you should probably keep those if you buy it because that's where most of the money is going as into these fans so swapping them out just doesn't make sense you just buy a different case that's what you're going to do it does make the radiator sizing a little difficult if you're doing radiators but otherwise really interesting case especially for something with a tower cooler and double especially because with these shorter cases the really cool thing with them is that it pushes the intake as close as possible to the components getting cooled so you have a lot more velocity as the air hits those fin stacks and it also keeps the air in its sort of room ambient state rather than warming it up too much before it hits stuff so generally these smaller more compact designs we see are beneficial thermally rather than the opposite so we gave the torrent previously our best case overall and best airflow but it also stood out for being a stark contrast from fractals standard overly safe design choices of the past we'll try to avoid repeating ourselves in this review so that means we're going to limit some of the discussion of basic design choices and you'll have to go watch the original torrent review to get those just so it's not too redundant the one thing we do want to bring back up the only major issue with the original torrent was the riser cable which was a potential fire hazard however fractal did the right thing and got out way ahead of it as in basically immediately when it launched it recalled all of the cases it had shipped to retailers and distributors and it also offered a recall for customers where they could send it back in they could get the cable replaced with one that we tested independently and found it was a much higher quality cable anyway and also uh from what we saw did not have that same electrical short issue so that was the one thing that fractal potentially they could have really botched that launch the case would be dead to everyone at this point would be very unfortunate because it's a good case but that's a massive oversight huge issue fractal dealt with it well all of these manufacturers will make a mistake at some point there's so many moving parts in the chain a lot of them are third parties so someone's going to screw up at some point for everyone but dealing with it is what matters fact will dealt with it well so this one comes with the same fan hub we cleared previously from the updated version all right let's get started with the build notes and talk about how the case is structured and designed we'll go through the thermals and all that and talk about the one major aspect we don't like so enter the compact at this point one point we raised with the original torrent was that there was no option to install three and a half inch drives inside the top chamber of the case the smaller torrance compact rectifies this with an optional three and a half inch bay that can be mounted directly adjacent to the power supply this tray won't fit if the power supply has a significant amount of cable clutter especially non-modular ones but it's a welcomed addition and it also wasn't just slapped on as an afterthought the tray can be positioned in two locations one of them gives access to the fill port at the front of the case and the other one gives more space to the power supply if you need both you may need to add or remove this drive as you get through the filling process there are no other three and a half inch mounting locations in this case there certainly isn't space for hard drives behind the motherboard tray but fractal did manage to cram in three two and a half inch drive mounts the worst shortcoming of the torrent compact is cable management we already had some difficulty with the full size torrent in this regard but as we showed in our review we were able to solve most of the problems by simply pulling the slack cable up into the power supply chamber in the torrent compact there is at best two centimeters of clearance for cables behind the side panel and that's not accounting for the optional plastic cable channels the shallower section towards the front of the case or any of the other accessories that eat up space despite our best efforts we couldn't get the compact's side panel to shut without screwing it down and even then the glass is prone to warping out at one corner the width of the case has been scaled down proportionally with height and depth versus the torrent but because the interior of the case must be at least 180 millimeters wide to fit the front intake fans a disproportionate amount of that space was subtracted from the cable space behind the board on the positive side that means that clearance inside the body of the case for cpu air coolers is still nearly as good as it was in the full-size torrent at 174 millimeters versus 188 that'll fit most of the good cpu air coolers we've reviewed recently in our cpu cooler reviews gpu clearance is down from the torrents of 423 to 330 with the front fans installed for that as with the original the expansion slots are bridgeless and they can be swapped for a vertical gpu mounting kit now general disclaimer here vertical gpus if they're too close to the glass and they're air cooled the result will be abysmal for thermals of the gpu so don't mount it vertically if it's going to push the front of the card within an inch or so of the glass if you're doing water cooling though it doesn't matter moving past the space problem the cable guides and tie points are otherwise effective there's a mysterious metal cable management bracket as fractal calls it right above the fan hub and our best guess is that it's meant for wrapping thin rgb and fan cables around like a cleat on a dock although maybe that's language we should reserve for a corsair review more sales the top mounted psu location may necessitate some cable extension since these days power supply cable lengths are determined with bottom mounting in mind we routed our gpu power cables from above the card for this reason rather than below as we usually would the big draw of the torrent and the torrent series is clearly the 180 millimeter fans our sample is the torrent compact rgb black tg light which comes with two of fractal's prisma al-18 pwm argb fans these fans like the ones on the original torrent are thick these ones are 38 millimeters thick and as fractal states on the reviewer guide they quote leverage power size and thickness for greatly enhanced air moving capacity great that phrasing will definitely win the hearts and minds of memers everywhere for sure that is going to be one of the most quoted aspects of this case these fans can be moved to the bottom of the case just as they could in the original torrent but doing so prevents the use of atx motherboards or the lower front 180 millimeter fan mount when reinstalling the 180s be aware that they're thick enough that they block their own cable cutouts so you'll need to route the fan cables before screwing the fans down additionally there's no built-in rgb controller for the fans or the leds on the power supply shroud so without power from a motherboard or third party controller all leds will remain dark if the 180 millimeter fans are relocated or removed two fan rails can be installed to adapt the front mounts to 120 millimeter or 140 millimeter spacing these work the same way as they did in the original we like them then and we still like them now as far as radiators the maximum cleaned radiator compatibility from fractals marketing is 280 millimeters for the bottom 120 millimeters for the rear position or 360 millimeters up to 403 millimeters for the front in total now that 403 numbers a little bit funny that one assumes that the fans are mounted to the front panel in a push or a push pull configuration there isn't enough space under the i o assembly to mount a 360 millimeter radiator directly to the chassis realistically speaking there's just not enough space period so you should just use a smaller radiator the front and the bottom mounts conflict where they meet so plan conservatively for multi-radiator configurations and installing any fans or radiators in the bottom of the case will obstruct access to the bottom of an atx board so it's tricky to work with for open loop but that's expected for a smaller case you just really you need to do some planning before you buy everything and end up with parts that don't fit well the feet of the compact are skeletonized to allow greater airflow which is a good idea for a case that encourages bottom mounting fans the full-sized torrent actually has the same feature but we didn't single it out last time the case feet can be removed for quote ease of fan installation but if we get our marketing translator in what fractal actually means here is that part of the bottom fan mounts are not accessible at all without removing the feet so it's not just freeze of installation it's a requirement the smaller compact doesn't have the removable bottom fan tray that the larger original did and that's what circumvented this problem originally the top panel can still be screwed into place but it doesn't come with the captive thumb screws of the full size version we recommend installing the screws having the top slide off every time you rest your hand on the top and plug something into the back of the pc gets old fast and it'll just prevent mistakes if you ever pick it up to move it the fan hub installed in our torrent compact is a nexus 9p slim v 1.1 no affiliation in the nexus name in there both the front and the back planes of the pcb are grounded which we verified by scratching through the protective coating all of the through holes are plated but they're also intentionally isolated and not connected to ground this is the fan hub that fractal designed and shipped as a replacement after the early torrent units short-circuited we covered this design in detail including pcb schematics sent to us by fractal back in september more than perhaps any other case the torrent compact is built to be used in its stock configuration it comes with two intake fans and as we learned from the marketing they are thick and big so they should be plenty there's little reason to alter the placement of the stock 181 fans other than the radiator installation and the torrent family's design leans toward air cooling anyway we experimented with moving the fans around to the bottom of the case instead in our original review of the larger one but we found it best to just leave them in place our main goal with these new thermal tests is to see whether the compact performs any better or worse than the original but also to see how it does in a more constricted space our sample is the rgb review sample it should be close in performance the non-rgb torrent compact variants although fractal claims technically a slightly lower cfm rating for the arg fans as opposed to the non-rgb ones at 146.8 versus 153.7 cfm there's also a static pressure change where the non-rgb ones are 2.5 millimeters h2o versus 2.26 so the rest of it the rpm and the power specs those are the same we'll be prepared to verify those claims soon on the fan tester in cpu torture testing just showing the fractal cases first the compact averaged 41 degrees celsius on the cpu under full system torture workload that's within variants of the larger torrent and therefore at the very top of the fractal results the internal layout of the smaller case is almost exactly the same and the powerful front to back airflow that it creates is ideal for tower coolers even without a rear exhaust fan in many cases the power supply shroud would block off a section of the front intake fans in the torrent and the torrent compacts however the half shroud keeps the front fans unobstructed and may even help guide air toward the cpu cooler comparatively now leon lee's 011 air mini and fraxel's own mastify 2 compacts compete for the same audience as the torrent compact in that they're small mid towers and a focus is on airflow here but both are less expensive they're 110 msrp each technically they're selling for more than that on some retailers but it's 150 so the non-rgb torrent compact so pretty big price difference both of the other cases here performed well on this test at 44 degrees average for the air mini and 47 for the mesh by 2 compact and both cases performed better out of the box than earlier variants thanks to additional stock fans however neither matched the torrent compact with the dual 180 ml intake so the torrent compact is living up to the larger case's performance gpu temperature on the same torture test averaged 51 degrees slightly higher than the big torrent 50 degree average so within variance really here fractal has done a good job though of keeping the case floor breathable and lifted above the table surface which helps keep gpu thermals under control even when fans aren't mounted in the bottom slots removing the front panel didn't meaningfully change the temperature we technically saw an increase which may be an indication of the positive pressure system shifting its bias towards the cpu cooler instead that said it's within error so it could just be test variants it could be an actual pressure system change but there's nothing worth thinking further about comparatively this isn't the case's strongest point it still performs well overall it's at 51 degrees which is just between the coolermaster td-500 mesh and the corsair 4000d airflow and both of those were well received in our testing like leanne lee with the mini 011s fractal has scaled down the case legs with the smaller version of the case but it didn't go overboard the case floor is now four centimeters above the table surface rather than four and a half centimeters neither the mesh of i2 compact nor the air mini performed exceptionally in this area with air mini in particular demonstrating our point about case legs it was a 59 degree average the torrent compact may be more expensive but its stock fans add definite value so if you were gonna buy fans and put them in a cheaper case it's worth thinking about this one just because you'll keep the fans with this one rendering our gn monkey head test scene on the cpu resulted in an average of 34 degrees definitely warmer than the larger torrents 32 degree average but still unmatched by any other of the cases on our chart and this as a reminder is a cpu only workload here so it's much lighter than some of the earlier ones the lan coil 2 mesh comes close but our primary comparison points the 011 air mini and the mesh 52 compact averaged 37 degrees and 36 degrees respectively moving the same test the gpu rendering resulted in a gpu average of 24 degrees again warmer than the torrance 21 degree average but still in its proper place among mesh fronted cases like the 4000d airflow and the montec x3 these lower intensity tests don't allow the compacts to differentiate itself quite as much but much like the gpu torture test the air mini and the meshfy two compact also fell behind in this test with averages of 27 degrees and 25 degrees keeping the torrent compact ahead this test is similar to a gaming workload this is for fire strike the average gpu temperature during fire strike extreme stress testing was 50 degrees close to the torture test results and again warmer than the original torrent which landed at 47 degrees here although the layout of the case is the same as the originals the reduced case length means that the compact places its intake fans closer to the end of the gpu which has a positive effect on internal airflow our test systems gpu now sits less than five centimeters away from the closest front intake fan so it's very close and these results don't really change the stack with our comparison cases both of which did poorly relative to the torrent compact the mesh52 compact managed 57 degrees but the 11 air mini ended up at the hottest edge of the chart the main takeaway here though for the torrent compact is that cpu thermals remain low even under this gaming workload you shouldn't change the fans in this case and certainly not to smaller ones still we're doing that for our standardized fan testing this test has a lot of shortcomings but it's also very useful in some ways it's always requested by the audience and you should check our methodology piece to better understand the ways it's good and the ways that it's not useful swapping to our standardized set of one 120 ml exhaust and two 140 ml intake fans had no significant effect on cpu temperature with a duplicated average of 41 degrees the larger torrent cpu thermals suffered with the same set of fans with an average of 44 degrees so the compact is at the top of this particular chart the air mini and the mesh52 compact tied at 47 degrees our standard fan configuration is close to stock for both of these cases so that's why there's a lack of improvement there gv thermals were also unchanged remaining at 51 degrees average again the original torrent performed worse with this set of fans and averaged 55 degrees allowing the compacts to pull ahead the smaller case can be more effectively cooled by the smaller fans but that information is of limited use since most people buying torrents will use the large stock fence we measured the noise level of the compact with its two front vans at 100 speed to be 47.8 dba at our standardized measuring distance and methodology that's quieter than the original torrance 50.8 dba reading and therefore requiring less of a speed reduction to hit our target of 36 dba for the threshold we reduced the fans to 50 speed rather than the 47 used for the original torrent average cpu temperature in that test climbed to 44 degrees for noise normalized results still easily the best temperature we've seen in noise normalized testing and that's because the large 180 ml fans allow the system to stay cool even at low and quiet speeds the gb temperature climbed to 56 degrees and the original torrent was 55 so they're the same they're within our variants here and it's still outperformed by some of the other mesh front cases on the chart still it could be worse the 11 air mini and the mesh by 2 compact started with a disadvantage here already outperformed to the baseline torture test and that didn't change with noise normalization though 11 air mini had an uncomfortably hot 61 degree gpu average and that's above ambient remember and the match 52 compact was close behind at 59 over ambient on the gpu wrapping it up then the biggest thing we didn't like was the cable management there's like no space back here to work with the cables on the back side of the case uh it is a pain in the ass and talking with keegan and patrick on the team uh keegan doing all of the b-roll and footage work for this so he's had to work with a lot patrick who did the core review of this uh we all agree that it's a potential deal breaker for people there are ways to deal with it uh the biggest unfortunate thing is you know you can definitely manage the cables in a way where it closes we did it but the thing that i don't like is even if you tighten the screw to get the panel to hold if there's any bulge in that glass tempered glass really doesn't do well with prolonged stress in ways for which it wasn't designed and so that just leaves us a little uncomfortable not really much of a safety issue because it's tempered glass but having it bow out and we noticed it wasn't flush with the front of the case in most scenarios closing it with all the cables in there so you end up in this area we potentially shatter the glass over time some of you have likely seen this we've certainly had tweets about it where people have their glass on cases spontaneously shattered this is very rare but it's also not special to computers it really most of the time has nothing to do with the components or the heat or anything it's just a phenomenon of tempered glass pretty well known at this point documented in every industry anyway adding unnecessary stress just not something we like to do for glass but also it's still just a pain in the ass so even if you ignore that the human factor side of it isn't great so that's the biggest downside whether this is a deal breaker or not it depends how much you want the case for the most part if you're working with a simpler build if you have a gpu maybe like one cpu power cable maybe two and that's about it in terms of components that want direct power you're gonna have a much easier time managing this if you are doing a bunch of rgb leds if you're using led hubs if you are adding fans if you're gonna add a pump and a radiator especially water cooling with leds that makes the cable management nearly untenable you could do it but you're going to have to commit like your whole saturday to cable managing it to get it in a way that it looks good and it closes a lot of this could have been avoided with a steel panel on the side uh at least for well probably for all the models really this there's no real benefit here to glass on this side it's not gonna look good for most builds anyway and um and then steel at least it just bulges at the point of inflection and that's kind of the end of it so not as big of a deal as uh as this where you can see it and it also i mean it's glass so glass sort of buckling out uh looks a lot a lot more obvious than steel buckling out at the center rather than at the seam overall though we like the case thermally it is excellent it is an extremely strong thermal performer it's among the top results on all of our charts if not the top result and some of the charts and so for that alone this case does end up in our overall recommended sort of listing of cases it's just that be aware of going into it you probably want a modular power supply you probably want to limit how much you're doing with rgb leds plus water cooling one of them not a big deal both will be a pain but on the other hand it's smaller so there's that uh 150 to 170 versus 190 for the original torrent the compact is a decent chunk less expensive at 150. it is also closer to what the majority of consumers would need or want for their build and the compact does still fit atx hardware so that's cool to see it performs similarly or better in many cases for an air quote system similar to ours so the last expensive option this one is an easy choice for a lot of consumers 190 bucks 200 for the torrent we don't think that it's overly expensive meaning we think the price is fair for what the product is but 190 200 is a lot of money for a case and uh so a lot of people just won't be able to buy the torrent even for how good it is and that's where this one starts to come in there's obviously a lot of competition here the ones we would recommend you consider if you want to look at others look these up we have reviews for all or most of these corsair 4000d corsair 5000d fanta xp 400a fanta xp500a the digital variants of those the ones that come with all the fans you'd also want to look at some of fraxel's other cases but very different in id so like the fractal meshfy uh and the compact series previously additionally from cooler master you have things like the td 500 also a good case to look at so plenty of other ones too in our case reviews but those would be the competitors to look at most closely we do think this case is overall good uh we think that it really needed a little bit more kill management space but uh it's not the worst thing that we could damn a case for so this is gonna be it's less clear of a victory than the torrent but it's definitely a hey evaluate your build and if what we've said sounds like it matches your build for being a better use case for this then go for it because it's a good case except for that one thing that's it for this one thanks for watching as always subscribe for more you can go to store.gamertexas.net to help us out directly we have the coasters up on backorder they'll be back in stock soon and these things are awesome we sold through them basically immediately when we launched them so go grab them on the store if you want one uh patreon.com gamersnexus for behind the scenes videos we just published one actually a brand new one thanks for watching we'll see you all next timetoday we're reviewing the fraxel torrent compact so this is the smaller version of the fraxel torrent that we reviewed previously we also have the fractal torrent nano that's for mini itx we're not reviewing it today but now there are smaller options for the torrent which we reviewed very positively previously it was the probably the highest scoring case we reviewed last year or even in the last couple of years so the torrent got high praise but this one it's still two 180 millimeter fans it's priced in the 150 to 170 range depending on the option you buy and today we're going to be reviewing it in depth there's one major aspect of it that we really dislike but the rest of it is pretty interesting before that this video is brought to you by squarespace we use squarespace for our own gn store and juggle complex multi-piece orders all the time with it squarespace makes it fast for us to roll out new products with detailed pages full of galleries videos and descriptors it's also useful for your own resume sites for photographer or project portfolios or for starting your new small business idea there's never been a better time to try and start your new business than right now and we can vouch that squarespace makes it easy visit squarespace.com gamersnexus to get 10 off your first purchase with squarespace so right up front the differences between the versions the 150 dollar versions of this case are just without rgb fans that's basically the difference and 170 you get the one we have which has the rgb led fans technically the fans have very slightly different specs in their cfm and their pressure specifications but uh they're basically the same so they'll test about the same regardless of which one you have so then the cheaper one lines it up with a lot of very competitive cases on the market things like the cooler master td 500 the h 500 p mesh the h 500 blank all from cooler master fractals previous lineup like the meshfi 2 series including its own compact the phantax 400a and the later p500a corsairs 4000d airflow 5000d airflow there's a lot of really good cases that are both cheaper than this and around the same price as this so this is a fierce market to compete in for any case this is functionally a shrunken version of the larger torrent the panels come off just as easily they have roughly the same design as the original one it's got the same fan sizes up front it only has two fan stock and you should probably keep those if you buy it because that's where most of the money is going as into these fans so swapping them out just doesn't make sense you just buy a different case that's what you're going to do it does make the radiator sizing a little difficult if you're doing radiators but otherwise really interesting case especially for something with a tower cooler and double especially because with these shorter cases the really cool thing with them is that it pushes the intake as close as possible to the components getting cooled so you have a lot more velocity as the air hits those fin stacks and it also keeps the air in its sort of room ambient state rather than warming it up too much before it hits stuff so generally these smaller more compact designs we see are beneficial thermally rather than the opposite so we gave the torrent previously our best case overall and best airflow but it also stood out for being a stark contrast from fractals standard overly safe design choices of the past we'll try to avoid repeating ourselves in this review so that means we're going to limit some of the discussion of basic design choices and you'll have to go watch the original torrent review to get those just so it's not too redundant the one thing we do want to bring back up the only major issue with the original torrent was the riser cable which was a potential fire hazard however fractal did the right thing and got out way ahead of it as in basically immediately when it launched it recalled all of the cases it had shipped to retailers and distributors and it also offered a recall for customers where they could send it back in they could get the cable replaced with one that we tested independently and found it was a much higher quality cable anyway and also uh from what we saw did not have that same electrical short issue so that was the one thing that fractal potentially they could have really botched that launch the case would be dead to everyone at this point would be very unfortunate because it's a good case but that's a massive oversight huge issue fractal dealt with it well all of these manufacturers will make a mistake at some point there's so many moving parts in the chain a lot of them are third parties so someone's going to screw up at some point for everyone but dealing with it is what matters fact will dealt with it well so this one comes with the same fan hub we cleared previously from the updated version all right let's get started with the build notes and talk about how the case is structured and designed we'll go through the thermals and all that and talk about the one major aspect we don't like so enter the compact at this point one point we raised with the original torrent was that there was no option to install three and a half inch drives inside the top chamber of the case the smaller torrance compact rectifies this with an optional three and a half inch bay that can be mounted directly adjacent to the power supply this tray won't fit if the power supply has a significant amount of cable clutter especially non-modular ones but it's a welcomed addition and it also wasn't just slapped on as an afterthought the tray can be positioned in two locations one of them gives access to the fill port at the front of the case and the other one gives more space to the power supply if you need both you may need to add or remove this drive as you get through the filling process there are no other three and a half inch mounting locations in this case there certainly isn't space for hard drives behind the motherboard tray but fractal did manage to cram in three two and a half inch drive mounts the worst shortcoming of the torrent compact is cable management we already had some difficulty with the full size torrent in this regard but as we showed in our review we were able to solve most of the problems by simply pulling the slack cable up into the power supply chamber in the torrent compact there is at best two centimeters of clearance for cables behind the side panel and that's not accounting for the optional plastic cable channels the shallower section towards the front of the case or any of the other accessories that eat up space despite our best efforts we couldn't get the compact's side panel to shut without screwing it down and even then the glass is prone to warping out at one corner the width of the case has been scaled down proportionally with height and depth versus the torrent but because the interior of the case must be at least 180 millimeters wide to fit the front intake fans a disproportionate amount of that space was subtracted from the cable space behind the board on the positive side that means that clearance inside the body of the case for cpu air coolers is still nearly as good as it was in the full-size torrent at 174 millimeters versus 188 that'll fit most of the good cpu air coolers we've reviewed recently in our cpu cooler reviews gpu clearance is down from the torrents of 423 to 330 with the front fans installed for that as with the original the expansion slots are bridgeless and they can be swapped for a vertical gpu mounting kit now general disclaimer here vertical gpus if they're too close to the glass and they're air cooled the result will be abysmal for thermals of the gpu so don't mount it vertically if it's going to push the front of the card within an inch or so of the glass if you're doing water cooling though it doesn't matter moving past the space problem the cable guides and tie points are otherwise effective there's a mysterious metal cable management bracket as fractal calls it right above the fan hub and our best guess is that it's meant for wrapping thin rgb and fan cables around like a cleat on a dock although maybe that's language we should reserve for a corsair review more sales the top mounted psu location may necessitate some cable extension since these days power supply cable lengths are determined with bottom mounting in mind we routed our gpu power cables from above the card for this reason rather than below as we usually would the big draw of the torrent and the torrent series is clearly the 180 millimeter fans our sample is the torrent compact rgb black tg light which comes with two of fractal's prisma al-18 pwm argb fans these fans like the ones on the original torrent are thick these ones are 38 millimeters thick and as fractal states on the reviewer guide they quote leverage power size and thickness for greatly enhanced air moving capacity great that phrasing will definitely win the hearts and minds of memers everywhere for sure that is going to be one of the most quoted aspects of this case these fans can be moved to the bottom of the case just as they could in the original torrent but doing so prevents the use of atx motherboards or the lower front 180 millimeter fan mount when reinstalling the 180s be aware that they're thick enough that they block their own cable cutouts so you'll need to route the fan cables before screwing the fans down additionally there's no built-in rgb controller for the fans or the leds on the power supply shroud so without power from a motherboard or third party controller all leds will remain dark if the 180 millimeter fans are relocated or removed two fan rails can be installed to adapt the front mounts to 120 millimeter or 140 millimeter spacing these work the same way as they did in the original we like them then and we still like them now as far as radiators the maximum cleaned radiator compatibility from fractals marketing is 280 millimeters for the bottom 120 millimeters for the rear position or 360 millimeters up to 403 millimeters for the front in total now that 403 numbers a little bit funny that one assumes that the fans are mounted to the front panel in a push or a push pull configuration there isn't enough space under the i o assembly to mount a 360 millimeter radiator directly to the chassis realistically speaking there's just not enough space period so you should just use a smaller radiator the front and the bottom mounts conflict where they meet so plan conservatively for multi-radiator configurations and installing any fans or radiators in the bottom of the case will obstruct access to the bottom of an atx board so it's tricky to work with for open loop but that's expected for a smaller case you just really you need to do some planning before you buy everything and end up with parts that don't fit well the feet of the compact are skeletonized to allow greater airflow which is a good idea for a case that encourages bottom mounting fans the full-sized torrent actually has the same feature but we didn't single it out last time the case feet can be removed for quote ease of fan installation but if we get our marketing translator in what fractal actually means here is that part of the bottom fan mounts are not accessible at all without removing the feet so it's not just freeze of installation it's a requirement the smaller compact doesn't have the removable bottom fan tray that the larger original did and that's what circumvented this problem originally the top panel can still be screwed into place but it doesn't come with the captive thumb screws of the full size version we recommend installing the screws having the top slide off every time you rest your hand on the top and plug something into the back of the pc gets old fast and it'll just prevent mistakes if you ever pick it up to move it the fan hub installed in our torrent compact is a nexus 9p slim v 1.1 no affiliation in the nexus name in there both the front and the back planes of the pcb are grounded which we verified by scratching through the protective coating all of the through holes are plated but they're also intentionally isolated and not connected to ground this is the fan hub that fractal designed and shipped as a replacement after the early torrent units short-circuited we covered this design in detail including pcb schematics sent to us by fractal back in september more than perhaps any other case the torrent compact is built to be used in its stock configuration it comes with two intake fans and as we learned from the marketing they are thick and big so they should be plenty there's little reason to alter the placement of the stock 181 fans other than the radiator installation and the torrent family's design leans toward air cooling anyway we experimented with moving the fans around to the bottom of the case instead in our original review of the larger one but we found it best to just leave them in place our main goal with these new thermal tests is to see whether the compact performs any better or worse than the original but also to see how it does in a more constricted space our sample is the rgb review sample it should be close in performance the non-rgb torrent compact variants although fractal claims technically a slightly lower cfm rating for the arg fans as opposed to the non-rgb ones at 146.8 versus 153.7 cfm there's also a static pressure change where the non-rgb ones are 2.5 millimeters h2o versus 2.26 so the rest of it the rpm and the power specs those are the same we'll be prepared to verify those claims soon on the fan tester in cpu torture testing just showing the fractal cases first the compact averaged 41 degrees celsius on the cpu under full system torture workload that's within variants of the larger torrent and therefore at the very top of the fractal results the internal layout of the smaller case is almost exactly the same and the powerful front to back airflow that it creates is ideal for tower coolers even without a rear exhaust fan in many cases the power supply shroud would block off a section of the front intake fans in the torrent and the torrent compacts however the half shroud keeps the front fans unobstructed and may even help guide air toward the cpu cooler comparatively now leon lee's 011 air mini and fraxel's own mastify 2 compacts compete for the same audience as the torrent compact in that they're small mid towers and a focus is on airflow here but both are less expensive they're 110 msrp each technically they're selling for more than that on some retailers but it's 150 so the non-rgb torrent compact so pretty big price difference both of the other cases here performed well on this test at 44 degrees average for the air mini and 47 for the mesh by 2 compact and both cases performed better out of the box than earlier variants thanks to additional stock fans however neither matched the torrent compact with the dual 180 ml intake so the torrent compact is living up to the larger case's performance gpu temperature on the same torture test averaged 51 degrees slightly higher than the big torrent 50 degree average so within variance really here fractal has done a good job though of keeping the case floor breathable and lifted above the table surface which helps keep gpu thermals under control even when fans aren't mounted in the bottom slots removing the front panel didn't meaningfully change the temperature we technically saw an increase which may be an indication of the positive pressure system shifting its bias towards the cpu cooler instead that said it's within error so it could just be test variants it could be an actual pressure system change but there's nothing worth thinking further about comparatively this isn't the case's strongest point it still performs well overall it's at 51 degrees which is just between the coolermaster td-500 mesh and the corsair 4000d airflow and both of those were well received in our testing like leanne lee with the mini 011s fractal has scaled down the case legs with the smaller version of the case but it didn't go overboard the case floor is now four centimeters above the table surface rather than four and a half centimeters neither the mesh of i2 compact nor the air mini performed exceptionally in this area with air mini in particular demonstrating our point about case legs it was a 59 degree average the torrent compact may be more expensive but its stock fans add definite value so if you were gonna buy fans and put them in a cheaper case it's worth thinking about this one just because you'll keep the fans with this one rendering our gn monkey head test scene on the cpu resulted in an average of 34 degrees definitely warmer than the larger torrents 32 degree average but still unmatched by any other of the cases on our chart and this as a reminder is a cpu only workload here so it's much lighter than some of the earlier ones the lan coil 2 mesh comes close but our primary comparison points the 011 air mini and the mesh 52 compact averaged 37 degrees and 36 degrees respectively moving the same test the gpu rendering resulted in a gpu average of 24 degrees again warmer than the torrance 21 degree average but still in its proper place among mesh fronted cases like the 4000d airflow and the montec x3 these lower intensity tests don't allow the compacts to differentiate itself quite as much but much like the gpu torture test the air mini and the meshfy two compact also fell behind in this test with averages of 27 degrees and 25 degrees keeping the torrent compact ahead this test is similar to a gaming workload this is for fire strike the average gpu temperature during fire strike extreme stress testing was 50 degrees close to the torture test results and again warmer than the original torrent which landed at 47 degrees here although the layout of the case is the same as the originals the reduced case length means that the compact places its intake fans closer to the end of the gpu which has a positive effect on internal airflow our test systems gpu now sits less than five centimeters away from the closest front intake fan so it's very close and these results don't really change the stack with our comparison cases both of which did poorly relative to the torrent compact the mesh52 compact managed 57 degrees but the 11 air mini ended up at the hottest edge of the chart the main takeaway here though for the torrent compact is that cpu thermals remain low even under this gaming workload you shouldn't change the fans in this case and certainly not to smaller ones still we're doing that for our standardized fan testing this test has a lot of shortcomings but it's also very useful in some ways it's always requested by the audience and you should check our methodology piece to better understand the ways it's good and the ways that it's not useful swapping to our standardized set of one 120 ml exhaust and two 140 ml intake fans had no significant effect on cpu temperature with a duplicated average of 41 degrees the larger torrent cpu thermals suffered with the same set of fans with an average of 44 degrees so the compact is at the top of this particular chart the air mini and the mesh52 compact tied at 47 degrees our standard fan configuration is close to stock for both of these cases so that's why there's a lack of improvement there gv thermals were also unchanged remaining at 51 degrees average again the original torrent performed worse with this set of fans and averaged 55 degrees allowing the compacts to pull ahead the smaller case can be more effectively cooled by the smaller fans but that information is of limited use since most people buying torrents will use the large stock fence we measured the noise level of the compact with its two front vans at 100 speed to be 47.8 dba at our standardized measuring distance and methodology that's quieter than the original torrance 50.8 dba reading and therefore requiring less of a speed reduction to hit our target of 36 dba for the threshold we reduced the fans to 50 speed rather than the 47 used for the original torrent average cpu temperature in that test climbed to 44 degrees for noise normalized results still easily the best temperature we've seen in noise normalized testing and that's because the large 180 ml fans allow the system to stay cool even at low and quiet speeds the gb temperature climbed to 56 degrees and the original torrent was 55 so they're the same they're within our variants here and it's still outperformed by some of the other mesh front cases on the chart still it could be worse the 11 air mini and the mesh by 2 compact started with a disadvantage here already outperformed to the baseline torture test and that didn't change with noise normalization though 11 air mini had an uncomfortably hot 61 degree gpu average and that's above ambient remember and the match 52 compact was close behind at 59 over ambient on the gpu wrapping it up then the biggest thing we didn't like was the cable management there's like no space back here to work with the cables on the back side of the case uh it is a pain in the ass and talking with keegan and patrick on the team uh keegan doing all of the b-roll and footage work for this so he's had to work with a lot patrick who did the core review of this uh we all agree that it's a potential deal breaker for people there are ways to deal with it uh the biggest unfortunate thing is you know you can definitely manage the cables in a way where it closes we did it but the thing that i don't like is even if you tighten the screw to get the panel to hold if there's any bulge in that glass tempered glass really doesn't do well with prolonged stress in ways for which it wasn't designed and so that just leaves us a little uncomfortable not really much of a safety issue because it's tempered glass but having it bow out and we noticed it wasn't flush with the front of the case in most scenarios closing it with all the cables in there so you end up in this area we potentially shatter the glass over time some of you have likely seen this we've certainly had tweets about it where people have their glass on cases spontaneously shattered this is very rare but it's also not special to computers it really most of the time has nothing to do with the components or the heat or anything it's just a phenomenon of tempered glass pretty well known at this point documented in every industry anyway adding unnecessary stress just not something we like to do for glass but also it's still just a pain in the ass so even if you ignore that the human factor side of it isn't great so that's the biggest downside whether this is a deal breaker or not it depends how much you want the case for the most part if you're working with a simpler build if you have a gpu maybe like one cpu power cable maybe two and that's about it in terms of components that want direct power you're gonna have a much easier time managing this if you are doing a bunch of rgb leds if you're using led hubs if you are adding fans if you're gonna add a pump and a radiator especially water cooling with leds that makes the cable management nearly untenable you could do it but you're going to have to commit like your whole saturday to cable managing it to get it in a way that it looks good and it closes a lot of this could have been avoided with a steel panel on the side uh at least for well probably for all the models really this there's no real benefit here to glass on this side it's not gonna look good for most builds anyway and um and then steel at least it just bulges at the point of inflection and that's kind of the end of it so not as big of a deal as uh as this where you can see it and it also i mean it's glass so glass sort of buckling out uh looks a lot a lot more obvious than steel buckling out at the center rather than at the seam overall though we like the case thermally it is excellent it is an extremely strong thermal performer it's among the top results on all of our charts if not the top result and some of the charts and so for that alone this case does end up in our overall recommended sort of listing of cases it's just that be aware of going into it you probably want a modular power supply you probably want to limit how much you're doing with rgb leds plus water cooling one of them not a big deal both will be a pain but on the other hand it's smaller so there's that uh 150 to 170 versus 190 for the original torrent the compact is a decent chunk less expensive at 150. it is also closer to what the majority of consumers would need or want for their build and the compact does still fit atx hardware so that's cool to see it performs similarly or better in many cases for an air quote system similar to ours so the last expensive option this one is an easy choice for a lot of consumers 190 bucks 200 for the torrent we don't think that it's overly expensive meaning we think the price is fair for what the product is but 190 200 is a lot of money for a case and uh so a lot of people just won't be able to buy the torrent even for how good it is and that's where this one starts to come in there's obviously a lot of competition here the ones we would recommend you consider if you want to look at others look these up we have reviews for all or most of these corsair 4000d corsair 5000d fanta xp 400a fanta xp500a the digital variants of those the ones that come with all the fans you'd also want to look at some of fraxel's other cases but very different in id so like the fractal meshfy uh and the compact series previously additionally from cooler master you have things like the td 500 also a good case to look at so plenty of other ones too in our case reviews but those would be the competitors to look at most closely we do think this case is overall good uh we think that it really needed a little bit more kill management space but uh it's not the worst thing that we could damn a case for so this is gonna be it's less clear of a victory than the torrent but it's definitely a hey evaluate your build and if what we've said sounds like it matches your build for being a better use case for this then go for it because it's a good case except for that one thing that's it for this one thanks for watching as always subscribe for more you can go to store.gamertexas.net to help us out directly we have the coasters up on backorder they'll be back in stock soon and these things are awesome we sold through them basically immediately when we launched them so go grab them on the store if you want one uh patreon.com gamersnexus for behind the scenes videos we just published one actually a brand new one thanks for watching we'll see you all next time\n"