Fractal North - A Unique Experience

Sam Thwaytes
14 hours ago
5 min read

It’s been over a year now since I arrived at Mr Matt Lee towers. Every week I’ve been assisting with filming content, and later in the run I started producing articles on the builds and making short form content for TikTok. This is an occupation I’d never planned for, something I’d never even really considered. I guess the saying ‘it’s not what you know, it’s who you know rings true’. This post isn’t really about how I got here though, it’s about a couple of things, my first experience building with the Fractal Design North, and I guess what I’ve learned on my journey.

Case Overview

The Fractal Design North is a chassis I’ve long admired, a case that almost single handedly inspired a movement in the PC space to use non-standard materials. I won’t go into any huge depth on the ins and outs of the North, it’s been available for ages, and covered by many outlets already. Suffice to say I love its simple lines and use of slatted wooden bars to form the front grille. What is more important is the impact, its popularity has inspired most of the big brands: ASUS ProArt, Montech, Lian Li, Thorzone, Antec and many more besides have all since released wood clad cases. They say that ‘imitation is a form of flattery’, but I’m sure those with a business brain will agree that imitation is actually evidence that your concept was top tier!

The hardware support headlines:

Motherboard - ATX/mATX/ITX

Graphics card - max length 355mm

Radiator - up to 240mm (top), 360mm (front)

Air cooler - max height 170mm

Fan Support - 3 x 120mm or 2 x 140mm (front) 2 x 120/140mm (top) 1 x 120mm (rear)

Power supply - ATX

Build Notes

Building in the Fractal North went very smoothly. As chassis go it is very basic, everything fits where it should, but there are basically no real quirks to it, apart from the obvious use of wood.

The Arctic Liquid Freezer III is always an ambitious choice, regardless of chassis because of the radiator thickness. It’s one of the best performing AIO’s because of this, but it does hinder its fitting in a lot of cases. I must admit getting in here was tough, it struggles to clear the motherboard, it fits, just.

Cable management was also pretty simple, with lots of space for routing everything and a nice cable channel available. If anything the rear of the case could do with being a little deeper, as I may have struggled a little if I had decided to use cable extensions.

Airflow

The channel has covered the airflow in this case a few times, so I was pretty clued up on how it should perform going in. It did not disappoint. The Artic fans used are monsters with a very high max RPM! Taking in the air without issue and ejecting it just as swiftly.

Noise Testing

As we're testing the full build the results are indicative of that, changing out components would alter results. We use a decibel meter at a distance of 60cm from the PC - which is approx normal seating position in a set-up where the PC is on the desk. The lowest reading available from the device is 30db.

Ambient noise: <30db

Fans at idle: <30db

Fans at 50% (1600 rpm): 34.5db (AVG)

Fans at 80% (2700rm) GPU Fans 75%: 47.9db

My Thoughts on Making a Video

This build did make me a little nervous. It was never really intended to be published, but I knew in the back of my mind that it might be. I’ve spent my whole existence avoiding being on camera. I knew I could get the shots, and I have been in some of the videos thus far, but it was scary being in the spotlight! Once I’d managed to find my focus everything ran very smoothly, though without Matt there was a lot less humour, so I didn’t manage to get any outtakes worth putting in the video.

The most difficult parts of the MML film making process are the panning shots, which require the camera to be moving. We do have a slider in the studio, but it doesn’t really get used. The vast, vast majority of panning shots are done with a camera in hand. To get it right it requires sniper breathing and slow, consistent movement. Of course there is a bit of stabilisation added in editing, but that can only do so much, the shot needs to be pretty steady to start with. Going into this project my experience of this was minimal at best, but I figured I’d give it a go! It turns out that watching Matt's movements over the last year prepared me well. The shots are not perfect, but they’re a lot better than I had expected!

Editing took a couple of days, though bear in mind that I’m used to editing vertical form videos that last up to 60 seconds using very short clips. This was a whole different ball game, and getting the video to flow like an MML video was an experience! I think I did ok?

Overall, it was an amazing experience, and something I’d quite like to do again….. Watch this space.

Roundup

I’m sorry to our regular readers that this article was a short one, and that it doesn’t have any testing data. Filming and editing was the run of the week and I fell behind a little on the write-up!

Overall I enjoyed my first experience with the Fractal North. It was very simple and straight-forward. It’s a shame that beyond the wood slats there is little extra to write about with this chassis, but sometimes less is more! Visually I think it’s a really appealing case, which can handle more mature PC builds, but equally looks fine with a splash of RGB

Check out the full build video below.

Blog post written by Sam Thwaytes

Affiliate Links

If you are interested in any of the products used and wish to support the channel feel free to use the affiliate links below. We get a small kickback if you buy the product without it costing you anything!

USA Links

Case: https://amzn.to/3SObSWG

CPU: https://amzn.to/3YXEeBn

GPU: https://amzn.to/4mCO06f

RAM: https://amzn.to/3SP1MVt

MOBO: https://amzn.to/43avBpA

PSU: https://amzn.to/3H8mYU1

Cooler: https://amzn.to/4msLHlU

Fans: https://amzn.to/4jfdaVp

Storage: https://amzn.to/3SRk7Bi

Thermal Paste: https://amzn.to/44TD91c

Keyboard: https://amzn.to/4jifo6m