Fractal Design Meshify 3 - Goodbye RGB Software?

Sam Thwaytes
May 19
9 min read

Fractal Design Meshify 3 Radeon RX9070 Mr Matt Lee

When we think of Scandinavian design usually the first thing that comes to mind is flat pack furniture. If you go deeper then thoughts usually turn to simplicity, functionality and sharp lines. On one of the studio walls we have acoustic panelling, simple vertical ‘wood’ slats covering the surface, disguising the matting underneath - to my mind that feels inspired by Scandinavian design. It’s a concept that has been well utilised by PC case makers of late, to build a simplistic looking case which allows the internals to be the talking point. Our Swedish friends at Fractal Design are experts in this field, the North being probably their most famous chassis because of its design, and early adoption of using non-standard materials to stand out from the crowd. They’ve recently released their new update to the Meshify line with the Meshify 3. It was due to launch late Jan/early Feb but it was halted due to some issues with expansion slots. It was a brave move to halt the release so close to launch day as we’d imagine there had already been cases manufactured, but we’re glad that they did!

Case Overview

We have the black RGB version in the studio to look at. When we pulled it from the box we found the design language to be exactly what we would expect of the Meshify series. On the front there is a striking black, tight meshed grille sculpted into geometric shapes. Behind the grille sit 3 x 140mm fans with ‘halo’ RGB lighting. On the top there is another tight mesh grille which extends up to the IO panel. To one side we have a slightly tinted tempered glass panel, and on the back a solid glass panel.

There is more RGB included with this variant than just the fans, around the front grille and along the bottom of the glass stripping there are LED strips to keep the RGB theme going.

On the bottom, sitting in front of the PSU is an airflow ramp to direct air from the bottom fan up towards the graphics card. It’s something I perhaps wouldn’t usually mention, but this one is almost bowl shaped. It should result in pushing air intake upwards quickly, I’m quite interested to see how that works out in practice.

There are a few surprises in the hardware support, particularly when it comes to radiator support, here’s the headlines:

Motherboard support: E-ATX (277 mm), ATX, mATX, m-ITX

Graphics card: max length 349mm

Radiator support: up to 280mm (top) up to 360mm (front)

Air cooler height: 173mm

Power supply: ATX

Case dimensions: 423 x 229 x 483 mm

Quirks and Features

This is where things start to get interesting, let's start with the USB-C fans…… Sort of…. the 3 Momentum RGB fans all go to USB-C connectors, which are pre-routed to a fan hub in the back of the case. I don’t believe it is true USB-C, but they do have the benefit of being easy to plug in and being reversible. It’s quite clever really because it can control both fan power and RGB from one connector, why has no-one else seemed to have thought of this yet? In the accessory box there is even an additional connector which splits out to a standard PWM and RGB header to allow the user to connect standard fans or RGB to the hub. I’d have liked to have seen more than one additional connector, but I can’t have everything!

The hub then connects to a single PWM header and a USB header on the motherboard and is SATA powered. Which sounds like a faff, but as all the fan cables are pre-routed, 3 additional cables isn't so bad. The hub itself has a party trick, with the way it controls RGB without software…… sort of…… To control the RGB you go to a specific part of the Fractal Design website (url is in the manual) and hit connect in your browser, and from there you have control of everything. We did find that that after a little help from Fractal Designs support team that the software worked well with the included RGB but still wouldn’t play nice with the NZXT fan we used on the rear of the case. It could be pre-launch issues, it could be an issue with the fan, the only thing we know for sure is it didn’t work as it should.

In the back of the case there is a fairly unique cable management system. Instead of having a velcro channel there are 3 plastic cable management covers in their place. These have a ratcheting mechanism where they lock as they’re pushed in, with a button to release them. It’s nice to see something new in the realms of cable management and I’m excited to see how useful they are.

Parts List

Build Notes

The build itself was another straight forward one, everything fit as it should. There is plenty enough space to work with. There were a few key highlights:

The cover on the inside of the case which the 24-pin motherboard cable routes through is moveable, allowing for some E-ATX boards to fit. It also has the advantage of being able to be moved out of the way when you’re plugging in the cables allowing for more space, which makes life easier.

The power supply is mounted to its bracket and then slides in from the back before using 2 thumbscrews to secure it. It is a little quality of life feature, and something fairly commonplace, but something we always appreciate.

We like that the top mounting panel for the radiator is removable, we forgot to put in the CPU power cables before fitting the radiator, and removing it didn’t mean removing all of the screws. Again it’s a fairly standard feature, but a welcome one. We did note when removing the mourning panel the back of the case lost a fair bit of rigidity, not a major concern as screwing the panel back in completely solved the issue.

Cable management in this case is really a standout feature. The removable clips in the back made it very easy to run everything exactly where we wanted it. It was a case of get everything into place and then pushing the clip on. Very simple, and well thought out. I want to see this feature in the future! There is plenty of space under the clips for all the cables, and lots of anchor points around the case for things like the CPU power cables which needed to be routed in another direction.

Software

We don’t usually cover software, as we usually go with the standard motherboard controlled software for builds, and I’m sure you guys would get bored of us talking about the pros and cons of that each week! This time we had to use something new, and had mixed results.

The premise here is Fractal Design have put together a web based portal, which you navigate to, and you can control your fan speeds, fan curve and RGB. It’s a novel idea, and one we hope takes off as it cuts down on the bloat on your PC as there is nothing to install. Before I get into our experience it’s worth noting that currently it only works with Chromium based browsers, such as Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge and Opera. We tried Firefox just to test, and immediately got an error.

So, how does it all work? Well, let’s preface this by saying I am not a developer, I’m an end user so I don’t know everything, but this is how I see it. In the back of the chassis there is the fan and RGB hub. This appears to be more than just a hub though, it’s actually the brains of the operation. The user sets their RGB and fan curves in the browser and it saves to the hub for future use, meaning there shouldn’t need to be a constant online connection, which is nice!

The webportal had a few teething issues for us, but it was in a pre-release state, and has seemingly been ironed out since. To start with, the website wouldn’t properly connect to our hub. Once you’re in you can access an array of lighting and cooling options.

First we tried the RGB options, which worked flawlessly for the case and included fans. It even managed to have the pump on the Arctic Liquid Freezer III match everything else, but it wouldn’t, and at the time of writing still will not apply correct RGB to the NZXT fan we have on the exhaust. We’re in talks with Fractal Design support to resolve, but it may be an issue with the RGB type, or the fan in general. It’s very odd as we have both the pump and exhaust fan coming off the same splitter!

When it comes to fan control, there is a little extra legwork involved. We had to go into bios, and adjust the fan curve for the header which connects to the hub to a linear curve. It was pretty straight forward, but a step that no other manufacturer seems to need to do largely the same thing!

Even with the issues we faced, we do like what Fractal Design are doing here, having everything simply laid out in the browser will give a boost to user experience and while also cutting down on required bloatware on the PC. There are some teething issues to get through, but the team at Fractal Design have been doing everything to help and we have faith that the little niggles will be ironed out in time. I suppose early adopters of anything new have to go through the growing pains.

Airflow

Airflow on the Meshify 3 did not disappoint, taking in the smoke with the included 3 x 140mm easily. The smoke appears to be evenly distributed inside the case and exhausted through both the radiator and read exhaust fan. The interesting feature is the half-bowl shaped airflow ramp on the bottom. I was intrigued to see how it worked in practice, well, it turns out it scoops the smoke and passes up to the graphics card in an efficient manner. Looking at the airflow I suspect the system will end up with an extremely cool graphics card, but as the chassis only has room for a 240 radiator the CPU will run a little hotter but still within safe parameters.

Thermals

Each week we put our build through some basic performance tests. The intention is to gauge how it would fare in real world scenarios as well as to see how it performs at a safe thermal limit in standard configuration. Our results:

Ambient Temp 22.3°C

Cyberpunk 2077

2560x1440

Location: Ghost Town

Quick Preset: Ray Tracing Ultra

Frame Generation: Off

79-106 FPS

64°C CPU

48°C GPU

System Power Draw: ~380w

Marvel Rivals

2560 x 1440

Anti Aliasing and Super Resolution Type: Off

Frame Generation Mode: Off

Graphics Quality: High

94 - 154 FPS

68°C CPU

49°C GPU

System Power Draw: ~347w

Furmark 2

2560 x 1440

185 FPS

49°C GPU Temp

Hotspot 65°C

CPU-Z

Max Temp 66°C

Fan Speed ~1800 rpm

During testing my hypothesis of a cooler graphics card turned out correct, the scoop on the bottom of the case blasting the GPU with a steady and unwavering stream of cool air. The Ryzen 7 7800X3D chip did run a little warm under load due to limited cooling, but at the temps recorded it should be absolutely fine long term, so we’re not concerned.

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 50cm 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%: 30.2db (AVG)

Fans at 100% GPU Fans 75%: 47db (AVG)

Roundup

The Meshify 3 is a worthy successor to the Meshify range, it offers some sleek Scandinavian good looks, with good hardware support for a modest to high end system. The lack of 360 radiator support up top is a bit of a miss, but that’s why the Meshify 3 XL exists I suppose, and if that is important to you perhaps you’d want to take a look.

The build process was more than we’d hoped for. It was a very simple build, but the addition of the cable management covers took simplicity to the next level! We loved dealing with the fans and fan hub, especially given the thoughtful addition of USB-C styled fan and RGB connectors. Having a reversible single connector for everything fan related was a dream!

As we noted there are still some kinks to be worked out in the web portal based software solution. It looks very promising, and is so close to being amazing. Is the issue with our fan hardware related? Who knows, but we did try another fan and had the same problem. It’s a situation we’re keeping an eye on, hoping that it will resolve.

Overall, we enjoyed the Meshify 3 build, and would love to do another in future. Fingers crossed that if we do revisit the chassis that the software issues are solved by then!

Check out the full build video below.

Blog post written by Sam Thwaytes

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