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What would the general Fractal Design North appearance like, prolonged to Extended ATX (EATX) scale? This is our unintended to bargain out. Actual walnut trim was the main thing that complete Fractal Design’s original North a large hit among ATX system manufacturers, and the firm is prepared to take extra chunk out of the marketplace (and approximately forest) with a $179.99 North XL variety.
Key enhancements comprise the aptitude to fit a triple-140mm (420mm format) radiator up obverse or a graphics card up to 413mm bottomless, and all that additional capability prices only an additional inch or two of extra space on your counter.
That’s an attractive good trade-off if you enjoyed the original Northerly but wanted more inner room for your refrigeration, your motherboard, or your GPU—or all three. It’s our up-to-date Editors’ Choice prize for an EATX-capable PC case.
Design: A Taller Timber Tower
Bigger by 1.6 inches than the unique North, the XL is obtainable with the buyer’s choice of net or tempered-glass side boards, and the case derives in charcoal and white alternatives. All 4 mixtures cost the same $179.99. Fractal Design swapped things up by distribution us the charcoal/tempered-glass variety of the larger unit, which in turn income that we got the form that doesn’t have a further fan bracket below the left lateral.
The highest panel’s port section remnants acquainted, with a Fractal Design-logo power button, distinct microphone and earphone jacks, two USB Type-A ports knotted to a first-generation USB 3.x 19-pin interior interface, a Type-C port knotted to a Gen 2×2 internal border, and a power-indicator LED hidden privileged a styling furrow just past the Type-C port.
Rotating the case about, we bargain that utmost of the added planetary is located above (“north” of?) the motherboard, letting for the installation of bushier top-mounted heaters. Airing slots are spread out to accept 120mm and 140mm fans at numerous distances from the motherboard and highest panel.
Like the normal North, the North XL lacks the appropriate clearances behindhand its solid piece to insert a control supply from the lateral and thus trusts on a detachable bracket to allow installation over the back panel. The washable dust filter bouts the one on its lesser brotherly, just big sufficient to cover the consumption vent underneath the power source bay.
The pull-off anterior panel also comprises a washable filter, but this one snapshots on and off, somewhat than descending into location.
The highest panel slides posterior and lifts off to depiction a long fan-mount zone. It provisions up to three 120mm, two 140mm, or even two 180mm fans, as fine as heaters up to 406mm long. That previous number shelters most (but not all) 360mm-format closed-loop coolers. We unhurried 71mm between the highest panel and the motherboard’s top advantage, and manufacturers who aren’t afraid to let their chillers hang previous the motherboard’s top advantage will find around 52mm of parallel distance amid 120mm fans and motherboard stalemates.
The North XL’s motherboard salver is flat all the method to the front, letting motherboards of slightly depth (up to its 413mm max card distance) to fit. Of course, the all-out spec for EATX motherboards is only 330mm, and the blank holes that fit the additional standoffs obligatory to support such extensive motherboards are obviously visible just a insufficient inches behind the forward-facing fans. A cutaway in the power-supply covering underneath the motherboard tray delivers space behindhand the fan bases to install heaters up to 58mm thick.
From the additional direction we realize the three 140mm consumption fans, two rows of chain straps, six grommet-filled cable passageways, an inert fan hub at the top, a pair of 3.5-inch determination trays at the lowest, and a twin 2.5-inch energy tray at the spinal of the space behindhand the motherboard tray.
Should we consume called the inert fan hub a splitter? The minor connection seen on the right usages a 4-pin PWM connection for motherboard control and attaches up to four PWM admirers (counting the three obverse fans that originate with the situation).
The front 2.5-inch energy tray is filled with a box covering the case’s computer hardware kit and is straddling very near to the obverse fan support. Equally trays can be moved 1.5 inches beyond back, but doing so decreases the power-supply space from an unhurried 7.9 inches (200mm) to a mere 6.4 inches (163mm).
We located one of the two 3.5-inch trays following to the dual-2.5-inch tray to display how the single-drive tray also has hovels at 2.5-inch-drive spacing. That means the case provisions up to four energies total, but only dual of those can be 3.5-inch energies.
Building With the North XL: North Star
Fractal Project always delivers a neat addition kit for its cases. You become three additional standoffs to allow support for 13-inch-deep motherboards, a set of panhead #6-32 bolts for motherboard growing, a set of #6-32 hex/Phillips combo bolts for power-supply mounting, a usual of M3 screws for rising 2.5-inch drives, a set of flange-head shoulder joint screws for rising 3.5-inch energies on vibration-damping grommets, a packet of eight of those eyelets, and four hawser ties.
Motherboard cable-header influences comprise the USB Type-E for the Gen 2×2 Type-C port, a 19-pin USB 3.x hawser for the chassis’ two USB Type-A ports, control button and pointer light leads, HD Audio for the front-panel receiver jacks, and a PWM fan joining for the comprised hub/splitter.
We were talented to get our test conformation’s standard portions installed rapidly, and connected the cables…after physically functioning our screwdriver, of course. Look previous the back-panel power-supply addition, and the North XL is one of the humblest cases we’ve ever cast-off in a build.
With so few chances for us to untidiness it up, the North XL satisfied our amateur labors with an expert appearance.
Note that Fractal Project also comprised its Flex 2 PCIe 4.0 vertical-GPU-mounting connecter privileged our North XL package, but the business didn’t notify us that it wasn’t portion of the kit pending after we installed and verified with it. So, we finished up testing the case mutually ways: with the GPU straddling vertical, as fine as direct-plugged in the normal fashion. This $80 kit unhappily can’t be cast-off to justify the North XL’s $180 value (a $50 increase over the North’s original MSRP).
Its hysterics composed as shown, by eliminating the North XL’s unique eight slot covers. We initiate, though, that the craniums of the comprised card screws were too huge to fit through the starts above them.
After trying to push the bolts in from the posterior of the situation and then initiative the screws from privileged the case, we guessed out that the calmest way to appropriate the card was to pedestal the card to the connecter before installing the connecter in the case. Aha!
Irrespective of how we got around, the installed card today sits steeply above the power source tunnel and appearances pretty dapper, if you ask us.
Though our visuals card’s RGB logo is a little firmer to see from the new-fangled angle, keen judgements will still distinguish that the card’s fans expression the tinted-glass side. Oh, besides we were also talented to seizure the top panel control LED in this photo.
Testing the Fractal Design North XL
Here’s a rapid recap of the shares in our standard test shape for ATX and greater chassis.
And so, on to the examination results. CPU fevers are close amid the similarly shaped cases signified in today’s diagrams, but the North XL’s fevers are consistently near the lowest of that tight group regardless of how the visuals card is straddling.
In a marketplace where rear drain fans are typically comprised with the case, the North XL’s lack thence is most probable in authority for the high relative voltage-regulator infections it presented when our visuals card was straddling in standard location. As for the cool-down the North XL presented after we enthused the graphics card to the more distant (vertical) mount, that’s greatest likely due to the warmth from the posterior of our graphics card actuality moved absent from the electrical energy managers.
While greatest “vertical graphics card” cases put the card’s admirers close to the crystal for a better opinion, the North XL’s upright adapter chairs it directly in the mid of the case, where extra air can flow around it obverse and posterior (albeit, enticing less attention visually). You may choice your fatal, but we’ll just twig with the variety that gets us the finest temperatures.
The Fractal Project North XL is a little noisy at full haste, partially for the reason that it has great fans, and partly for the reason that its obverse panel is designed for optimum airflow pretty than as a sound barrier. Luckily for Fractal Design, most of its contestants are also a slight noisy.
Verdict: Wood I Ever Build a Big PC, this wood Be the Case
We originate down here to a circumstance of framework aesthetics overhead all. If you’re besotted with the wood expression of the unique North, the North XL will be probable your go-to choice if your timber-lust energies along with an essential for oversize mechanisms. Is it a top perpetrator? It didn’t rule our benchmarks, but it’s no slump, and the build procedure was around as easy and rapid as any of fresh note.
Just distinguish that you’re gainful a bit of timber duty here, and that if you need to go the perpendicular GPU route, you’re look at closer to a $300 venture in the chassis than a $200 one. Motionless, the price of raw resources these days is up, up, and up, and you’ll be firm busy to discovery a finer-looking combo of blade, glass, and wood outdoor a designer’s studio.
