This is absolutely the best build video/commentary I seen on this box. I'm just building a new unit and was thoroughly frustrated that the I/O only seems to work with the motherboard upside down. So far this is the only video I've watch that explicitly share that the motherboard is placed upside down. Thank you Chris.
I've been deciding on parts for a fractal terra build for about a month now and other than the gpu, these are the exact parts I had decided on. Glad I found this video before I started.
Just finished my build thanks for the help. This case was surprisingly easy to build in despite the small form factor because of how open it is with the panels off
Ur not gonna find a whole lot of itx cases with built in dust filters... But yeah, this case is pretty well thought out with side panels, able to be swiveled up, and then u can just hit it with some air.
Love the video! Would you still use the Ryzen 9 7900X or bump it up to use the Ryzen 7 7800X3D? Or is it better to save the money and get a 4070 super?
My only question is. Cause I already have everything loaded in my cart. I'll definitely need a USB port hub for keyboard/mouse/headset/controller /speakers? Right?
What are the thermals like with that cooler though? Seems like sticking an i7 13700K in that case might run a bit hot? If the temps are acceptable though this is very tempting. This case but with just enough added space for a top mounted radiator to run a water cooler would be perfect.
Wouldn't having the fan on the L12s flipped around inprove thermals quite a bit? The way its oriented in the video makes me think that it's sucking air from inside of the case to push through the heatsink and out. I would think that changing that so that it would pull cold air from outside the case into the heatsink would make more sense, right?
- did not notice that you had your rear fan mounted as intake. I would honestly be interested to see a comparison between that configuration and an alternative with the cpu and rear fan flipped.
Cool build. I’ll be building one of these to travel with. Do you recommend any backpack or cases that I can put this in with a mobile monitor, keyboard and mouse? I travel for work and basically live in hotels. Anyone’s suggestions would be helpful
Hi, my partner is currently building a PC in a Fractal Design Terra and she's struggling to find a power pack that fits (tried a CORSAIR RM650 80 PLUS and then a CORSAIR CX550 80 PLUS) but none of them seem to fit the power supply bracket for the Terra. Also shes using a Gigabyte A520I AC Motherboard and all the ports on the back are upside down but we can figure out how to rotate them? any help would be appreciated
i have the 7900x.For the best thermals with this cooler,you must go to the pbo and set limits.88000-110000-150000 and curve optimizer all cores negative 10 or 15-20-25-30).Its a fantastic cpu,1-2% lower fps than stock
Hello I love your videos and bought Fractal Torrent after watch your guide too, would love to get this case as well, may I ask do you have other recommendations for PSU? I'm not sure which suits my parts as I plan on using 7950x3d and 7900 XTX(sapphire pulse) Thanks!
Depends on your GPU. If you're using a two slot card, the spine will be in position 2. At that position, this CPU cooler will be touching the wall of the case. So no, no room for an extra fan.
I mean you could do any number of budget builds in this. It's actually at its limits with higher end hardware, because there's no way it cools these parts effectively without throttling. So it's not a max overclock system, it's stock clocks at best. Although given the price of the case, it'd be kind of a waste to spend so much for a budget build, because the price of the case isn't budget by any means.
For some reason my psu fan can only face towards the GPU. The power socket is on the wrong side. 😢. I also have a problem with fan noise on the GPU. It being so close to the side wall. Only way to make it quieter is to open the side door lol. Shame.
No way. With even this meager CPU cooler, you're barely going to have more than 2 slots width for the GPU, and basically all 4080's are 3 slot cards. There's only one 2 slot 4080 and it's only available in certain countries and is very expensive. I also wouldn't want to run a 4080 with any CPU cooler smaller than this one, it would definitely thermal throttle even with a mid range CPU, or be severely frame limited, losing dozens of frames by using lesser CPU's. Basically this case is a 4070 max, maybe some models of the 4070ti, but again the ones that fit in the width envelope are generally more expensive. So this case is hard limited. I've seen people put 4090's in it, but they're definitely not getting full performance out of it, with a smaller heatsink they'll be hitting near thermal throttles at stock clocks when gaming in a cool room, and basically thermal throttle hard whenever they try to do anything besides gaming. It's just not worth it to spend soo much money on a high end graphics card, only to be CPU throttled.
Did you consider flipping the psu around so that the founders exhaust feeds into the PSU intake? Im doing this build and wondering about that orientation
It wouldn't really help, because you have two fans facing opposite directions, competing for airflow. And PSU overheating can cause lots of glitches in a system, from screen glitches to SSD's dropping out. I had a PSU that was caked with dust that the intake was almost completely blocked off, and it caused all sorts of system issues. Putting a PSU in that orientation would do pretty much the same thing. It's one of the main things in a system that you want to keep as cool as possible, otherwise it can affect the whole system.
You do know that if you are mounting a 120 AIO it would be a stupidity to mount the psu the way you showed. You would need to invert to power supply so air from the AIO is exhausted through the PSU. PSU will get warmer but cpu temps will surely go down.
You've used the most power hungry CPU AMD have to offer, if this were used for gaming would it not have made more sense to use something like a 7800X3D which has a significantly lower power demand enabling you to save money and invest in a cheaper PSU and possible a 4070 TI? I think if you're building in case like this you need to very picky in the parts you're going to use in the build. PS - No offence, youre videos inspire me :)
Hah. That's funny, because I'm doing this build with a 4070ti, but also a 7950x3D (because I got it at the same price as a 7800x3D, so why not?) with not the same but a similar cooler. I expect it to game hot and throttle a bit for productivity.
“Absolutely massive graphic cards… up to 322mm”. Cries in 325mm 1080Ti……. i really hate it when they dont research the longest GPUs out there. 1080Ti is still used to this day…
325mm is massively long, even the longest 4070/4080 is about 310mm. In fact, most small ITX cases only support about 310mm. I also wouldn't spend $200 on a case for such an old GPU.
Because it won't fit unless you forego a GPU or use one of those really short single fan 4060's. I mean maybe you could fit a 4070 FE in there if you remove the heatsink, but you're not going to cool a CPU and GPU with one small radiator. With custom parts it could be done though, like if you had a specially designed heatsink for a 4070 FE that extended to the top of the case and utilized as much vertical space as possible. Then you could fit an AIO to cool the CPU.
Tbh this a poor tutorial. Why does he first show attaching the PSU to the case, for only later in the video showing the PSU unattached to plug it into things first?
Christopher often shows building options during a build, undoes the option, and continues with the build. This case has so many options that there are different ways to build in it. My compliments go to Christopher for showing what’s possible with this highly configurable case.
What were they thinking with that wood effect panel at the bottom? It's ghastly. And I can imagine that thing getting hotter than a pizza oven under load. Not my cup of Rosy as you've probably guessed!
They really should have made the panels solid and then enough room to mount a 140mm fan behind the front panel that can intake from a space between the panel and the bottom. It would make the case a bit longer, but provide much better cooling with very little design change.
@@augustusmaximus891 They could have also used this as a chance to make the case itself into a heatsink. That thick aluminum could have easily housed heatpipes, and then wrap around to the CPU with a thin fin stack. They could have even milled it so it's insertable into the back of the front panel, so can slide with the position of the spine, and would have basically given Noctua D15 levels of cooling.
I absolutely love these pc's and would love to have one but I am not good at building pcs 🥲 If I could buy a pre-built from somewhere like this I would. I'm moving next month and can finally have a PC but I'd love to have a small one like this in a media console in the living room. I am hoping to setup my own server and all that but I am terribly not tech savvy whatsoever ha ha 😅
This is absolutely the best build video/commentary I seen on this box. I'm just building a new unit and was thoroughly frustrated that the I/O only seems to work with the motherboard upside down. So far this is the only video I've watch that explicitly share that the motherboard is placed upside down. Thank you Chris.
I wish there would be an online configurator for this particular case. Would make things much easier.
Fractal Design keeps hitting home runs with every new case release.
Yes. I love north and terra. Hope next relese is good aswell
I've been deciding on parts for a fractal terra build for about a month now and other than the gpu, these are the exact parts I had decided on. Glad I found this video before I started.
Now we need the review of the case! temps, noise, etc, thanks man!
Just finished my build thanks for the help. This case was surprisingly easy to build in despite the small form factor because of how open it is with the panels off
Great video and perfect for my situation. Planning my first mini ITX build using my 4070 and Ryzen 7 so I'm saving this for reference.
This is an elegant case, well engineered. Very nice job with the build, could not see it shown any better.
your vids are so amazing, you have no idea how many you help
About to do my first pc build on this case, this was a very clear video!
Clean build as usual. Thanks for the walkthrough.
Nice build, I have a black Terra coming on Thursday and I am really looking forward to the build.
How did it go? What components did you go for 😊
@@Zombie101 Went well, nice case. I am using a 12600k cooled by a Big Shuriken 3 and an Inno3d RTX 4070 Ti.
This case looks so good.
One of my favourite things about this build is that it doesnt use any RGB ! :)
Perfect review, my good sir. Helped a ton!
Great production once again, thanks
I really like the green one. The only thing putting me off is the complete lack of dust filters
I get that but the sides are so easy to open to clean.
Ur not gonna find a whole lot of itx cases with built in dust filters... But yeah, this case is pretty well thought out with side panels, able to be swiveled up, and then u can just hit it with some air.
Hey Chris thanks for this video just what i was looking for before pulling the plug on my new build.
Brilliant build guide Christopher - thanks.
Love the video! Would you still use the Ryzen 9 7900X or bump it up to use the Ryzen 7 7800X3D? Or is it better to save the money and get a 4070 super?
How's that NH-L12S keeping up with the 7900X?
Also check your sfx psu inlet orientation before you buy for this case, learnt that the hard way.
Amazing vid. Do you mind doing one for your desk setup! looks pretty cool there on the back
My only question is. Cause I already have everything loaded in my cart. I'll definitely need a USB port hub for keyboard/mouse/headset/controller /speakers? Right?
What are the thermals like with that cooler though? Seems like sticking an i7 13700K in that case might run a bit hot? If the temps are acceptable though this is very tempting. This case but with just enough added space for a top mounted radiator to run a water cooler would be perfect.
Would a RTX 4080 fit here as well? In your built?
Wouldn't having the fan on the L12s flipped around inprove thermals quite a bit? The way its oriented in the video makes me think that it's sucking air from inside of the case to push through the heatsink and out. I would think that changing that so that it would pull cold air from outside the case into the heatsink would make more sense, right?
- did not notice that you had your rear fan mounted as intake. I would honestly be interested to see a comparison between that configuration and an alternative with the cpu and rear fan flipped.
Cool build. I’ll be building one of these to travel with. Do you recommend any backpack or cases that I can put this in with a mobile monitor, keyboard and mouse? I travel for work and basically live in hotels.
Anyone’s suggestions would be helpful
Excellent guide, thank you!
Hi, my partner is currently building a PC in a Fractal Design Terra and she's struggling to find a power pack that fits (tried a CORSAIR RM650 80 PLUS and then a CORSAIR CX550 80 PLUS) but none of them seem to fit the power supply bracket for the Terra. Also shes using a Gigabyte A520I AC Motherboard and all the ports on the back are upside down but we can figure out how to rotate them? any help would be appreciated
On pcpartpicker it doesn't let you put that cpu cooler in a build with that motherboard, must be a mistake!
Is there space for water cooling. a website to buy from is telling me yes. 1x 120mm. But i cant find that information on Fractals website.
i have the 7900x.For the best thermals with this cooler,you must go to the pbo and set limits.88000-110000-150000 and curve optimizer all cores negative 10 or 15-20-25-30).Its a fantastic cpu,1-2% lower fps than stock
Hello I love your videos and bought Fractal Torrent after watch your guide too,
would love to get this case as well, may I ask do you have other recommendations for PSU?
I'm not sure which suits my parts as I plan on using 7950x3d and 7900 XTX(sapphire pulse)
Thanks!
Thanks for the tutorial, this is great.
very nice, calm and good video as always
thank you
this is how you build a case👏
With this setup, will RX 7800 XTX fit in ?
Thanks, I used this guide in my Terra build
what the case fan you use?
Will the asus tuf rx 6800 fit? The asus product page has really confusing dimension
Thinking of doing a small form factor build like this. How much performance is lost due to the small form factor/temps?
18:18 Whoopsie, had to plug it in before mounting the CPU cooler and motherboard
Very nice build video. Pencils out at about $2K CDN.
what drill are you using?
Nice build case look lovely but I'd be worried about CPU Temps, may be space for another fan on top of the CPU cooler? look forward to the next video
Depends on your GPU. If you're using a two slot card, the spine will be in position 2. At that position, this CPU cooler will be touching the wall of the case. So no, no room for an extra fan.
What would be the budget version of this build? I really like the Fractal Terra, but I don't have the need for super high end gaming or editing.
I mean you could do any number of budget builds in this. It's actually at its limits with higher end hardware, because there's no way it cools these parts effectively without throttling. So it's not a max overclock system, it's stock clocks at best. Although given the price of the case, it'd be kind of a waste to spend so much for a budget build, because the price of the case isn't budget by any means.
Me wondering why do i need to make more or less room for a cpu killer
What a cool looking case..Suprised you got everything in though Ha !! Nice !
For some reason my psu fan can only face towards the GPU. The power socket is on the wrong side. 😢.
I also have a problem with fan noise on the GPU. It being so close to the side wall. Only way to make it quieter is to open the side door lol. Shame.
I'm really keen on using an AIO, is it possible to fit an AIO in this case? If ever, what are the things should I consider?
did you watch the video?
best channel ever
the GPU and PSU have fan intake from side direction. Is it better to have bottom case fan as exhaust?
most build I saw did this(exhaust)
do you think you could get away with this same CPU cooler w/ a 4080 FE?
No way. With even this meager CPU cooler, you're barely going to have more than 2 slots width for the GPU, and basically all 4080's are 3 slot cards. There's only one 2 slot 4080 and it's only available in certain countries and is very expensive. I also wouldn't want to run a 4080 with any CPU cooler smaller than this one, it would definitely thermal throttle even with a mid range CPU, or be severely frame limited, losing dozens of frames by using lesser CPU's. Basically this case is a 4070 max, maybe some models of the 4070ti, but again the ones that fit in the width envelope are generally more expensive. So this case is hard limited. I've seen people put 4090's in it, but they're definitely not getting full performance out of it, with a smaller heatsink they'll be hitting near thermal throttles at stock clocks when gaming in a cool room, and basically thermal throttle hard whenever they try to do anything besides gaming. It's just not worth it to spend soo much money on a high end graphics card, only to be CPU throttled.
Perfect video 😊
Did you consider flipping the psu around so that the founders exhaust feeds into the PSU intake? Im doing this build and wondering about that orientation
You can, but personally I wouldn't want all that heat directly entering the psu
It wouldn't really help, because you have two fans facing opposite directions, competing for airflow. And PSU overheating can cause lots of glitches in a system, from screen glitches to SSD's dropping out. I had a PSU that was caked with dust that the intake was almost completely blocked off, and it caused all sorts of system issues. Putting a PSU in that orientation would do pretty much the same thing. It's one of the main things in a system that you want to keep as cool as possible, otherwise it can affect the whole system.
How big of a case fan can fit under the PSU?
It depends upon the size of the PSU. For my SFX PSU, I can use a Noctua 25mm width fan. For SFX-L, I think only a slim 15mm width fan will fit.
What kind of screwdriver is that?! can you share a link please?!
It looks like the one iFixit sells
Is this build for sale?
Will a founders 4080-fit? I saw GamersNexus video on it and he said it would but I just wanna be sure.
I think all found editions will fit, since they aren’t monster sizes like third parties, since they added big coolers onto theirs.
I think this case is dope, it is hard for me to want to upgrade from my ncase m1 though since I have side and bottom fan intakes.
Just don't let Nvidia see the bend radius on that 12vhpwr connection. They'll send you some nasty emails or something.
I want to find where you hide your pot of gold.
Vertical case slits are going to be a downside.
You do know that if you are mounting a 120 AIO it would be a stupidity to mount the psu the way you showed. You would need to invert to power supply so air from the AIO is exhausted through the PSU. PSU will get warmer but cpu temps will surely go down.
Expect major cooling issues ! 😂
You've used the most power hungry CPU AMD have to offer, if this were used for gaming would it not have made more sense to use something like a 7800X3D which has a significantly lower power demand enabling you to save money and invest in a cheaper PSU and possible a 4070 TI?
I think if you're building in case like this you need to very picky in the parts you're going to use in the build.
PS - No offence, youre videos inspire me :)
Hah. That's funny, because I'm doing this build with a 4070ti, but also a 7950x3D (because I got it at the same price as a 7800x3D, so why not?) with not the same but a similar cooler. I expect it to game hot and throttle a bit for productivity.
“Absolutely massive graphic cards… up to 322mm”. Cries in 325mm 1080Ti……. i really hate it when they dont research the longest GPUs out there. 1080Ti is still used to this day…
325mm is massively long, even the longest 4070/4080 is about 310mm. In fact, most small ITX cases only support about 310mm. I also wouldn't spend $200 on a case for such an old GPU.
That noctua cooler supports 95W max TDP and you are putting a 170W CPU underneath. Are you kidding me?
Why no AIO? Temps on CPU are unacceptable
Because it won't fit unless you forego a GPU or use one of those really short single fan 4060's. I mean maybe you could fit a 4070 FE in there if you remove the heatsink, but you're not going to cool a CPU and GPU with one small radiator. With custom parts it could be done though, like if you had a specially designed heatsink for a 4070 FE that extended to the top of the case and utilized as much vertical space as possible. Then you could fit an AIO to cool the CPU.
Build sugo 17
Tbh this a poor tutorial. Why does he first show attaching the PSU to the case, for only later in the video showing the PSU unattached to plug it into things first?
Christopher often shows building options during a build, undoes the option, and continues with the build. This case has so many options that there are different ways to build in it. My compliments go to Christopher for showing what’s possible with this highly configurable case.
What were they thinking with that wood effect panel at the bottom? It's ghastly. And I can imagine that thing getting hotter than a pizza oven under load. Not my cup of Rosy as you've probably guessed!
I like it, guess this is a case of opinion lol :P
Maybe we could put a metal plate on top and use it to grill a sandwich at the same time!
They really should have made the panels solid and then enough room to mount a 140mm fan behind the front panel that can intake from a space between the panel and the bottom. It would make the case a bit longer, but provide much better cooling with very little design change.
@@peoplez129 Exactly. I'm waiting for this to hybrid to a Terra/C4 mix. AIO, airflow through case SFF.
@@augustusmaximus891 They could have also used this as a chance to make the case itself into a heatsink. That thick aluminum could have easily housed heatpipes, and then wrap around to the CPU with a thin fin stack. They could have even milled it so it's insertable into the back of the front panel, so can slide with the position of the spine, and would have basically given Noctua D15 levels of cooling.
needs a glass panel
you probably want to ruin this beautiful case with RGB too
Yeah, pc's don't need airflow, looks are much more important
It doesnt...
I absolutely love these pc's and would love to have one but I am not good at building pcs 🥲 If I could buy a pre-built from somewhere like this I would. I'm moving next month and can finally have a PC but I'd love to have a small one like this in a media console in the living room. I am hoping to setup my own server and all that but I am terribly not tech savvy whatsoever ha ha 😅