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Built this for a client's wife who wanted something subdued that would look good in their media room. The Terra was an obvious choice, and she loved it.
The Cooler Master PSU was oddly noisy. Wasn't the fan, didn't really sound like coil whine. But under load it was bad, so I jettisoned it and went with the Seasonic you'll see in one of the later pics.
A lot of the Aorus boards have a bug where it won't shut off, just restarts. Only way to power it down it to hold the power button down for 4-5 and force it. There's no clear fix for it, so for now I can't really recommend Aorus. It's otherwise great, though.
New PSU. Had to completely re-do the cables, unfortunately. Due to the size of the GPU, I couldn't make space for cables behind the PSU. Had to route them up the side between the PSU and motherboard, which worked out fine.
I love Sapphire's Nitro+ GPUs...
...but it just barely fit. Had o remove the end panel from the case to install it. Not really visible, but I started out with a Corsair AF120 Slim in the bottom, but it was also noisy as hell,, so went back to a Noctua 120 slim.
Very tight fit in there.
The one oddity about the Terra is that it leaves a gap along the side of the GPU. I made an acrylic panel to fill this in. Really just cosmetic, but I hate leaving something unfinished looking.
Fractal Design Terra - 7600X and a 7800 XT that almost didn't fit
Recent commissioned build for a previous client's wife. She wanted something small, easily portable, and aesthetic. The Terra meets all those criteria, and is a pretty great case. Cooling options are limited, but it's well ventilated enough it does pretty well.
When I first completed the build and booted it up, it was pretty loud. I had swapped the cooler's fan for a Noctua; their A9x14 is a high-speed model, so I initially suspected that. But under load it had loud fan noise plus some other weird noise going on. After a lot of trial and error I located the issues. The bottom case fan I initially used was Corsair's new AF120 Slim - turns out it's loud as hell when it gets ramped up. The other weird noise was coming from the Cooler Master 850W SFX ATX 3.0 PSU. I returned it and went with a Seasonic unit, which is completely silent under load. After these two changes the PSU was almost silent, even under full load.
Other than the tight fit on the GPU and having to re-make the cables, the case is really easy to build in. I wouldn't recommend it unless you're using custom cables, though. Space is really limited, and more cable clutter = less airflow.
When I first completed the build and booted it up, it was pretty loud. I had swapped the cooler's fan for a Noctua; their A9x14 is a high-speed model, so I initially suspected that. But under load it had loud fan noise plus some other weird noise going on. After a lot of trial and error I located the issues. The bottom case fan I initially used was Corsair's new AF120 Slim - turns out it's loud as hell when it gets ramped up. The other weird noise was coming from the Cooler Master 850W SFX ATX 3.0 PSU. I returned it and went with a Seasonic unit, which is completely silent under load. After these two changes the PSU was almost silent, even under full load.
Other than the tight fit on the GPU and having to re-make the cables, the case is really easy to build in. I wouldn't recommend it unless you're using custom cables, though. Space is really limited, and more cable clutter = less airflow.
Color(s): Black Gray Green
RGB Lighting? Yes
Theme: Color
Cooling: Air Cooling
Size: SFF
Type: General Build
Hardware
CPU
$ 194.00
Motherboard
$ 239.99
Memory
$ 196.99
Graphics
$ 604.62
Storage
$ 71.90
PSU
$ 149.99
Case
$ 199.89
Case Fan
$ 26.95
Case Fan
$ 21.95
Cooling
$ 35.90
Estimated total value of this build:
$ 1,717.19
Approved by: