Fractal Design North Review

Wooden accents are far from new to the PC industry, yet they’re so rarely used that their appearance almost seems novel. The wooden slats of Fractal Design's new North series ($129 for the wood-faced model we tested) set it apart from competing products, adding an air of opulence to an otherwise mundane product class. Previous trend-setters have included brushed-aluminum finishes and tempered-glass side panels, so will other companies copy the design theme? We hope so, but for now, the North is a solid tower in a class nearly of its own. If most of what you'll see of your PC is the front face, it's hard to find a more distinct, classy panel to expose to the world.

Speaking of themes, the North is available in white with silver and oak trim in addition to the black with gold and walnut trim shown. The gold (or silver) trim applies to bands around the feet in addition to the power button, headphone and microphone jacks, Type A (Gen 1) and Type-C (Gen 2) USB 3.x ports. Both color themes are available with the buyer's choice of mesh or tempered-glass panels on the left side.

Dust filtration is available only for the front and bottom panels, the latter being a slide-out filter that covers the power supply air inlet. That may be enough filtration for most builds, as the dual 140mm intake fans that hide behind the front panel will tend to push air out of the case's other holes.

Zooming away from the power supply filter reveals a rear panel with removable power supply bracket, a seven-card expansion card hole that's made without separators so that it can alternatively support a vertical card bracket, a 120mm fan mount with slotted holes that allow vertical spacing adjustment, and a fabric pull tab that helps builders remove the top panel cover. Also notice the six unused mounting holes on the far edge, which we’ll discuss in a few paragraphs.

The front-panel dust filter is removable from the back of the face panel, which itself can be removed from the rest of the case by pulling outward on its bottom edge.

While the side panel on the right is an ordinary painted sheet, left panels are available in both tempered-glass and mesh-faced varieties. The mesh part is reinforced as shown.

Here's what the top panel's cover looks like removed. It has no filter, but many people who use its fan mounts may configure those fans as exhausts.

Under the cover is a mount large enough to fit the builder's choice of two 120mm or two 140mm fans. Additional slots that look like they could hold fans don't appear to be spaced for any familiar fan sizes.

Behind the painted-steel right side panel are a dual-2.5-inch-drive tray, a passive four-fan PWM power hub, a recessed cable loop, and a power-supply tunnel with two 3.5-inch drive trays. A box for the included hardware kit is included in one of the 3.5-inch bays, and all the extra mounting holes seen in the blown-up portion allow one of the trays to be slid forward in 1.5-inch increments. Power-supply length may be limited to as little as 165mm or extended up to 280mm depending on the number of trays installed and their placement.

Extra holes on the bottom of the 3.5-inch drive trays make these compatible with 2.5-inch drives, as well.

The power-supply tunnel is notched in front to support radiators up to 1.5 inches thick, which explains why the front drive tray can be moved backward 1.5 inches (after removing the rear drive tray): The available space is required by those who’d like to front-mount a so-called 360mm radiator.

Included in one of the 3.5-inch drive trays is a hardware kit with eight #6-32 shoulder screws and rubber grommets for damped mounting of 3.5-inch drives, a pack of eight #6-32 panhead screws for motherboard installation (one standoff has a key pin rather than a screw hole), 16 M3 screws for securing 2.5-inch drives, four #6-32 hex/Phillips combo head screws for securing the power supply, a spare standoff, and four ratcheting cable ties. The manual is packed separately on the outside of the case.

Front-panel cables include a power switch lead, power LED, HD Audio (for the headphone and microphone jacks), a Gen 1 cable for the two Type-A ports and a Gen 2 cable for the single Type-C USB 3.x port. Shown to the left of those are leads for the passive fan hub and two front fans, where those attached to fans have passthrough connectors to fit two more fans. Since the fan hub has no power source other than the motherboard's fan header, builders should consider the output rating of their fan header before connecting everything through the hub.

Do you remember when we mentioned the six unused holes on the back panel? Those are designed to hold an accessory fan mount in one of three positions (upper/center/lower) behind the mesh side panel. The basket portion is only deep enough to hold normal (around 25mm thick) 140mm and 120mm fans, but crafty builders who can find the extra component clearance may choose to mount a radiator on the back side.

Components supplied specifically for these case reviews include Corsair's iCue H100i RGB Pro XT all-in-one CPU cooler and FSP's Dagger Pro 850W power supply. The cooler's dual 120mm fans make it ideal for top-panel placement in most cases, which allows it to provide airflow around our motherboard's CPU voltage regulator, while the Dagger Pro's combination of SFX housing, a PS2 adapter plate, and mid-length power cables allow it to fit both compact and full-size cases.

The North manual we received makes no mention of top-mounting liquid cooling radiators, but with 1.25 inches of space above the board and almost 1.5 inches of horizontal offset away from the board for 120mm fan mounts, we couldn't pass up the opportunity to use our cooler to vent the board. Had there not been enough space here, our alternative would have likely been to mount the same cooler, in the same exhaust orientation, on the highest mounting locations of the optional side fan bracket.

One other thing I noticed is that Asus’ full-ATX (9.6-inch-deep) motherboard fits a full 1.25 inches behind the inward-angled cable passage holes. This means that those oversize (10.6-through-10.8-inch) enthusiast-class motherboards of the past will fit, even though this case doesn't carry the Extended ATX (EATX) label.

The North has no lighting features beyond the power-on indicator that glows red next to USB ports on the top panel, but any lighted internal components are easily seen through its mesh side panel or through the front filter sheet as viewed between the wooden grille pieces. A tempered-glass version is available to builders who’d like to give others a clearer view of their internal components.

Because some of our devices round to the nearest whole number before that data is charted, it's possible for two identical results to be shown as one degree apart due to rounding issues. The Fractal Design North appears to have the coolest CPU temperatures, but a slight chill in the air reminded us that it might actually be tied for first.

Differences of about 3 degrees are less ambiguous: The Fractal Design North cools our motherboard's voltage regulator better than any case in this comparison set.

Remember what we said about a slight chill in the air? The North appears to be the second-worst at feeding cool air to our graphics card, but if not for possible rounding errors may have ended in an actual tie for worst.

Facing the question of how a case could have both the best voltage regulator and second-worst GPU temperatures in its class, we looked at the North's factory front-fan placement just above the power-supply tunnel and determined that it should be perfect for GPU cooling. We don't like unanswered questions, but with one test point showing clearly superior performance and another showing merely acceptable performance, need we torture ourselves further?

Though it's also available with a tempered-glass panel similar to its competitors, the version of the North we’re testing has a mesh left side that leaks noise just as easily as air. When heard from the other side, the case sounds similarly noisy to its competitors.

The mesh version is a bit noisy from one side, and we didn't have the opportunity to test the tempered-glass version, but we’d call the North a solid performer when comparing the low CPU and chipset temperatures to the normal level of noise emitted from the opposite side.

Discount the front face, and the North is a fairly typical modern PC case whether in its mesh or glass side-panel variants. The other accents are nice, but it's the wood-slat portion that really sets this case apart. Performance is generally on par for what it is, with the exception of the GPU thermal testing we did. But that may be cutting it too fine for a case like this; the aesthetics are the real selling point.

The combination of connectors and internal features places the North solidly into the $120 price class, leaving buyers to decide whether the walnut or oak wood trim is worth the extra $10 of its $129 MSRP. It definitely gets our vote. To saw off one last pun, why woodn't you go for it, too?

We'd opt for the glass-panel version instead of the mesh-side model we tested, but Fractal Design's North case has all the extra cooling and aesthetics it needs to attract buyers intrigued by its woodsy front face.

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