Recently, Fractal Design introduced the Torrent case, which primarily focuses on the best cooling possible. In addition to a significantly open shell, the case has up to five fans, two of which are oversized and thick. The Torrent thus operates with an extremely high air flow, even in a relatively large space. Therefore, it will be interesting to see in the tests how these layouts affect the temperatures and noise performance.
Test methodology
A large volume of cool air is blown into the case by five fans on two sides. Subsequently, the waste heat can only get out in two ways. Through the perforated rear side and through the intake of the power supply, which is located above the hardware. The distance between the tower cooler used and the ceiling where the power supply is located is 70 mm. This should be enough space to cool the air even with the fans directly under the power supply. But what will be the exact temperature of the air it draws in, the thermocouple placed directly underneath it will show us.
Testing is done in a home environment where I strive for the most accurate results possible. In the room during testing, the air temperature in front of the cabinet is 23 degrees Celsius and the minimum noise level I can measure with the Voltcraft SL-100 noise meter is 32.4 dBA. The sensor of the noise meter is aligned to the center of the top of the case at a distance of 10 cm, for the best measurement of the speed difference of the fans, which I change using the motherboard. For easy comparison to other cases, they are always regulated to fixed noise levels.
Individual components are heated for 10 minutes in FurMark synthetic stress tests and with Prime95 (custom settings) at the same time. This time is long enough to allow all components to warm up sufficiently. There are then 15-minute cooling breaks between tests, during which the component temperatures (and the case air temperature as well) are brought back to default.
Modes noisiness:
- 36 dBA
- 38 dBA
- 39 dBA
- 52,3 dBA – max rpm
| Test setup | |
| Processor | AMD Ryzen 7 3700X |
| Motherboard | ASRock X570 Taichi |
| CPU cooler | Scythe Fuma rev. 2 (single fan) |
| Thermal compound | Noctua NT-H2 |
| Graphics card | ASUS RTX 2060 Super Dual |
| RAM | Patriot, 2× 8GB, 3600 MHz/CL17 |
| SSD | Crucial MX500 1TB (2280) |
| Power supply | Corsair RM750X |
