Fractal Design Flex 2
You might have thought about vertical mounting of your graphics card, which many modern cases allow. You can’t do it without the right adapter, though. This usually has to be purchased as an optional accessory. We tested one such PCI Express ×16 adapter with three differently performing graphics cards. Does it or does it not affect their performance? The bottom line with the insertion of such intermediate adapters is always that “it” works at all.
Test results…
… and conclusion
The use of the Fractal Design Flex 2 adapter did not have any effect on any of the tested graphics cards. The minimal differences (at the 1% level) are due to the change in position rather than the adapter itself. The efficiency of the coolers varies slightly with different orientations, which also affects GPU cooling and clock speeds. But this is completely insignificant, and although the results show that a hair better results are achieved vertically, in practice it can be the other way around. It depends on the case and the amount of air that will be able to flow through the graphics card. We tested without a side panel.
But not to stray into another topic, we’ll stop here and say that Flex 2 does not affect the speed of the graphics card (which is good) and at the same time the operation with it is always stable. The design of both the power supply and the data part can therefore be evaluated positively. We did not observe any changes in behavior on our test platform. In the case of a very unfavorable combination of a motherboard and a PSU, which would have a low voltage on the PCIe ×16 slot, after the reduction of which (Flex 2) it reaches an unacceptable level, it may of course be different. The question is whether it is possible to induce such a situation in practice.
The Flex 2 also deserves praise for its clever design, which is easy to work with. Whether it’s the well-flexible cable or the actual mounting in the case. Two colour versions are available, with a black and a white bracket. The indicative price for the Flex 2 is 75,90 EUR.
English translation and edit by Jozef Dudáš
