Fractal Design Arc Midi R2 Review

Written by Matthew Lambert

May 10, 2013 | 10:20

Tags: #atx-case #midi-tower #mid-tower-case #water-cooling

Companies: #fractal-design

Cooling Performance

Our test kit includes an ATI Radeon HD 5870 2GB Eyefinity 6 graphics card and an Intel Core i7-870 CPU, which has been overclocked from 2.93GHz to 3.4GHz using a vcore of 1.305V and a CPU PLL of 1.9V. This is a modest overclock, but our test kit will spend most of its life under high load, so pushing it too far isn't in anybody's interests. More importantly, some poorer-performing cases push the CPU temperature to above 80°C, so even this overclock will prove to be too much for some cases.

The CPU is cooled by a Gelid Tranquillo CPU cooler with a Noctua NF-S12B ULN 120mm fan. The NF-S12B ULN is a low-airflow fan, so it will highlight cases with poor cooling for the CPU. We also locked the fan speed on the graphics card to 30 per cent to prevent the automatic speed control interfering with the results.

We record the temperature of the CPU using RealTemp, noting the temperature of the hottest core, and used GPU-Z to log the temperature of the graphics card. Having recorded the ambient temperature in front of the main air intake of each case, we're then able to calculate the delta T - the difference between the ambient temperature of our lab and the temperature of the hardware. To load the system, we use a combination of the Canyon Flight benchmark in 3DMark06 and the smallfft test in Prime 95.
  • CPU: Intel Core i7-870 CPU overclocked to 3.4GHz
  • Graphics card: ATI Radeon HD 5870 2GB Eyefinity 6
  • Motherboard: Biostar TPower I55
  • RAM: 2 x 2GB OCZ 1,866MHz DDR3
  • Hard drive: 160GB Seagate Barracuda 7200.9
  • Heatsink: Gelid Tranquillo with a Noctua NF-S12B ULN fan
  • Power supply: Seasonic M12D SS-850EM


Case performance - CPU Delta T

Arranged by CPU Delta T

  • SilverStone FT02R-W (max speed)
  • SilverStone FT02R-W (min speed)
  • Antec One
  • Fractal Design Core 3000 (max speed)
  • Cooler Master HAF X
  • NZXT Source 210 Elite
  • NZXT Phantom 630 (max speed; no HDD cage)
  • NZXT Phantom 820 (max speed)
  • Corsair Obsidian 900D
  • Cooler Master HAF XM
  • Chieftec DX-02B (max speed)
  • Fractal Design Arc Midi R2 (max speed; no HDD cage)
  • Fractal Design Arc Midi R2 (max speed)
  • BitFenix Shinobi XL
  • Xigmatek Elysium
  • Chieftec DX-02B (min speed)
  • Fractal Design Define XL R2 (max speed; no HDD cage)
  • In-Win GRone (max speed)
  • Corsair Carbide 500R (max speed)
  • Fractal Design Core 3000 (min speed)
  • Fractal Design Define R4 (max speed)
  • Corsair Carbide 500R (min speed)
  • Fractal Design Arc Midi R2 (med speed)
  • Lian Li PC-A76
  • NZXT Phantom 630 (min speed)
  • NZXT Phantom 820 (min speed)
  • Xigmatek Midgard II (max speed; no HDD cage)
  • Antec GX700 (max speed)
  • Thermaltake Chaser A31
  • Aerocool X-Predator X1 (max speed)
  • Sharkoon T28
  • Nanoxia Deep Silence 2 (max speed)
  • Fractal Design Arc Midi R2 (min speed)
  • In-Win GRone (min speed)
  • Nanoxia Deep Silence 1 (max speed; ventilated)
  • Corsair Carbide 200R
  • CM Storm Scout 2
  • Fractal Design Define XL R2 (min speed)
  • Xigmatek Midgard II (min speed)
  • Aerocool X-Predator X1 (min speed)
  • Fractal Design Define R4 (min speed)
  • Antec GX700 (min speed)
  • Nanoxia Deep Silence 1 (min speed)
  • Nanoxia Deep Silence 2 (min speed)
    • 42
    • 37
    • 44
    • 37
    • 47
    • 43
    • 47
    • 47
    • 48
    • 36
    • 48
    • 47
    • 48
    • 48
    • 48
    • 49
    • 48
    • 49
    • 48
    • 50
    • 49
    • 45
    • 49
    • 45
    • 49
    • 48
    • 49
    • 51
    • 50
    • 40
    • 50
    • 46
    • 50
    • 47
    • 50
    • 47
    • 51
    • 42
    • 51
    • 49
    • 51
    • 49
    • 52
    • 45
    • 52
    • 49
    • 52
    • 51
    • 52
    • 51
    • 52
    • 52
    • 53
    • 46
    • 54
    • 49
    • 54
    • 51
    • 54
    • 52
    • 55
    • 46
    • 55
    • 49
    • 55
    • 50
    • 55
    • 50
    • 56
    • 51
    • 56
    • 58
    • 57
    • 55
    • 58
    • 53
    • 58
    • 53
    • 58
    • 56
    • 60
    • 50
    • 60
    • 52
    • 63
    • 55
    • 64
    • 54
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
°C, lower is better
  • CPU Delta T
  • GPU Delta T

Case performance - GPU Delta T

Arranged by GPU Delta T

  • Cooler Master HAF X
  • SilverStone FT02R-W (max speed)
  • SilverStone FT02R-W (min speed)
  • Xigmatek Elysium
  • Corsair Carbide 500R (max speed)
  • Antec One
  • Chieftec DX-02B (max speed)
  • Fractal Design Arc Midi R2 (max speed; no HDD cage)
  • Corsair Carbide 500R (min speed)
  • Chieftec DX-02B (min speed)
  • Xigmatek Midgard II (max speed; no HDD cage)
  • Sharkoon T28
  • Fractal Design Core 3000 (max speed)
  • NZXT Source 210 Elite
  • Fractal Design Define XL R2 (max speed; no HDD cage)
  • In-Win GRone (max speed)
  • NZXT Phantom 630 (max speed; no HDD cage)
  • Fractal Design Arc Midi R2 (max speed)
  • NZXT Phantom 820 (max speed)
  • Corsair Obsidian 900D
  • Fractal Design Core 3000 (min speed)
  • Fractal Design Define R4 (max speed)
  • Fractal Design Arc Midi R2 (med speed)
  • Antec GX700 (max speed)
  • Nanoxia Deep Silence 2 (max speed)
  • Cooler Master HAF XM
  • Fractal Design Arc Midi R2 (min speed)
  • In-Win GRone (min speed)
  • Fractal Design Define R4 (min speed)
  • BitFenix Shinobi XL
  • Lian Li PC-A76
  • NZXT Phantom 630 (min speed)
  • Thermaltake Chaser A31
  • Nanoxia Deep Silence 1 (max speed; ventilated)
  • NZXT Phantom 820 (min speed)
  • Aerocool X-Predator X1 (max speed)
  • Antec GX700 (min speed)
  • Fractal Design Define XL R2 (min speed)
  • Xigmatek Midgard II (min speed)
  • Nanoxia Deep Silence 2 (min speed)
  • CM Storm Scout 2
  • Nanoxia Deep Silence 1 (min speed)
  • Aerocool X-Predator X1 (min speed)
  • Corsair Carbide 200R
    • 48
    • 36
    • 42
    • 37
    • 44
    • 37
    • 50
    • 40
    • 51
    • 42
    • 47
    • 43
    • 49
    • 45
    • 49
    • 45
    • 52
    • 45
    • 50
    • 46
    • 53
    • 46
    • 55
    • 46
    • 47
    • 47
    • 48
    • 47
    • 50
    • 47
    • 50
    • 47
    • 48
    • 48
    • 49
    • 48
    • 48
    • 49
    • 48
    • 49
    • 51
    • 49
    • 51
    • 49
    • 52
    • 49
    • 54
    • 49
    • 55
    • 49
    • 48
    • 50
    • 55
    • 50
    • 55
    • 50
    • 60
    • 50
    • 49
    • 51
    • 52
    • 51
    • 52
    • 51
    • 54
    • 51
    • 56
    • 51
    • 52
    • 52
    • 54
    • 52
    • 60
    • 52
    • 58
    • 53
    • 58
    • 53
    • 64
    • 54
    • 57
    • 55
    • 63
    • 55
    • 58
    • 56
    • 56
    • 58
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
°C, lower is better
  • CPU Delta T
  • GPU Delta T

Read our performance analysis on the next page.
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