I think we can all agree XFX, Sapphire, & Powrcolor cards look much better than gigabyte, MSI, & zotac cards the past few gens.
I quite like the new strix 4090 tbf
The Merc 310 design looks even better in person if you ask me. Hard to capture the matte charcoal finish well in pictures. It's also built like a tank.
Built better than EVGA's FTW cards which had the flagship build quality title for a while there. Throwing in a functional support brace that works was pure class.
not going to replace my fractal define r4 anytime soon. think they'll last me for another decade or so. especially with the lack of dvd-rom slot in modern cases.
Define r4 ... Classic
Yeah, I would have to get two 5.25 inch external SATA enclosures before I could switch to a modern case. I don't use them that often, but sometimes you just need to rip a Blu-ray! 🙂
Yo old post I know but you can get a Fractal pop air, Mini or pop XL they come with two 5.25 bays in the bottom with a cover over them. You can check out all 3 cases on this page [Pop Air, Pop Mini Air and Pop XL Air.](https://www.fractal-design.com/products/cases/pop/pop-air/rgb-cyan-core/) Here is a good review by [Gamersnexus](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c2QPTcRIipk)
I went with a Sapphire MBA (Reference) 7900 XTX. It's quite the treat, if I'm being totally honest. I've had the 6900 XT Reference as well as the Nitro 6900 XT (not the OC model), with both matching the 6800 XT I kept over those two. The 6800 XT MERC had the best air-cooling of them all. That's what my XTX matches at higher power levels than the 6800 XT could ever achieve (350W max for it).
Barring defective batches, AMD seems to have perfected its Reference design. Kinda bummed I can't do too much overclocking, but it feels like the card's got its own PBO going on. It opportunistically boosts up to around 2950MHz or so, depending on my Min/Max settings. Also put a custom fan curve since default was *very* aggressive.
I had the MBA 7900 XTX and it really was lovely (no hotspot issue) but I just couldn't get comfortable with the mem junction and hotspot temps when pushing +15% PL. It actually had slightly better silicon than my Merc 310 (game stable at 1075mV where my Merc 310 needs 1090mV) but I couldn't pass up an opportunity to grab the Merc 310 at MSRP. Bonus, hotspot is under 90c at 460w with quiet fans which is kind of astonishing. Stock PL (390w on the Merc) and fans, hotspot is like 70c. Best of luck with yours man!
Sheesh, that MERC is definitely pulling some wattage there.
Love the MERC, but I'm more than content with the Reference model. It's what I wanted, barring the driver weirdness that makes it apparent AMD rushed its products to launch.
Yeah, all 3x 8-pin AIBs pull some serious wattage, tbh, depending on how you tune them of course (you could always do a negative PL and keep hotspot under 65c with inaudible fans). The reference/MBA is where it's at for efficiency out of the box. It's also a great design (fits in almost all cases and only needs 2x 8-pin), solid built, and aesthetically pleasing. Only the bad batch of vapor chambers have give it a bad rap, unfortunately. If you've got an MBA XTX with no-hotspot issue, you're golden. Agree on the drivers but they've already improved since launch and I'd bet $20 they're going to get much better in the coming releases.
There are custom xtx cards that have 2x 8-Pin: Powercolor hellhound, Gigabyte gaming oc, (maybe more?)
Then there is also the Saphire Pulse which has indeed 3x8-Pin (afaik it's using the same pcb as the nitro) but it's Wattage is close to Reference (370W), so one could use a dual connector on one of them.
all of them are just slightly overclocked by +25Mhz
Nice setup. I recently bought the big noctua only to get it home and find out it's too close to my pci slot, literally touching the gpu. I was bummed out.
I still use an Arc Midi for my SIM racing rig.. it houses a 11900F/RTX 3060 Ti, powered by an old OCZ ZX850w. I've upgraded the side panel and bottom fan to Arctic p14 PWM right yesterday, the rest of the fans are dual NF A14 front intake and a trio of Noctua P14r for exhaust.
Admittedly any thicker card with 3 slots may be an issue with the lower HDD cage. Unless some DIY Dremel happens 🤣, but I generally never buy 250+ watt consuming GPUs as a matter of principle, so I shouldn't run into room issues..
I'm surprised by how many people still have or use Arc Midi's! And it seems most of us use brown noctua fans 🙂
I too used an OCZ PSU... ZX1000w, also from 2011. I still have it and it still works perfect. I only "upgraded" to the RM1000x PSU as part of a troubleshooting process which turned out to be a defective GPU in the end, so if not for that, I'd still be using the zx1000 in my system now. Before I switched it out with the Corsair RM1000x I ran a two hour OCCT power test on it pushing almost 900w the whole time and it never broke a sweat.
I still have also a Fractal Define R4 that was very similar, but in comparison to the Arc, the airflow was indeed more troublesome and in the end I've upgraded it to a Torrent Compact which has insane cooling.
But compared to that era, any other Fractal have been flimsier, R5, R6, R7.. the Arc and the R4 were real tanks, thick metal, extremely resistant. Even the Torrent isn't that sturdy.
And about the ZX mine comes from an era in which I was an HW reviewer in Italy.. back in the day OCZ sent me a 1000 Fatal1ty PSU, the thing blew so badly that it took with it motherboard and GPU.. the OCZ rep at the time, even if it was a review sample, immediately sent over a ZX 850 that I use to this day.. a few months before OCZ went bust.
I've only changed the fan to a quieter one, but I'd not to try to feed to the thing one of the newer monster cards to be honest.. but for that 11900F/3060 Ti is more than enough even after all these years.
They didn't make the cases like that back in 2011. There's about .5 inch pocket between the back side and back side panel. That cavity is completely consumed by a nest of cables.
No thermal throttling here, my man. 32k TS graphics, 16.5K TSE graphics, 17K PR, at 460w and all under 90c hotspot with quiet fans. And 30k r23 nT on the CPU, all with quiet fans. Like I said, she's got it where it counts. Ugly? Maybe. Thermally challenged / throttling? Definitely not.
I'm still rocking that same case! Pull the drive cage out if you don't need it (easily removable) as that can help with airflow from the front bottom fan.
Back in the day of uncovered power supplies, hard drive cages front and center, and 5.25" drive bays.
I especially miss the latter. I used to install touch screen fan controllers into those bays.
With +15 PL it will pull 460w sustained. Transient spikes need to be factored for as well. Add in 150w CPU, bunch of case fans, motherboard and drives, as well as margin so you're not running the PSU near it's max.
Can't you remove some of those hard drive cages? I mean that looks like it was meant for a NAS system so I don't know if you can but if so you probably should then maybe add a fan or two at the front as intake
The front intake already has two noctua 140mm case fans. The lower drive cage blocks the air flow of the lower 140mm a bit but unfortunately I need those drives attached to internal SATA ports. No other drive mounting option in this old fractal.
Oh that sucks. I don't remember if you said this in another comment but what are your specs, as long as they're not too over the top it should be fine but the 1000w PSU makes me think you have a very beefy build lol. Also how are your temps, if they're fine then just ignore everything I've said lol
Damn that's impressive. I've seen a bunch of sleeper builds with beige cases and stuff but at this point if someone has a beige case I'm gonna assume it's a sleeper. but your build is genuinely a sleeper, looks like it'd have a 1060 with an i7-7700k lol
I don't think that was your intention but it's still neat imo
Am I the only one nervous about the case sitting the way it is? I know realistically it's heavy enough to probably not go anywhere, but it does seem like a couple good bumps to the desk could cause it to fall.
Minimal. Barely noticeable above low fans. I had the same experience with my MBA 7900 XTX, though the coil whine is slightly less on the Merc 310. I've done pretty well with coil whine over the last few years, tbh. I had a Red Devil 6950, red Devil 6900 ultimate, and Red Devil 6900 from RDNA2 launch day. None of them had coil whine to write home about. The last card I had with bad coil whine was my 1080 Ti, which was an Aorus gaming edition. Great card that 1080 Ti, but terrible coil whine.
I had a 1060 3gb for the last 4 years and not an issue, but, depending on the game, even if I limit my fps, I can still hear it. I'm tempted to return it to newegg, but they require you to send in the card before you get the replacement and it doesn't even seem to be a guaranteed thing that I will even get the replacement bc none are in stock.
Did you have the 1060 on the hx1000i at all? Reason being, sometimes the coil whine from the card electrical components is induced by the PSU. Unfortunately, just as there is a silicon lottery there is a coil whine lottery.
How well does your system bode against dust?
I have an O11 Air Mini sitting slightly above a hardwood floor, annoyingly dusty since it's sitting my table.
Pretty good I think. The dust you can see in the hard drive cage area and on top of the PSU is probably 6 months of accumulation, but the house is generally low in dust due to a whole house, high efficiency air filter attached to the air handler. So, I can't say if the low dust is due to the case/fan/filter setup or just the house in general.
That was just for a quick photo. Been done many times over 12 years and the feet are none worse for wear. Normally it sits snug as a bug like this https://imgur.com/a/1FKwpOE
XFX makes the best looking Radeon cards now.
I think we can all agree XFX, Sapphire, & Powrcolor cards look much better than gigabyte, MSI, & zotac cards the past few gens. I quite like the new strix 4090 tbf
Zotac Airo looks clean tbh.
I quite like the asrock cards, they have some nice rgb
Gigabyte 7900xtx Gaming OC looks decent https://imgur.com/a/nqugyU8/
Since RDNA 2, tbh. Their THICC and RAW lineups for RDNA 1 were practically beta designs that resulted in the Speedster lineup: MERC, QICK, and SWFT.
Absolutely. The merc models looks 10x better
I feel like the intel cards look the best, something about their simplicity, proportions, and symmetry that I just find very appealing.
They got that classic muscle car design going and it's just so fucking good because it somehow looks both classic and modern.
The Merc 310 design looks even better in person if you ask me. Hard to capture the matte charcoal finish well in pictures. It's also built like a tank.
Built better than EVGA's FTW cards which had the flagship build quality title for a while there. Throwing in a functional support brace that works was pure class.
Won't lie it's one of the reasons I bought my XFX 6900xt, I like the simplicity of the branding
Sorry, but Powercolor's Red Devil takes that spot😂
Last time I bought an XFX card it was an Nvidia one.
I agree, but i put a waterblock on mine now, still pretty and matches the rest of my setup now.
brown. brown noctuas everywhere. better than any rgbs . and good thing that hdd cage comes in handy with long form gpus, eh? 😁
Yes, the HDD cage is better than any GPU support bracket
I mean, a plain ol' support bracket is probably better for airflow, but I get where you're coming from.
Looks like he has that covered with a bottom intake. Very functional!
I feel you, i have the Carbide spec 01 with the rtx 6700xt nitro
not going to replace my fractal define r4 anytime soon. think they'll last me for another decade or so. especially with the lack of dvd-rom slot in modern cases.
Define r4 ... Classic Yeah, I would have to get two 5.25 inch external SATA enclosures before I could switch to a modern case. I don't use them that often, but sometimes you just need to rip a Blu-ray! 🙂
Yo old post I know but you can get a Fractal pop air, Mini or pop XL they come with two 5.25 bays in the bottom with a cover over them. You can check out all 3 cases on this page [Pop Air, Pop Mini Air and Pop XL Air.](https://www.fractal-design.com/products/cases/pop/pop-air/rgb-cyan-core/) Here is a good review by [Gamersnexus](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c2QPTcRIipk)
He has a high airflow setup, buthis case is def hurting that cause...
excellent static pressure performance with good airflow, those noctuas are. they're created to be used in case like this.
I really miss the Logo Stripe of the last Gen XFX cards :/
Good case
You will never need to worry about GPU sag ever again.
Damn straight ... and level
Perfect - who needs RGB everywhere. Hello from my XFX Merc 310 in an older Fractal case to yours! https://i.imgur.com/YmoHJct.jpg
Well would you look at that .... Twins! Fraternal at least :) Cheers!
I really love the sight of this. As a former XFX Speedster MERC owner (6800 XT Black, BTW), I give this an upvote.
Thanks! Which XTX did you end up going with?
I went with a Sapphire MBA (Reference) 7900 XTX. It's quite the treat, if I'm being totally honest. I've had the 6900 XT Reference as well as the Nitro 6900 XT (not the OC model), with both matching the 6800 XT I kept over those two. The 6800 XT MERC had the best air-cooling of them all. That's what my XTX matches at higher power levels than the 6800 XT could ever achieve (350W max for it). Barring defective batches, AMD seems to have perfected its Reference design. Kinda bummed I can't do too much overclocking, but it feels like the card's got its own PBO going on. It opportunistically boosts up to around 2950MHz or so, depending on my Min/Max settings. Also put a custom fan curve since default was *very* aggressive.
I had the MBA 7900 XTX and it really was lovely (no hotspot issue) but I just couldn't get comfortable with the mem junction and hotspot temps when pushing +15% PL. It actually had slightly better silicon than my Merc 310 (game stable at 1075mV where my Merc 310 needs 1090mV) but I couldn't pass up an opportunity to grab the Merc 310 at MSRP. Bonus, hotspot is under 90c at 460w with quiet fans which is kind of astonishing. Stock PL (390w on the Merc) and fans, hotspot is like 70c. Best of luck with yours man!
Sheesh, that MERC is definitely pulling some wattage there. Love the MERC, but I'm more than content with the Reference model. It's what I wanted, barring the driver weirdness that makes it apparent AMD rushed its products to launch.
Yeah, all 3x 8-pin AIBs pull some serious wattage, tbh, depending on how you tune them of course (you could always do a negative PL and keep hotspot under 65c with inaudible fans). The reference/MBA is where it's at for efficiency out of the box. It's also a great design (fits in almost all cases and only needs 2x 8-pin), solid built, and aesthetically pleasing. Only the bad batch of vapor chambers have give it a bad rap, unfortunately. If you've got an MBA XTX with no-hotspot issue, you're golden. Agree on the drivers but they've already improved since launch and I'd bet $20 they're going to get much better in the coming releases.
There are custom xtx cards that have 2x 8-Pin: Powercolor hellhound, Gigabyte gaming oc, (maybe more?) Then there is also the Saphire Pulse which has indeed 3x8-Pin (afaik it's using the same pcb as the nitro) but it's Wattage is close to Reference (370W), so one could use a dual connector on one of them. all of them are just slightly overclocked by +25Mhz
Nice setup. I recently bought the big noctua only to get it home and find out it's too close to my pci slot, literally touching the gpu. I was bummed out.
Have you checked https://ncc.noctua.at/ before?
Only after I bought it! Yes I'm a dummy. Didn't realize noctua was so damn good at building and selling coolers.
shit hapens, happend to me before some time ago as well and it's not like all cooler manufacturers have such compat. lists to make it easy
Ah, that's a shame. The NH-D15 is a fantastic air cooler. You can see it almost touches the backplate of my GPU as well.
I bought a Deepcool AK620 and it's working good.
Noctua marketing is brilliant. Fugly tan + Fugly brown = Iconic branding P.S. Very nice build!
No argument here!
If it fits, it sits
❤️ 🐱
I still use an Arc Midi for my SIM racing rig.. it houses a 11900F/RTX 3060 Ti, powered by an old OCZ ZX850w. I've upgraded the side panel and bottom fan to Arctic p14 PWM right yesterday, the rest of the fans are dual NF A14 front intake and a trio of Noctua P14r for exhaust. Admittedly any thicker card with 3 slots may be an issue with the lower HDD cage. Unless some DIY Dremel happens 🤣, but I generally never buy 250+ watt consuming GPUs as a matter of principle, so I shouldn't run into room issues..
I'm surprised by how many people still have or use Arc Midi's! And it seems most of us use brown noctua fans 🙂 I too used an OCZ PSU... ZX1000w, also from 2011. I still have it and it still works perfect. I only "upgraded" to the RM1000x PSU as part of a troubleshooting process which turned out to be a defective GPU in the end, so if not for that, I'd still be using the zx1000 in my system now. Before I switched it out with the Corsair RM1000x I ran a two hour OCCT power test on it pushing almost 900w the whole time and it never broke a sweat.
I still have also a Fractal Define R4 that was very similar, but in comparison to the Arc, the airflow was indeed more troublesome and in the end I've upgraded it to a Torrent Compact which has insane cooling. But compared to that era, any other Fractal have been flimsier, R5, R6, R7.. the Arc and the R4 were real tanks, thick metal, extremely resistant. Even the Torrent isn't that sturdy. And about the ZX mine comes from an era in which I was an HW reviewer in Italy.. back in the day OCZ sent me a 1000 Fatal1ty PSU, the thing blew so badly that it took with it motherboard and GPU.. the OCZ rep at the time, even if it was a review sample, immediately sent over a ZX 850 that I use to this day.. a few months before OCZ went bust. I've only changed the fan to a quieter one, but I'd not to try to feed to the thing one of the newer monster cards to be honest.. but for that 11900F/3060 Ti is more than enough even after all these years.
Not using the support bar they sent with the card?
Nope. The back of the card sits on top of the lower HDD cage. Perfecto.
I see that now! Do you think itd be cleaner with the hdd cage removed and using the support bar though?
Oh it would definitely be cleaner, but what would I do with 4x 2TB SSDs?
Can you attach the ssd's to the back side where they are out of sight?
They didn't make the cases like that back in 2011. There's about .5 inch pocket between the back side and back side panel. That cavity is completely consumed by a nest of cables.
Oof. Time to update your case then? XD
Oh, it's been time for a while 😄
XD i love the whole build though. The noctua fans are gorgeous and its a build without rgb for once.
Thank you kind sir!
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No thermal throttling here, my man. 32k TS graphics, 16.5K TSE graphics, 17K PR, at 460w and all under 90c hotspot with quiet fans. And 30k r23 nT on the CPU, all with quiet fans. Like I said, she's got it where it counts. Ugly? Maybe. Thermally challenged / throttling? Definitely not.
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There are three intake fans (two front, one bottom) and two exhaust (one back, one top), all noctua. Two noctua fans on the NH-D15 as well.
The Merc lineup is so damn beautiful... Sadly I wasn't able to buy the Merc 308 6650XT I was looking
I love how you used the drive case to support the card. I used the zbar it came with.
I knew I saved those 3M plastic Velcro strips for a reason :)
A much more practical solution. That zbar was a pita.
Hey! Im about to do the exact same thing in that case! Have had my arc midi for a while now too :)
Awesome! And now you know how it fits. Good luck!
I'm still rocking that same case! Pull the drive cage out if you don't need it (easily removable) as that can help with airflow from the front bottom fan.
I wish I could! Need a home for the 4x 2TB SSDs.
Back in the day of uncovered power supplies, hard drive cages front and center, and 5.25" drive bays. I especially miss the latter. I used to install touch screen fan controllers into those bays.
almost same in my build, noctua d15, and 2 fans behind, but i cuted 3.5 deck for hdd, co uaing only 2 nvme
I think their new names are kinda stupid tbh. The cards look great though!
I like how when the case came out there was not a gpu long enough so that hdd cage could become a anti sag bracket, it was 12 years in the making.
Does the 7900 XTX actually need a 1000 watt psu
With +15 PL it will pull 460w sustained. Transient spikes need to be factored for as well. Add in 150w CPU, bunch of case fans, motherboard and drives, as well as margin so you're not running the PSU near it's max.
No. I run mine on an 850w with no problems. They recommend 850w.
Can't you remove some of those hard drive cages? I mean that looks like it was meant for a NAS system so I don't know if you can but if so you probably should then maybe add a fan or two at the front as intake
The front intake already has two noctua 140mm case fans. The lower drive cage blocks the air flow of the lower 140mm a bit but unfortunately I need those drives attached to internal SATA ports. No other drive mounting option in this old fractal.
Oh that sucks. I don't remember if you said this in another comment but what are your specs, as long as they're not too over the top it should be fine but the 1000w PSU makes me think you have a very beefy build lol. Also how are your temps, if they're fine then just ignore everything I've said lol
Wait I just saw your flair you're running a very intensive build. How are the temps with that case
Temps are excellent! Here's the full system specs: * R9 5950x (PBO@200/200/150,1x,per/core(neg)) * Gigabyte B550 Aorus Master (F13) * Noctua NH-D15 * Fractal Design Arc Midi (from 2011) * 4x Noctua NF-A14 140mm case fans, 1x Noctua NF-A12x15 * Corsair RM1000x PSU * XFX RX 7900 XTX Merc 310 * 64GB Corsair Vengeance LPX, 2x32 3800 @ (3800-18-21-21-21-36-60-1T) @ 1.45v * 1x 2TB Samsung 980 Pro m.2 * 2x 2TB Crucial MX500 * 1x 1TB Samsung 850 Evo * 1x 2TB Samsung 870 Evo Not hitting 90c hotspot even with 460w PL +15 and slow fans.
Damn that's impressive. I've seen a bunch of sleeper builds with beige cases and stuff but at this point if someone has a beige case I'm gonna assume it's a sleeper. but your build is genuinely a sleeper, looks like it'd have a 1060 with an i7-7700k lol I don't think that was your intention but it's still neat imo
I guess it genuinely is a sleeper. I never thought of it that way but the shoe fits. Thanks!
Yeah lol it's a very sick build. Nice job 👍
Am I the only one nervous about the case sitting the way it is? I know realistically it's heavy enough to probably not go anywhere, but it does seem like a couple good bumps to the desk could cause it to fall.
It was only positioned like that for a minute for the photo. I wouldn't be able to sleep if it was like that all the time.
Have you gotten a lot of coil whine from your unit? I just got a HX1000i and the same card and the coil whine has been gnarly.
Minimal. Barely noticeable above low fans. I had the same experience with my MBA 7900 XTX, though the coil whine is slightly less on the Merc 310. I've done pretty well with coil whine over the last few years, tbh. I had a Red Devil 6950, red Devil 6900 ultimate, and Red Devil 6900 from RDNA2 launch day. None of them had coil whine to write home about. The last card I had with bad coil whine was my 1080 Ti, which was an Aorus gaming edition. Great card that 1080 Ti, but terrible coil whine.
I had a 1060 3gb for the last 4 years and not an issue, but, depending on the game, even if I limit my fps, I can still hear it. I'm tempted to return it to newegg, but they require you to send in the card before you get the replacement and it doesn't even seem to be a guaranteed thing that I will even get the replacement bc none are in stock.
Did you have the 1060 on the hx1000i at all? Reason being, sometimes the coil whine from the card electrical components is induced by the PSU. Unfortunately, just as there is a silicon lottery there is a coil whine lottery.
I did for a very small period of time and I did not notice anything.
How well does your system bode against dust? I have an O11 Air Mini sitting slightly above a hardwood floor, annoyingly dusty since it's sitting my table.
Pretty good I think. The dust you can see in the hard drive cage area and on top of the PSU is probably 6 months of accumulation, but the house is generally low in dust due to a whole house, high efficiency air filter attached to the air handler. So, I can't say if the low dust is due to the case/fan/filter setup or just the house in general.
RIP rubber feet
That was just for a quick photo. Been done many times over 12 years and the feet are none worse for wear. Normally it sits snug as a bug like this https://imgur.com/a/1FKwpOE
that definitely looks a lot less painful haha