Does PC building have to be complicated? If you watch most of our build videos they seem simple, but that’s the art of editing, when you do it yourself it’s not as easy as it seems. We are very aware from the comments section on YouTube, the contact form on the website and copious amounts of emails that there are some in the community who love a specific build, and intend to copy it. With that in mind we wanted to create something that retains the aesthetics and airflow we’re used to, offers excellent value when it comes to performance and is simple enough that anyone could build it! Enter the Fractal Design Torrent Nano. We’ve long looked at this case wishing to get our mitts on it, this week we gave ourselves the excuse to order one in. When it arrived we were not disappointed, it’s small form factor, but yet has a separate power supply chamber, and a ginormous fan already attached to the front. It looks the part so let's get into it!
Case Overview
Considering the small form factor nature of the case, it’s perhaps not quite as small as some other options in the category. It looks as if it should take a micro ATX motherboard. For the purposes of a simple build this size affords space to work with, which is always a bonus! The case stands at: (h)374mm x (d)417mm x 22mm. We love the grille on the front, it’s reminiscent of the front end of a luxury car. The single, pre-mounted, 180mm fan should move plenty of air, which helps keep things simple! It’s also an ARGB fan, which is complimented by the ARGB strip which runs along the upper chamber. In there there is space for an ATX power supply and a caddy for either a 3.5 inch, or 2 x 2.5 inch storage drives. It’s fantastic to see a small form factor case which will comfortably take an ATX PSU, they’re typically more cost effective than their SFX counterparts! As for hardware the case supports:
ITX motherboards
Up to 280mm radiator (front mounted, requires removal of the included fan)
Air coolers up to 165mm tall
Graphics cards up to 335mm in length
Stripping down the Torrent Nano was very simple, the front, both sides and top all just pop off. It is worth mentioning that once the build is complete there is the option to screw in the sides and top to keep them secure - it’s a little thing, but as the case is quite portable it is a welcome boost to durability! For this build we didn’t need to remove the front panel, the provided front fan is more than enough for our purposes!
Parts List
Why Did We Choose This Hardware?
The brief was simple to build, good performance and provide value, so really we’re talking a more entry level build for those using new hardware. With that in mind we are targeting either 1080p at above 120fps or 1440p at just below 100fps. To accomplish this in a manner that provides the best value and is in keeping with aesthetics of the build we chose a ASUS Dual 4060 TI and paired it with an Intel i5 14400F.
The Arctic Freezer 36 ARGB was a no-brainer for this build, its performance is more than we’d need to keep the CPU cool, it’s low price and it looks good in any case where it will fit! The RGB lighting afforded by the cooler should work really well to compliment the RGB of the front fan and light bar.
We wanted to make sure we were using a good quality motherboard and power supply, they’re the often overlooked backbone of the system. We’ll continue to stress the importance of both! For the task at hand we chose the ROG Strix B760-I Gaming Wifi and the Corsair RM850X respectively. Both are high quality and should keep everything in check for years to come.
What Was It Like To Build?
So how was the build? In a word, simple, but allow me to take you through the process. We’ve already stripped the case, intake fan is already in situ, so let’s not worry about that for now!
Assembling the motherboard had one unusual complication due to the cooler, we had to remove the CPU retention bracket to mount the contact frame provided with the cooler. We’d strongly recommend putting the CPU in place before removing the bracket, that way the socket is guarded from any dropped screws.
Other than that it was business as usual: apply thermal paste, mount the cooler, click in the RAM and attach the fans. It is at this point we realised that the motherboard chosen only has a single RGB header, luckily all RGB components could be daisy chained without the need for a splitter.
Once the motherboard was in we mounted 1 additional fan to the rear for exhaust. It’s not 100% necessary, it was more a decision based on form over function, airflow is good without it, it just looked odd! We decided not to mount any fans on the bottom of the case, space is tight, but the bottom of the case is around 35mm from the desk and is pretty much open apart from being lined with a dust filter. The 4060 TI is not a hot card by any stretch so we were happy that it would handle its own airflow without issue, we’re interested to see how that turns out in testing.
The cable management in the Torrent Nano was exceptional for a small form factor case, so much so that we even decided to use cable extensions! There is a lot of space in the PSU chamber under the storage mounts to coil cables, in addition to 1 vertical and 1 horizontal pre-velcroed cable channels and additional mounting points. It makes for impressively easy mess management!
Overall the build was as we had envisioned, so simple anyone could do it!
Airflow
The airflow visual was very simple to capture, air is taken in by the front and exhausted at the rear. We had no issues with this part! Airflow to the graphics card was more difficult to demonstrate, you can see the smoke being drawn into it, but at a slower rate than would be the case if we had bottom mounted fans. We were quite happy that this wouldn’t hinder performance.
Performance
As we said earlier we’re looking at this to be a solid 1080p performer with the ability to ramp up to 1440p, if at the loss of some frames. We believe it should hold up well to these demands. As we want a more complete and consistent test we’ve only chosen 1 game this week, Forza Horizon 5. We tested 3 different presets at 1080p then again at 1440p. Below are the results:
Ambient temp 20.8
Forza Horizon 5
1920x1080
High
169-189 fps
52°C CPU
58°C GPU
Ultra
109-127 fps
52°C CPU
57°C GPU
Extreme
78-91 fps
52°C CPU
58°C GPU
Forza Horizon 5
3440x1440
High
108-130 fps
48°C CPU
57°C GPU
Ultra
76-89 fps
49°C CPU
58°C GPU
Extreme
Error occurred during testing due to insufficient VRAM
CPU-Z
Max Temp 46°C @ 800 rpm
Max Temp 44°C @ 2000 rpm
Furmark2
3440x1440
Avg fps 76
Max temp 60°C
Hotspot 69°C
It’s interesting to see that regardless of the resolution or graphics setting the GPU temp was largely unwavering and sitting at a very manageable temperature. The Arctic Freezer 36 combined with the 180mm intake fan have done an excellent job of keeping the CPU cool, in a relatively quiet manner. We had the fans set to 800 rpm if the CPU was cooler than 65°C and the system was barely audible!
It was disappointing to see the VRAM error during 1440p ‘Extreme’ gameplay, but equally we had expected it to happen. If you feel you must have more VRAM, at this price point the Radeon 7600XT is available in the same form factor as the one we used, though the ASUS variant is only available in black.
Roundup
We wanted simple, repeatable, copyable, something our less experienced viewers could see and feel ‘I could do that’. The question I suppose is did we achieve that? I feel so, but in reality my opinion is of little worth, the more important one is yours, do you think this was stripped back enough?
As for the build it was a breath of fresh air to have something so easy in front of us. We love how the build turned out and we’re very happy with its performance. It gives scope for growth and upgrade over the years which follow. This build is for everyone and anyone, if you want to build your first PC I can’t recommend this set-up enough!
Check out the full build video below:
Blog post written by Sam Thwaytes
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