Fractal Terra Gaming PC Build - Step by Step

foreign [Music] this is a tiny computer with natural elements that would fit perfectly into a modern home the fractal Terra is only 10.4 liters taking up very little space yet it can fit massive gpus for ultimate versatility and performance so let's take a look at the components I chose for this build see what it's like to work with the fractal Terra and then check out the thermal and gaming performance right after a word from this video's sponsor War Thunder what's the point of building a gaming PC if you're not going to have some fun with it War Thunder is an epic free-to-play combat game available on your favorite gaming device War Thunder just released a major update called La Royale so those of you who haven't tried it or stopped playing should definitely check it out for all the new features new Battlegrounds and insanely improved visual effects bomb a tank and watch it explode see Naval vessels get completely destroyed and riddle your opponent's aircraft with bullets in real 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using the 7600x now there's a few reasons I chose this one first it's compatible with smaller low profile CPU coolers like the one I'll be using today also this build will be targeting 4K and this should be fast enough when paired with a higher end GPU like the 4080. this is probably though as low as I would recommend going when pairing with a 4080 but if you want higher frame rate 1440p gaming then you should consider something higher end like the 7700x it of course really all depends on the games you're playing and your targeted resolution this 7600x has six cores 12 threads and a boost clock up to 5.3 gigahertz the 7600x also requires a new am5 motherboard I'm going to be using the gigabyte aors b650i this motherboard is absolutely stacked with features for a board this size with plenty of USB ports including a 10 gig type c Port built-in Wi-Fi 6E and a bag plate that serves as a heat sink for the board and one of the three m.2 slots so let's lower the CPU into the socket making sure the arrow on the top is a lie lined with the arrow on the socket it should fall right into place then when it's fully seated we can just lower that latch [Music] so this motherboard has three m.2 slots two are under this massive heatsink with a built-in fan one of them is Gen 5 and the other is Gen 4 and the third is located under the back plate as I mentioned earlier I will be using a single two terabyte Samsung 980 Pro today but if you wanted to utilize the m.2 slot on the back now is going to be the time to do that as it won't be easy to access it once installed due to that backlight two terabytes is plenty of storage for me and if there is the need to add more you can always access that second slot on the front alright let's install the RAM and for this build we're gonna need ddr5 memory so I'll be using 32 gigs of Corsair Vengeance ddr5 6000 memory these are specifically designed for AMD build with an expo memory profile and at that 6000 megahertz speed which is optimal for 7000 series CPUs they are also lower profile which will help give us some more clearance in this limited space that we have in the fractal Terra I do think these look really good as well although RGB probably isn't necessary as they won't be easily visible once that case is closed so now we can open the clips on the ram slot make sure that the notch is correctly aligned and then apply even pressure until you hear it click into place the massive vrm and m.2 heatsinks on this motherboard look great but they do pose a challenge when it comes to finding compatible low profile CPU coolers one that I have found to fit perfectly is the noctua nhl9a this is the updated am5 version and it's a very compact cooler that's quite effective despite its small size the total height is only 37 millimeters including that 92 millimeter fan and has a 100 Ram clearance as it fits right into the specified CPU spacing and doesn't overhang the Ram or m.2 slots making this ideal for many small form factor belts if you're wanting to pair this cooler with a different CPU then I strongly recommend checking out noctua's compatibility guide to make sure that it's going to work for instance the 7600x I'm using here today is compatible but it's not recommended to overclock it when paired with the nhl9a this is not a problem for me as I don't plan to do that but it's something to keep in mind when you're picking out your components to install we will need to remove the pre-installed mounts if they're not already if needed you can just unscrew the four screws and then remove them the cooler uses the existing backplate so we can leave that in place now let's just put a pea-sized amount of thermal paste in the center of the CPU and lower the cooler on top of the CPU try to align the four mounting holes to the ones on the motherboard then holding the cooler into place with one hand we can flip the motherboard over now let's realign those four holes and fix the screws into the cooler now I like to tighten them in an x pattern switching sides every three rotations to ensure even pressure then we can plug in the CPU fan and that's the motherboard prepped and it's looking really good in my opinion it's very Compact and the noctool cooler fits perfectly in the center making really good use of that limited space now the case we're going to be using is the fractal design Terra this is a brand new release from fractal it's very compact at only 10.4 liters and has a really nice modern design with a walnut wood Accent on the front there are three colors available I went with black as that one just kind of matches my aesthetic the panels have a really interesting way to be removed they're on a hinge so you need to lift them from the bottom and then unclip one side of them to remove and then to remove the top panel you can pull the leather tab away from the case to unlatch then lift that from the case so the first thing I want to install is a 120 millimeter fan has exhaust on the bottom this will help disperse some of that hot air that's going to be blown into the middle of the case from the blower style cooler on the founders Edition card noctua was nice enough to send over a 120 millimeter slim fan to try out noctua is well known for their high quality fans and CPU coolers and this is definitely going to help keep the temperatures down in the build now because the fan will be located directly under the power supply cables I'm also going to attach a fan Grill on the top to prevent any of those cables from hitting the blades so the really cool thing about this case is that you can actually adjust the entire spine or the center for more versatility and component selection and Hardware clearance there are four locations with these orange transport locks that once removed you can find a screw with the numbers one through seven moving the spine closer to one will allow more CPU clearance and moving the spine closer to seven will give you more GPU clearance I'm leaving it to the default 4 for now as that appeared to be the right config for my build but I will later learn in this build that I actually need to move it to 5.5 due to the clips on the side of the panels hitting the GPU if your GPU is taller than 131 millimeters so if you're using the same GPU as I am in this build 5.5 is where I end up okay so before we install the motherboard let's make things easier to work in by removing the PCI Express 4 Riser cable there's two thumbnails on the bottom and a single screw in the back and once those are removed the whole piece just kind of slides out no problem so let's grab the motherboard align it to the four standoffs and secure it into place with the four included screws for case cables those connections are on the left side so let's plug those in now that's a usb-a and USBC then the front i o connections on the gigabyte board are on this adapter that connects into a breakout board so we'll need to install that to connect the power switch for the power supply I'm going to be using the Corsair sf750 80 plus Platinum this is a very silent and efficient PSU and widely considered the gold standard for small form factor power supplies it also includes these really nice spreaded cables in the box that are Far and Away easier to manage in a small case they look a lot nicer as well and at 750 watts this will meet the requirement for a 4080 system to remove the power supply bracket there's two screws holding into place so let's unscrew that and then remove it then we can place the bracket onto the unit now fractal actually recommends facing the fan inside of the case when pairing it with a blower style graphics card this will help pull in some of the hot air and pass it through the PSU to exhaust it out of the top of the case and they also include a couple of standoffs to create a bit more space between the graphic card fan and the power supply before we install into the case I'm going to plug in the 24-pin motherboard and the CPU power connectors then plug the other end into the power supply I'm also going to plug in the 12 volt high power cable for the graphics card now as well with that complete we can fix the power supply unit with the attached bracket back into the case and do a little bit of cable management all right we're getting close now next up is the GPU and as mentioned we're going to be using the RTX 4080 Founders card the Terra can fit a GPU up to 322 millimeters in length and width will actually be determined by where you set the spine in the case but at Max 72 millimeters this Founders card is 310 millimeters long so it should fit nicely here the 4080 is also fairly easy to come by these days I picked mine up from Best Buy and it's a seriously impressive GPU it's on par with the 7900 XTX in most games with only the 4090 beating it out in performance the 4080 is quite pricey though and not everyone's going to want to spend that much on that GPU still it should make a good match when paired with the 7600x for 4K gaming so let's grab that GPU bracket with the attached PCI Express 4 Riser cable we took off earlier and remove the thumb nuts then we can slide that bracket onto the graphics card and into the PCI Express slot then we can just secure it with two thumbnails now we can gently lower the GPU with the bracket into the case and re-secure it I really like how easy and well done this method of installing the GPU is now we can connect the 12 volt high power cable and plug the Riser cable into the PCI Express slot on the motherboard and wow this build looks awesome I love the brown and black theme and how compact the whole system is all that's left to do is re-secure the top panel clip and secure the side panels and that's the build complete [Music] all right I really love the look of this build but let's see how it performs starting with cyberpunk in 4k with just rasterization so that's without the LSS or Ray tracing and we're getting over 60 frames per second but realistically I think in a game like this you'll want to turn on dlss in frame generation and doing so will get you over 100 frames per second frame generation will add a bit of latency but I think that's fine in these more cinematic titles especially considering it can nearly double the frame rate in some games jumping into Hogwarts Legacy here in 4k and rasterization performance is quite good at 50 to 60 frames per second on ultra settings now again you can utilize dlss and frame generation and using those features in 4k we're looking at a massive bump to over 120 frames per second temperatures are looking good as well the CPU averaging high 60s to lower 70s and the GPU staying under 60 degrees Celsius now CPU attempts in cyberpunk were a little higher in the low 80s but considering how compact the system is and how small that noctua l9a cooler is I think this is very decent thermal performance when gaming this is a really nice build overall I love the aesthetic of the new fractal Terra and all the versatility of having that Center spine adjustable building it was honestly really simple almost everything was easily accessible but I do have a couple of small critiques and that is it would be convenient if the bottom panel was easily removable to access the bottom side of that motherboard when you need to but that didn't end up posing to be a big problem during the build process also the clips on the side panels restrict the clearance for taller graphic cards like the founders 4080 and the 490 so I did find that to be a little bit annoying but having the option to ship the spine over resolve the issue so it's not the end of the world I was still able to comfortably fit everything but anyway let me know what you think about the build in the comments below uh what do you like what would you change so thanks for watching and I will see you in the next one

Channel: Devyn Johnston

Views: 213,488

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Id: UgPgJMDNTxA

Length: 12min 43sec (763 seconds)

Published: Sun Jun 25 2023