Fractal Era 2 ITX Case - great build quality

Leo reviewed the original Fractal Era over four years ago and he quite liked the case for its stylish good looks and excellent build quality. However, the thermal performance - especially with the solid top panel option installed - wasn’t ideal to say the least. So now Fractal has gone back to the drawing board and completely redesigned the internal layout to improve cooling and hardware support, giving us the Era 2. Read more here: https://www.kitguru.net/components/cases/james-dawson/fractal-era-2-itx-case-review/

Price and availability:

Choice of three colours including Silver, charcoal grey and midnight blue.

MSRP: $200, €220. £195

00:00 Introduction
00:42 The Era 2 pricing and details
01:44 James Thoughts
02:18 Removing panels - a look inside
03:45 Radiator / Fan support
04:59 ‘Central spine’ system / riser cable
06:28 GPU install
07:10 Fan intakes / cooling
07:56 Up close inside / PSU
10:27 Accessories
10:36 Test System / Install
12:23 Thermal & Noise Performance testing
13:49 Closing Thoughts (and some problem solving)

Features:

• Compatible with 3 slot graphics cards up to 326mm long and 63mm thick.
• Optimised for AIO CPU cooling with support for up to 280mm radiator installation.
• ERA 2 features tool-free chassis access with a single-piece slide exterior panel and a push-top release top bracket for quick and simple assembly.
• It's equipped with a sliding central wall offering 15mm of movement for build flexibility.
• It includes a PCIe Gen4 riser cable, dedicated mounts for up to four 2.5-inch storage drives and a front I/O panel with two USB 3 type-A ports and a USB Type-C 20Gbps port.

Build Specification
CPU – AMD Ryzen 7800X3D
Motherboard – MSI MPG B650i Edge Wifi
Graphics Card – Sapphire Radeon RX 7900XTX Nitro+
Memory – 64GB (2 x 32GB Modules) G.SKILL Trident Z RGB DDR5-6400
Storage – 1TB Corsair MP700 PCIe Gen4 NVME M.2 SSD
CPU Cooler – Cooler Master MasterLiquid 240 ATMOS
Power Supply – Cooler Master V1100 SFX ATX 3.0/PCIE 5.0
Case fans – Stock (2 x Fractal Aspect 12 PWM)
Chassis – Fractal Era 2 Charcoal Grey
Operating System – Windows 11
Notes:
• Original ERA had horizontally mounted GPUs which was very limited in support, only 2 slot cards up to 290mm long. Only 240mm AIOs. Very poor GPU thermals.
• PSU and case floor fans working in opposite directions to each other.
• The case is quite limited in the graphics cards it can support, some of the larger 4080 and 4090 7900XT/XTX Nvidia cards will not fit.
Installation Notes:
• Cable management can be awkward, especially if you forget to connect a cable and it needs to be routed and connected after installing the graphics card and AIO.
• Pre-routed cables might need to be relocated, front panel power and LED cable are a bit short for this MSI motherboard.
• Resonating noise.

Pros:
• Great build quality and premium feel.
• Very easy side panel removal – Can be done one-handed.
• Good thermal performance.
Cons:
• Cable management can be tricky.
• High vibrational noise using an AIO cooler with high fan speed.
• Quite expensive.

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