Fractal Focus case and Motherboards

[Grogan]

Zema, what boards have you used in those Fractal Focus cases that fit perfectly (i/o shield mates up correctly with back of case)

I'm thinking that my sister needs a new computer. She's got an old Nehalem Corei5 with 8 Gb of RAM running Windows 7 and she can't do much with it anymore for reasons obvious. Even printing her shit sucks on that computer now. (I've cleaned it up, it's just that software is bloated)

That red fractal case would be perfect for such a build. I'm thinking one of two things. Get off my ass and get something done about that failed Assrock video card (and give her the replacement lol) and use an ATX board, or just go with onboard (she's not a gamer, moreover she frowns on it) and use micro. There'd be lots of room to work in that case then with just CPU and RAM. (and NVME)

Nobody knows anything about this yet, so I'm not under any kind of time pressure.

[Zema Bus]

I have three of those cases, I've mostly used AMD based MSI boards in them - my primary gaming machine is in one and it has an MSI MPG X570 Gaming Edge board (got it in 2019). One has an old Supermicro board, and the other one currently has the same Intel based MSI board as you have (I'm now using that while working). A fourth one I gave to my sister a while back, she wanted a machine she could potentially use for work (she's retired now but wants to go back to work) as her old one wasn't working out and was too old for Windows 11 (she'll need Windows for work). I put a spare MSI B550 board I had in it with an AMD Ryzen 5 5600G (builtin graphics). I'd say that the boards that would be the easiest to work with when it comes to the i/o shield in cases like that are the ones where the i/o shield is a part of the board. In some cases it'll be necessary to press on the edge of the board to get screw holes to line up, I'll get one started at one end of the board (but not tightened) then do the same at the opposite end to ensure all of them are lined up, then tighten them down. Those center alignment pins found in newer cases really help with that, I forget whether these Fractal cases have them.

[Grogan]

Yes, my red Fractal case has the alignment post.

Thanks for all that info, it actually needs not be Intel hardware. I wouldn't risk an AMD system for myself (very unforgiving, fussier on RAM etc.) but she's not any kind of a power user and we'd save a shit tonne of money.

[Grogan]

Hey, wait a minute now:

and the other one currently has the same Intel based MSI board as you have (I'm now using that while working)

Did YOUR motherboard fit in the case properly? (might not be the exact, exact same Fractal Focus case design, even if the model and name are the same)

[Zema Bus]

Yeah I don't recall it giving me any trouble I haven't seen before, I do remember the i/o shield was a tight fit but a lot of them are - the ones with the older style separate i/o shield. It can be a struggle to get all four corners to snap into place, and if one corner isn't in quite all the way it can throw off the motherboard fitment. In contrast the boards with the integrated i/o shield are a breeze to install.

[Grogan]

Well this one never got a chance to have the i/o shield snapped on, as the board was too narrow and the ioport area of the board was about 3/8 inch or so inside the case. There wasn't any other way to mount it, the board could only go in the mounting tray one way and all screws lined up. So, either the case or the dimensions of the board are different.

And yes, absolutely, I'm going to make sure the next board I ever buy is not going to have a stupid i/o shield like the MSI boards. Though that would not have helped, it still would have been inside the case.