Review System

Assembly

Installing the motherboard is straightforward, and essentially hugs the PSU vent in the top. Fractal Design placed a cutout in the left corner of the board to route CPU power cables even after everything is assembled. As the Torrent Nano is an air-cooling focused chassis, the ideal scenario revolves around using a traditional cooler, which allows for a 335 mm long GPU and still makes use of the front 180 mm fan. While we did not have immediate access to a tower cooler, we still wanted to show the general layout of such a setup.


In addition to that, you may install two 120 or 140 mm fans on the floor of the Torrent Nano and still employ a 2-slot thick GPU. This means you could really keep your GPU cool with some massive airflow pulled in from the bottom of the case, which would keep your other components, like M.2 drives and the motherboard chipset, cooler as well, as those tend to get the brunt of the rising heat from your GPU, especially on an ITX motherboard. This setup along with an air cooler is by far the best setup inside the Torrent Nano, and it could be argued that Fractal Design should have included two such floor-mounted fans (and a fan hub) out of the box even if it meant users would be limited to a dual-slot GPU.


As we also got the 280 mm Lumen S28 RGB, the only place to put it is on the floor of the Torrent Nan. By doing so, you loose access to at least two out of the three expansion slots. Thus, users with single-slot or liquid-cooled graphics cards are the only ones who can take advantage of this setup. On the upside, as you can see, the front 180 mm unit is raised far enough off the ground to use as well. The stylish cover on the CPU base of the Lumen S28 should tie in nicely with the rest of the RGB elements in the case. That said, as both this base and the RGB strip in the PSU bay use a cable which does not allow for daisy-chaining, we had to sacrifice the latter to include the former in our lighting setup since the ITX board only features a single 3-pin ARGB header. In other words, you will need to buy a splitter cable to use everything in such a build.


Adding an SSD to the dual-drive tray is straightforward and uses classic screws. Once the tray is filled, just install it onto the backside of the motherboard tray itself.


As the PSU is on top of the case frame, one may install it at any time without worrying about restricting the space needed for inserting the motherboard. With 200 mm of space, the bay is around 30 mm shorter than the one on the much longer Torrent, but there is still plenty of space for cable management and to fit a potent PSU. A single, centered Velcro strip confines excess cabling to that space, so you won't have to deal with it behind the motherboard tray.


The special hard-drive tray in the ceiling of the Torrent Nano can hold either two 2.5" drives or a mix of both size formats. To achieve the latter, simply use traditional screws to secure a 2.5" drive to the underside of the tray before adding a 3.5" variant with special screws through the rubber anti-vibration rings. Once filled, it can go back onto the top of the chassis. There is a secondary mounting position towards the front of the case, so you can still take full advantage of the maximum PSU length and retain this storage option.


With everything installed around a 280 mm AIO, everything in the interior is nice and clean. In the back of the motherboard tray, the Velcro strips and cable channels do allow you to keep the wires in place, so re-applying the glass panel poses no issues. That said, you will end up with an even cleaner result than what we have if you utilize zip ties in combination with those Velcro-equipped routing channels.

Front AIO Setup

An alternative setup for both AIO and GPU to co-exist inside the Fractal Design Torrent Nano can be achieved by removing the front 180 mm fan and employing the mounting brackets to convert this part of the case to fit 120 or 140 mm fans. Doing so will allow for a 240 mm AIO and fits the Gigabyte graphics card like a glove, so 285 mm is the maximum length for your GPU in such a setup.

With these components, you are limited to two 120 mm fans in the floor of the Torrent Nano, which should really be plenty to give you that additional kick in GPU cooling. The additional upside of this specific setup is that we can also connect the ARGB strip of the PSU bay.

Finished Looks

Turning the Fractal Design Torrent Nano on, the glow of the bottom fans and gorgeous hues on the Lumen make for a nice visual experience.


In the front, the 180 mm fan looks nice through the front of the case. Interestingly enough, subjectively speaking, that illumination is far more visible in the Torrent Nano vs. the original Torrent. I am not sure why to be honest. You can also clearly see all the elements from the rear of the chassis.


Thanks to the clear side panel, all your hardware will be shown off nicely even with subtle lighting effects. There is still that one little gripe of the front fan's RGB elements shining through the gap between the hub and blades, but that is an issue of the fan, not the chassis.

Front AIO Setup

With a 240 mm AIO in the front alongside the gaming GPU, the ARGB strip in the top is a nice little touch as well.