Fractal Design North XL Computer Case Review

I often feel that case cooling is over emphasized with problems being amplified when builds are mismatched.  Despite this, the proper ventilation of a PC case is an important factor that we should pay attention to especially when we have a good thing going. 

The North XL is very open and comes with three form fitting 140mm Aspect 14 PWM fans pre-installed. 

The back of the chassis is fully vented including the basement panel allowing free airflow from right to left.  I am surprised at the decision to not have a dedicated fan location along the back panel but, the venting allows for multiple locations to be used.

I do like how well the 140mm fans fill the entire front location which offers an efficient flow profile without any large gaps.

I will never get accustomed to having the back of a chassis fully vented like this.  However, one benefit is the option to position an exhaust fan anywhere you like including an 80mm fan near the expansion slots for extra GPU cooling,

To control the fans there is an included PWM fan hub which will take a PWM signal from your motherboard and broadcast it to every fan you have connected.  Unfortunately, the connections are limited but, should be enough for your case fans while cooler fans would be connected directly to your motherboard

Overall cooling can be expanded to include up to two 180mm fans at the top of the case along with supporting both 120mm and 140mm fans at the front / top / back.  On the Mesh editions of the North XL you can utilize two side mounted fans which can be configured to blow directly down on your hardware making a total of 9 supported fans in that particular configuration.