I don't understand the Fish Tank Aesthetic for PC Cases+Why I love FRACTAL DESIGN as a Case Manufacturer

I noticed something odd about custom builds that I've been seeing as early as 2023 

and that's the trend of the FISH TANK aesthetic for PC Cases.

What is the Fish Tank Aesthetic?

It's a PC Case design where it's mostly just Tempered Glass on the side and front of the case, 

And the look reeks of similarities to an Aquarium Fish Tank

Just without the glass refraction physics that the glass in Aquariums are known for.

So when did this style of PC Case become so popular?

Well it's LIAN LI who's responsible for this aesthetic.

When they released their first run of of O11 DYNAMIC Case back in 2018, they suddenly popularized the FISH TANK Aesthetic for PC Cases....

 

I personally don't understand what makes this style so popular with PC builders.

To me, it's really just a Case(No Pun Intended) of prioritizing... 

Style over substance

and not in a good way.

Part of the my problem with it this in-style of Computer cases is not just the over reliance of more and more Tempered glass than what I'm used to but other issues when it comes to Air flow..... Sort of.

I sometimes stop at a BEST BUYs in the Vancouver & Burnaby areas and I see several cases with this aesthetic and as it turns out, the Nonexistent Airflow thing I was talking about was purely a facade as the Airflow was coming from somewhere else which was the RIGHT SIDE PANEL.

This is why I'm serious when I said I was firmly of the side of HOMER HEAVER from DOUG when I said I'm more into the Woodgrain aesthetic.

"I kept telling them kids that Woodgrain is preferred for PC Cases,

but NOOooooo. They didn't listen until 2022."

This is also why my Church chose the FRACTAL NORTH PC Case when I built their replacement Streaming PC in April 2024.

Even though it was HOCSAN DIAZ who chose the case.

And speaking of which, 

That's also why I chose FRACTAL DESIGN as my choice of Manufacturer for PC Cases because I know they'll never follow the Trend of TOO MUCH Tempered glass and stick with either Cases with...

Solid & Silent Sound Dampening Brushed Aluminum,

Fractal Define Series

sticking with the tried and true method of cases that Prioritize Air Flow.

Fractal Torrent

Fractal Meshify Series

Fractal Pop Air

Or even Woodgrain Aesthetic but still prioritize Airflow.

Sorry for choosing photos of Fractal Cases that still have Tempered Glass Side Panels but I've got to respect the PC MASTER RACE community when it comes to showing off your motherboard, GPU, CPU Coolers, Ram, Etc.

That's the reason I chose the FRACTAL POP AIR as my Case.....

Though to be honest, 

I should have chosen the Full Tower Variant instead of the Mid-Tower variant 

though to be honest, I was on a budget when I did the case swap for my previous MAVERCK WARHAWK AM4 PC build.

Maybe in the future, I can switch my Case but FRACTAL DESIGN better make a variant of the NORTH XL Case where I can Mount a SATA BLU-RAY Drive.

Speaking about the FRACTAL NORTH XL Case, 

I'm glad CLINT BASINGER, aka LGR,

Chose the Fractal North XL Case when he had to build a new gaming PC

after his previous PHANTEKS GAMING PC from XIDAX got destroyed during HURRICANE HELENE in September 2024.

On an off tangent, 

There was a Windows 11 Update from August 12 2025 that reportedly caused some premature temporary failures for SSDs running the PHISON Controller.

While MICROSOFT was silent as we thought, PHISON was fast enough to report the issue and inform the WINDOWS Company on the matter.

After an entire month, it was discovered that the only people who have the issue were those who either had a pre-release version of SSDs with the PHISON Controller,

Or the user's haven't updated their BIOS yet.

And considering that people reported that they still had the issue with SSDs disappearing from their PCs, it's all traced to a AGESA firmware partial incompatibility.

SERIOUSLY, 

YOU NEED TO UPDATE THE BIOS IN YOUR COMPUTERS!

I HAD TO DO THE SAME TO MINE TO FIX STABILITY ISSUES IN MY PC!

Thanks to JAYZTWOCENTS & PHISON about warning us about this problem because I deal with file transfers all the time and I don't want this problem to kill my SSDs whether they be from 

SILICON POWER, SAMSUNG, LEXAR, or even KINGSTON.

Which are the brands of SSDs I use....

The Silicon Power, Samsung, and Lexar SSDs are in the Maverick Falcon 7900RT PC 

while the Kingston SSD is the one on my DELL Ryzen Laptop that I'm typing with.

(I bought the 1TB Kingston SSD to replace the 512GB Micron SSD that came with the laptop.)