The Fractal Design Node 202 Case Review: Mini-ITX Gaming For the Living Room
by E. Fylladitakis on June 6, 2016 9:15 AM EST- Posted in
- Cases/Cooling/PSUs
- Mini ITX
- HTPC
- Fractal Design
- ITX
Conclusion
Fractal Design created the Node 202 for use into modern living rooms, yet unlike some of the other living room-centric designs we've seen in the past, for the Node 202 they did not have an HTPC in mind. The case lacks the capability to support optical and 3.5” drives, essentially preventing the use of optical media and limiting the storage capacity of the system, features that are of primary importance to a HTPC. Instead this is a case intended to accommodate a modern Mini ITX gaming system within minimal proportions, all while maintaining an elegant external appearance. It would be no exaggeration to say that Fractal Design created the Node 202 envisioning the replacement of a gaming console from a gaming PC.
Recapping the design of the case, like some other living room-centric cases, the Node 202 can be placed either horizontally or vertically. However vertical placement will degrade the aesthetics of the case, as the company logo will be sideward and the bottom of the Node 202 is not flat and clean like the top. When placed vertically, depending on the system and setup, it is wise to place the Node 202 with its left side down, as the right side offers some ventilation to the CPU/Motherboard area.
The size of the Node 202 introduces a number of limitations and the case is not very comfortable to work with. A lot of attention is needed when selecting the hardware, especially the length of the PSU’s cables, the size of the GPU card and the height of the CPU cooler. Cleaning the filters is a tedious, time consuming process, as both panels of the case need to come off. In terms of quality however the Node 202 does not disappoint, as the chassis is very strong and Fractal Design is using high quality materials.
Ultimately I can't help but to reiterate that this is a case designed for a very specific niche. It doesn’t have an optical drive bay for true HTPC usage, and it doesn't have 3.5" drive bays for use as a small file server. This is a case designed specifically to accommodate a full sized video card (or some other dual-slot PCIe card), and this is what it does well.
For its intended purpose, serving as a living room gaming machine, the Node 202 does not disappoint. With an energy efficient CPU and video card installed, the Node 202 can host a relatively powerful gaming PC. The tight space does pose some restrictions - you're going to want to stick to reference-style blower cards - but otherwise you shouldn't have any trouble getting a latest generation high-end card in the Node 202, a testament to both its design and the relatively low power consumption of the latest generation of cards.
In conclusion, the Node 202 is a case designed solely to introduce a gaming PC into a living room while maintaining a low volume and elegant form. Due to the very limited cooling options and the limiting SFX PSU, very powerful hardware will either cause issues or not fit at all. Still, the Node 202 can accommodate a potent gaming PC that will satisfy most users who want to do some casual gaming into the living room.
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JoeyJoJo123 - Tuesday, June 7, 2016 - link
Hi ameanie,Given your use case of:
Small as possible
High End Gaming
Video/Image Editing
Video Streaming
I believe you've chosen 6700k + GTX 1080 well, and they're solid choices for your use-cases. Understandably, now you're having troubles considering how to enclose these two parts, and you want as small of an enclosure possible while still maintaining the performance you need.
1) Given that you want to do image editing, heavy Photoshop transformations benefit a lot from more RAM. Video editing benefits a lot from RAM, too. This reasonably justifies 16GB of RAM.
2) Given that you want to do video editing, particularly since uncompressed 1080p video has a high bitrate, this reasonably justifies having a large "scratch drive" SSD, as the high sequential and random read speeds allows you to seek through video and preview it much faster than you could on a normal drive. Also, given that you want to do video editing, you'll also want a fairly large 3.5" HDD to store video files.
3) Gaming is justification enough to get an unlocked SKU and Z170 series motherboard for overclocking. Overclocking isn't too big of a necessity if you were just going to image/video editing and streaming, though.
From all this, I gather you'd need something bigger than what the Node 202 can offer. I made the following PC Part Picker list for you to review:
pcpartpicker(dot)com/list/8w8RsJ
It's pricey, but keep in mind that you make at least three sacrifices with small form factor builds.
1) Internal space. (But you get more external space outside of the case, around your desk, and such.)
2) Cost. (SFF parts cost more than regular sized desktop components.)
3) Decreased Noise/Thermal performance. (To get adequate thermal performance, you need faster fans; faster fans lead to higher noise; higher noise in a small case with no sound dampening makes for a tiny and relatively noisy PC.)
Also, keep in mind that
1) Parametric filters update to the cheapest price to get an item that fits that filter in the list.
2) It's particularly pricey since many of the components aren't really at good prices at the moment.
3) Kaby Lake can launch before you save up enough to get your PC parts; Don't commit to buying processor and motherboard until it's the last parts you need, as these may be superceded by a new, better version. The same thing goes for the GTX 1080, in terms of a potential GTX 1080 Ti launch.
dartico - Friday, June 10, 2016 - link
What do you think about an i76700K (no OC) and a reference 1070 or RX480 into this case? I'm planning my next build with those components.bill.rookard - Monday, June 6, 2016 - link
I would say that if they wanted to, Fractal Design could easily fit (design) a 2 x 3.5" drive cage or 4 x 2.5" cage as an adapter if the end user forgoes a video card - thus this could easily become a small file server / NAS / HTPC.I'm rather surprised that they didn't think that through. It would be trivial to add a few rubberized mounts and a single stamped piece of steel.
JoeyJoJo123 - Tuesday, June 7, 2016 - link
Yeah, this isn't the Node 202's strong point for two reasons.1) It wasn't designed that way. And even if they did what you said, then it'd still be worse than getting a 2U server case with hotswap drive bays, and hotswap drive bays are a big convenience when having some kind of fileserver.
2) They have a PC case that suits that use-case better: Node 304. And the 304 fits 6 drives, if you're not using a graphics card.
Still, having that option would be NICE, but I'm just saying they probably dismissed it as that wasn't the target audience that this PC case is intended for, thinking that audience would get a different case they offer instead, like the 304.
romrunning - Monday, June 6, 2016 - link
I wish all case makers would just make their filters all externally accessible. When you have to open a case (multiple panels, in some cases) just to clean the filter(s), then you greatly decrease the likelihood of the user actually doing that.Just imagine if your HVAC unit at home required you or the service tech to take off a ton of panels just to replace the air filter. This is exactly why HVAC systems have been designed for easy access to the filter; most just slide one out & slide the other one in. While computers may not require the filters like a HVAC system does, they could at least learn from the simplicity of the HVAC filter replacement process.
My Phanteks Enthoo Pro has 3 filters - one internal mesh screen, one magnetically-attached outside filter, and one slide-out filter on the PSU. Three different styles - why they all can't be mag-attached outside filters, I'll never know.
flashbacck - Monday, June 6, 2016 - link
Silverstone ftz01 or rvz01 are also worth looking at. they are very very similar but do support a 3.5 drive and slot load disc drive.TheGovernator - Monday, June 6, 2016 - link
OMG love the GTX 295! Case looks great, but that GPU tho...Jokes aside this looks like a great case. Wonder how it would stack up against Silverstone's offerings, and that new case on kickstarter that Lian Li was going to manufacture, ncase m1 or something like that. I recall that case being around 12 liters, but this is all off the top of my head, so could be wrong.
pencea - Monday, June 6, 2016 - link
All these reviews and articles and yet still no reviews for the GTX 1080 which has been out for nearly two weeks already, while other major sites have already posted their reviews on both the 1070 and 1080.Cygni - Monday, June 6, 2016 - link
Really like this case and wish more companies would invest in ITX gaming. It's odd still seeing so much focus on ATX motherboards and cases in 2016 when next to no one is actually using any add in cards in the first place, and multi-GPU gaming has been hovering in the single digit usage rate for years.Olaf van der Spek - Monday, June 6, 2016 - link
I wish they'd design some compact mITX/mATX towers.. 17cm wide, 35cm deep, no 5.25" bays, regular ATX PSU support..2x 120mm or 2x 140mm fan support in front.
It'd avoid compromises those ultra-compact mITX systems have to make.