Fractal Design Node 304 mITX Case Review: Paving the Way to the Future
by Dustin Sklavos on November 23, 2012 12:01 AM EST- Posted in
- Cases/Cooling/PSUs
- Mini ITX
- Fractal Design
- mITX
Conclusion: There's Potential Here
Reviewing the Fractal Design Node 304 is actually a somewhat layered experience, which is interesting given the fundamental simplicity of the design. Probably the first angle to attack is its thermal and acoustic performance, and on those fronts I feel Fractal Design has a success here. The fan controller is essentially only slightly throttling a trio of silent-running fans and bringing their noise level down even lower, but that's still a plus. I think CPU thermals would be improved by using a tower cooler or, alternatively, a closed loop liquid cooler, and at that point the Node 304 would exceed being competitive and start to really shine. Thermals on the dedicated video card were also excellent.
Where Fractal Design loses some steam is in the fundamental design, but again, that's more complicated than it initially appears. What they've done is give you a few modular pieces (specifically the drive brackets) with which you can then adapt the 304 to suit your needs. The problem is that cable space really is at a premium, and I think they missed an opportunity by not placing grills behind the front intake fans. I didn't have problems with cables getting into them, but I can see situations where that could happen. There's no real reason for the motherboard standoffs not to come pre-installed, either, and I really wish the shroud were easier to replace.
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The most interesting thing about the Node 304 may not be any of the usual criteria cases are typically evaluated by, but by how it portends changes in case design in the near future. As I mentioned in the introduction, Fractal Design targets the Node 304 as either a file server or as a minimalist system, but I think it goes deeper than that. Optical drives are essentially falling by the wayside and aren't strictly needed as internal hardware, so why take up space including one? Reset buttons also have a tendency to go unused, so they just omitted it entirely. The plain flat front and minimal style belies the truth: we rarely need cases bigger than this anymore.
By their nature, mITX cases often challenge the imaginations of enthusiasts a bit more, and I can't help but wonder if I could cram my desktop into the Node 304. It's an attractive, small, quiet case, with reasonable thermal performance. The fact that there are no external drive bays means the exterior is particularly clean, and it's striking. While Fractal Design could probably stand to revise the Node 304 a bit more and should consider switching to an SFX power supply to free up some internal space, ultimately this is a very compelling starting point for a small form factor build. I hope to see the Node 304 employed by enthusiasts and boutiques alike.
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Mumrik - Friday, November 23, 2012 - link
You have pretty high expectations for a case the size of two shoe boxes.Grok42 - Friday, November 23, 2012 - link
Since every nicer case and MB support it, I would LOVE to know what actual percentage of hand built gaming rigs have dual graphics. I really have no idea but it has to be very small. It really only makes sense when you want more horsepower than best in class single cards can give you. This means that a dual setup is going to be $600+ in just video cards. I guess it would be different if reasonable priced monitors weren't stuck at 1080p. To justify a dual setup you would need two 2560x1440 monitors which are $700+ each. Not saying this wouldn't be a great setup, just that there can't be that many of them.Death666Angel - Saturday, November 24, 2012 - link
3 x 1080/1200 is also on the verge of being unplayable at max settings for a single GPU card. Multi GPU use should be in the single digits percentage wise.infoilrator - Friday, November 23, 2012 - link
Good review:Typical comments in the "it is what I want/ no it is not" catagory
Question is do you excuse small cases for origami like configurations to become smaller?
What criteria are absolute, which not?
Personally, after larger cases, except some low budget one, have acquired cable management,
I do not see the need to squeeze so tight.
A half inch wider and an inch deeper would appeal a lot more to me.
I like USB/Audio plugs top front or top front side. I use these things. Neither thumb drives or USB cables seem to be 90 degree connectors,
Card readers are cheap enough to be there but it looks like USB external is the future (where is that..?)
Pretty much the same external DVD, oh well.
Power Supplies are more problemic.
SFF is possible
The Seasonic 360G is 140mm, could not find size listings for 450/550/650 G Series.
Rosewill Capstone is my wish list "go to" power supply
450 is 163 mm and the modular 450M is 170 mm, no so good
My budget "go to" is the Corsair CX430 AT 140 mm Deep, though you can argue this is not a budget case.
Which makes it function vs elegant, and no answer correct.
Elegant outside, less so inside. Functional inside vs functional outside so so.
They are going to sell a lot of these.
lwatcdr - Friday, November 23, 2012 - link
Blu-Ray drive or an LCD display. If you are going to use this for a home media center I can see some uses.Since this is a home server maybe you should have used 3 or more hdds and skipped the SSDs for some testing.
just4U - Friday, November 23, 2012 - link
I shudder every time I see Dustin's cabling handywork in assembling these testbeds.. (chuckle) Keep up the case reviews though, love them!Dustin Sklavos - Saturday, November 24, 2012 - link
Assemble and then tear down three to four cases a month (on top of your other work) and see how much you still care about tidy cabling. ;)Grok42 - Friday, November 23, 2012 - link
Seems like everyone thinks this case is ideal for a NAS server or HTPC. I get the server angle given that it has pretty good capacity for 3.5 and 2.5 because of the awesome decision to not include external bays. What I am surprised is that I get the idea no one would consider this for a workstation. What does everyone feel knocks it out of consideration? I'm seriously considering this over my current pick of a Lian-Li QB25.Dustin Sklavos - Saturday, November 24, 2012 - link
I've actually been mulling over exactly that. The only thing that really keeps me from doing it is that there are no Z77 mITX boards with FireWire.Metaluna - Monday, November 26, 2012 - link
I guess it depends on what your definition of a workstation is, and whether it includes gaming. I have never needed a gaming-level GPU in any work I've done in my professional life, for example, but I occasionally do need lots of memory and CPU power, plus ECC is always nice to have. In other words, I'd be looking for something that could fit a Xeon-class motherboard, but is small enough to tuck away somewhere on my desk (maybe behind the monitor) and still be fairly quiet under load. These large mITX shoebox cases have an awkward form-factor for the desktop, and if you're going to put it on the floor anyway, you probably won't save much space over a micro ATX or even full ATX mini-tower.I'm really not a fan of this style of case, and by that I mean the "huge shoebox" style, not the lack of ODD bays, which is a very worthy tradeoff. But if you need anything larger than a single-slot video card, they're pretty much the only option these days with a few exceptions.