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
The Interior of the Fractal Design Node 202
The removal of the top cover is an easy process, as the panel comes off after the removal of its holding screws from the bottom of the case. This is also necessary for the user to gain access to the top air filter, as it is attached to the inside of the top cover.
The lower cover can also be removed, and has to be removed in order to access the lower intake filters beneath the video card and the PSU. This cover is not held with screws but with plastic clips, allowing it to come off after undoing them one-by-one. After the cover has been removed, the magnetic filters can be removed from the bottom of the case.
Fractal Design essentially ditched 5.25” and 3.5” devices completely and organized the interior of their case so as to fit a standard gaming system with a full size video card. The interior is essentially split into two areas, one for the motherboard and the PSU to the right and one for the video card to the left. The two areas are split by a steel support wall.
The PSU compartment is small, allowing the use of SFX units up to 130 mm long. In order to install the PSU, the frame needs to be removed, attached to the unit and then reinstalled along with the PSU.
An ITX motherboard just barely fits inside the Node 202, with minimal space around the board for cable management. After the PSU has been installed, managing the cables using the cable ties is a somewhat tedious process. There is little clearance for a cooler and only coolers up to 56 mm tall may fit, which can cause compatibility problems even with some high-performance stock coolers. There is also no slot for a low profile card and expansion cards can only be installed by using the supplied PCI Express riser card.
Only two 2.5” drives can be installed in the Node 202, on the metallic drive cage that is attached to the middle support wall between the compartments. The cage is designed so that one drive will be in the left compartment and the other drive will be in the right compartment. The support wall has an opening where the cage is installed, allowing the passage of cables for the drive in the left compartment of the case.
The most important feature of the Node 202 is its capability to support full size PCI Express video cards. However, there are limitations. The card can only be up to 310 mm long and up to 50 mm thick, if no intake fans have been installed beneath the card (or if 10 mm low profile fans were installed). If 120 mm × 25 mm intake fans are installed, the thickness of the card is limited to 35 mm. Although these may sound constrictive, the vast majority of mainstream gaming cards do fit in the Node 202 (ed: a reference GeForce GTX 1080 would be 266mm long). The small number of custom, top tier cards that do not fit would also be incompatible with the low power output of the supported SFX PSUs and possibly cause thermal issues as well.
Fractal Design has also placed a support for the card that can be adjusted via a screw at the bottom of the case. This may seem redundant for when the case is placed horizontally, but vertical placement could have a heavy card slipping out of the PCI Express slot, so the case design takes this into account.
An overall look with a system inside the Node 202 reveals that the build will be tight, with little room for cable management or modifications. It may be wise to select either Fractal Design’s own Integra SFX 450W PSU, which has been designed with this specific case in mind, or a modular SFX PSU.
Regardless the tight fit, a gaming system using an efficient CPU and mainstream video card, along with one or two SSDs, does fit in the Node 202 without issues, creating a very good gaming system. However, this is essentially the sole purpose of the case. If an expansion card is not installed (e.g. the user is content with integrated graphics) then the left compartment essentially is a dead area. No advanced liquid cooling solutions can be installed due to the wall separating the compartments and there is no way to support 3.5” drives without modifying the case. This prevents the Node 202 from being used as a file server or as a HTPC with large internal drives hosting media collections.
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FLHerne - Monday, June 6, 2016 - link
The pictures show a mic icon under the left socket, so it's (unsurprisingly) the body text that's wrong.romrunning - Monday, June 6, 2016 - link
"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."Ironically, the vertical-standing case pic on page 2 shows the exact opposite - the case is standing on the right side, basically covering the ventilation.
JoeyJoJo123 - Monday, June 6, 2016 - link
I'd argue this isn't really meant as a HTPC, despite the form factor, because of the lack of 3.5" drive support (most HTPCs are used as a means to playback videos, and many videos take lots of storage, and lots of storage requires the usage of multiple 3.5" drives). No 5.25" drive bay is actually OK since most users can just get an external 5.25" BDR drive, or whatever.It's really meant as a mobile/LAN party mini PC, where you can fit powerful current-gen desktop parts and still have it actually fit inside a large backpack, along with peripherals and cables, while you hold a monitor in your hands. It's also good for users who move/travel a lot, like those in the military, moving from one location to another every few months.
Some notes for people interested in the case:
1) It's most economical to get the case with the included Integra SFX PSU, as it comes out to a 450W 80+ Bronze for $50 + Case for $80, assuming a $130 cost for the package. Yes, you can get modular PSUs and such, but you'll be paying extra for that, and the Integra SFX actually does have shorter cables optimized to fit the Node 202 well. SFX-L power supplies from Silverstone fit, but reduce your available cable routing options by quite a bit. It's best to stick with SFX. If you need SFX-L, look to the FTZ-01 or the ML07-B for a slightly larger, but similar form factor case.
2) You can watercool the CPU with a slim 120mm AIO CLC kit with flexible tubing, however, this requires some modification of the case and limits your GPU choices to either an R9 Nano or possibly even a GTX 970 mini, but I'm not sure on the latter. Google "Challenge Accepted: Liquid Cooling in the Fractal Node 202!?" for a video.
3) The largest and most effective air cooler you can place in here is a Thermalright AXP-100R, at 60mm, but this requires removing the top dustcover from above the motherboard area. The AXP-100R (not the AXP-100 Muscle) includes a bracket to install slim 120 mounting fans onto the heatsink. This lets you mount a slim 140mm fan with 120mm mounting holes on the heatsink. TechPowerUp's Node 202 review shows the AXP-100R in use with the stock fan.
4) If you got lots of stuff you want to store, it's possible to get a mini-ITX board with an m.2 slot on the back of the motherboard, and use both of 2.5" drive bays for 2TB 5400 rpm drives. You can improve the responsiveness of these drives by opting to use them in RAID 0, and possibly using the M.2 as SSD cache through Intel RST, but this is a pretty risky move. You can stuff a 3rd or possibly 4th 2.5" drive into the case without securing it with screws, but be aware that the Integra SFX is optimized for the Node 202 and has only 2 SATA power connectors. Sure the drives won't fall out, but this situation isn't exactly ideal.
5) The case's thermals are probably its worst aspect, and it's not exactly the ideal enclosure if your intention is to load it up with the most powerful hardware and get a big overclock out of your CPU. If that's your intention, you'll definitely want to opt for a larger cube-like ITX case.
In all, this case is very niche. It's for users who need a really mobile desktop on the cheap, but are willing to sacrifice thermal performance. It's most ideal for a non-overclocked system (H170 platform) due to the thermal performance of the case, but those want to overclock and want a small form factor are capable of doing that, too, if they're up to the challenge.
If money is no object to you and you want the absolute smallest ITX system, look for the Dan A4. It's ~$265 to back on Kickstarter and would theoretically ship at the end of this year.
auzn - Monday, June 6, 2016 - link
HTPC does not need to have a large storage. That is what NAS is for.JoeyJoJo123 - Monday, June 6, 2016 - link
1) Most people don't have anything more than 1 desktop-sized PC in their living space, and many don't even have a PC, period.2) Of the extravagant few that do have multiple PCs in their living space, it's often a case of 1 PC-per-person, and possibly a shared/guest PC.
3) Of the increasingly smaller number of people that have HTPC sized PCs attached to their entertainment center, even fewer will have an additional NAS PC as well.
All that being said, of the people that have an HTPC attached to their entertainment center at all, very few will also have a NAS, too, so it's important to consider this device in isolation, rather than taking for granted that "Oh, any dude that buys this has a completely separate NAS in their house" which is completely dumb to assume.
Oh, and thanks for the 2 sentence response, bro.
dsraa - Monday, June 6, 2016 - link
While i agree with you, logic does dicatate that a NAS would make sense for this kind of scenario. This isn't meant as a one purpose fits all sizes type of use. Or neceassrily as a primary 'solo' system.So going forward, you'd have to adapt to the situation. If I were to be buying this as a HTPC/gaming, it would be used for streaming, not as a storage based multimedia system that would host movies, photos, and music. I would use or purchase a NAS for all of that OR, OR I would buy just a different case that had room for a 3.5 HDD or 2.
Icehawk - Monday, June 6, 2016 - link
HD enclosures aren't terribly expensive nor are usb drives if there isn't a NAS or other PC as storage options. Heck many wifi routers allow direct connection of an usb hard drive too.LostWander - Monday, June 6, 2016 - link
Thanks for the awesome post! I've been looking into building an ITX system to follow my way too big tower and while I might not go with this build you've got some great general points.ameanie - Monday, June 6, 2016 - link
Thank you so much for all this information on this case. I've been trying to find the best case that has a similar design to this while also trying to account for being able to cool it as well as possible (if I have to watercool, I don't mind but I have 0 experience with it)My intentions are to have an i7 6700k and a (probably) EVGA GTX 1080 in the build, but I've been having a hard time finding a case that's thin and can house those and deal with heat. Do you have any suggestions for that? Is it only possible to do it with a cube-like ITX case? I really want to save as much space as possible I live in a really small place and don't mind saving the necessary money to build the right thing for myself..
ameanie - Monday, June 6, 2016 - link
apparently there is no omment editing here? but...Not to mention picking a motherboard. I'm way in over my head trying to plan a build that will last for a long time while also being able to handle all the things I intend on doing (image/video editing, high end gaming/streaming) while staying cool and calm.