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 Exterior of the Fractal Design Node 202
Physically, the size and design of the Node 202 strongly resembles that of an old school VCR. It is a minimalistic design, made of straight lines and basic geometric shapes. It can be placed both horizontally, using the provided rubber feet, or vertically, using the provided plastic support frame. Most of the case has been sprayed with a matte black paint that is highly resistant to fingerprints. The lower part of the Node 202 is the one exception to this; it's glossy and highly reflective, and hence will pick up fingerprints.
Measuring 8.2 cm tall, 37.7 cm wide and 33 cm deep (3.25 × 14.85 × 13 in), resulting to a volume of just 10.2 liters, the Node 202 is much smaller than any ITX gaming case that we have previously tested, such as the Cougar QBX (19.9 liters, 95% larger) and the Corsair 250D (28.2 liters, 177% larger).
At first sight, the Node 202 appears to be just another slim HTPC case that forbids the use of full size expansion cards, a design that effectively negates the installation of any high performance video card, making it useless to gamers. That however is not true, as the Node 202 can accommodate a full size video card up to 310 mm long, comfortably over the roughly 280mm average for high-end cards..
The I/O ports can be seen to the left of the simple faceplate. From left to right, we can see two 3.5 mm headphone jacks, two USB 3.0 ports and a rhomboid power button.
The rear of the Node 202 is interesting, as we cannot see a place for the PSU but only a receptacle, hinting that Fractal Design moved the PSU compartment to the front of the case. There are also two white expansion card slot covers. There are no slots for fans and no vents above the motherboard’s I/O panel.
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ES_Revenge - Friday, June 17, 2016 - link
Sooo....basically the same layout as an RVZ-01E but with more elegant looks (flat surfaces, wrapped corners). Gotcha. Good news is it doesn't look like every other Fractal Design case out there, lol.rburnham - Friday, January 13, 2017 - link
This seems like a less gaudy version of Alienware's R3 line of PCs if you stand it up vertically. This is exactly what I need in a gaming PC. Enough room for only what I need.By the way, in the Testing segment of the article, there is a sentence that reads "However digging deeper, it's clear that the is designed to assist the cooling systems of the installed devices..." There's a word missing there.
Mark Davis - Monday, December 25, 2017 - link
Hey man, first of all, I need to thank you for this amazing review of Node 202. I enjoyed the whole time reading about this case. It is the very nice case, but I think it isn't the best in this market.Design of Node 202 is amazing in my opinion. I really love the clean and simple design, colored in matte black. It looks more like a console than like a PC. However, I saw some pretty powerful gaming rigs inside this bad boy. But, as you mentioned in the review, it is more for casual gaming PCs that stands in the living room.
I love the fact that you can position the case both horizontal and vertical. It makes a fitting job a lot easier, but I think that logo looks a little weird when the case is positioned vertically. However, I am probably the only guy that cares about that. I also saw guys that put PC in this case right next to PS4. It looks so cool, trust me!
I think inside of the case is also pretty nice. It has enough space for decent size components. I built gaming PC in small cases a couple of times, and I can say that it is a complitely new experience. It is very different, and I recommend to everyone to try it out.
I love mini ITX cases because they are also easy to transport, and I can easily travel with them from one place to another. I had a couple friends that loved LAN parties, so they also needed small PCs in most cases.
All in all, I love your review, and I think you mentioned everything about this case. This was all I needed to learn about Node 202. I will definitely read other reviews on your website and hopefully learn something new.
I also wanted to share my own blog where I talk about technology. I have article around similar topic, but I talked about many mini ITX cases. If you have a couple minutes, I would like to have your feedback.
You can find it here: https://safetygaming.com/best-mini-itx-cases/
All the best!
hmazuji - Wednesday, April 3, 2019 - link
my experience with the node 202:first off, this is for the developers, for fractal design, not intended to put off the enthusiastic apprentice from pursuing their goal:
i am building a asrock b450 itx. 1. this case will not host the amd 1700/2700 processor with non-optional heatstock fan & block. i ended up having to order a smaller footprint fan, but managed to salvage the heatsink block. please redesign the case to accommodate the amd line of processors. 2. the cable management of this case is horrid. i mean to say, it is abysmal. used a modular seasonic platinum power supply that i had to cut and splice to eliminate the extra yardage. to make this case work, fractal design needs to include such a power supply but with proprietary cables made for this case. for example, the power cables to the motherboard need to be streamlined to eliminate every single inch of overage. this case needs its own, and should ship with its own cables. 3. don't make the power supply optional. placing a seasonic in this case was a feat of engineering instead of plug and chug
my build is up and running, it just could have been a lot easier. i would recommend the fractal design define s over the node 202, but there it is the exact opposite. my node s build looks like an empty box with plenty of room for a dvd/blue rw drive, so i wasn't able to port my optical drive from my old system, even though it would have been useful, for example, watching movies, or installing windows 7, because windows 7 out of the box does not support usb 3