Fractal Design Node 605 Case Review: Is Fractal Design Ready for Primetime?

Noise and Thermal Testing, IGP

The mITX testbed we use typically isn't particularly stressful; a case would have to be really dire to produce bad results here, and the Fractal Design Node 605 should handle this just fine. For basic home theater PC use, a CPU with equivalent or lesser wattage would be ideal along with a Micro-ATX board. We'll see what happens when dedicated graphics are added on the next page, but for now things should be pretty smooth.

The Node 605 was tested at each of its three fan settings with an ambient temperature of ~21C.

And here's where the bad news starts. The Node 605's thermal design is somewhat lacking. Fractal Design uses filters on all of its fans, but the problem is that the fans themselves aren't particularly powerful to begin with. If you bump up to the high setting you can get more mileage, but the case is definitely audible at that point as you'll see below.

Fan speed is capable of being competitive; Cooler Master's Elite 120 Advanced has a harder time keeping the CPU cool, but it's also half the size and a quarter of the price of the Node 605.

The Node 605's low and medium settings are competitive, but the high setting is too noisy for HTPC use.

With just the bare minimum hardware installed, the Node 605 is already struggling a little bit. CPU thermals are mediocre at best, but to get those thermals you have to ramp up the fans some, otherwise they're just bad. Perhaps more damningly, the smaller Node 304 actually produces better thermals and noise than the 605 does.