Fractal Design Node 304 review

Written by Antony Leather

September 19, 2012 | 08:17

Tags: #best-mini-itx-case #mini-itx #mini-itx-case #small-form-factor

Companies: #fractal-design

Fractal Design Node 304 - Interior


The inside of the Node 304 is a much more interesting place. The main feature or features are three large 3.5in drive cages that rest on their sides, supported by the front of the case and a lateral support bar and thumb-screwed in position. Each supports a pair of 3.5in or 2.5 hard disks/SSDs, secured using anti-vibration grommets. They sit just above the PSU at the front of the case and make routing cables around a little easier as your drives are easily reachable instead of hidden in the depths somewhere.

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In front of these are two 92mm fans, which, combined with the front PSU mount, mean that installing larger fans or a water-cooling radiator here isn't going to be an option without extensive modding. The rear 140mm fan however does have some room around it, but if you're looking to add a custom water-cooling kit, the roof would be your best bet, if you're prepared to cut the necessary holes and do away with the hard disk mounts that is.

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You could then mount a combined pump and reservoir near the PSU. There are options if you're handy with a Dremel, but the Prodigy is king when it comes to mixing mini-ITX and water cooling. That said, using single-fan all-in-one liquid coolers should be simple - the rear fan is located right next to the motherboard.

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Cable tidying is never easy in small cases, and while the Prodigy has an enlarged PSU cage, the Node 304 doesn't leave you with many options other than cable ties or using one of the drive cages to tuck things away. Other than this, installing hardware isn't too tricky, although due to the extremely close proximity of the motherboard, PSU, graphics card ad hard disk cages, you'll probably need to install things in a certain order, cable tidying as you go, especially if you're be using a long graphics card.

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As you can see, there's plenty of room for tall CPU coolers, although the rear fan and hard disk cages will mean there's not a whole heap of room for wide coolers, especially as you'll probably want to combine the rear fan with those on your own cooler for a wind tunnel effect through the case.
Discuss this in the forums

Posted by guvnar - Wed Sep 19 2012 07:32

Aaaah SilverStone Sugo SG08 take note... price/size much closer!

Posted by wafflesomd - Wed Sep 19 2012 07:33

guvnar
Aaaah SilverStone Sugo SG08 take note... price/size much closer!
Silverstone has a lot of other cheaper Matx cases.

Looks like this is the case I'll go with. I was really unsatisfied with the SG02 I bought and ended up giving it to my stepfather to load his AMD fusion rig.

Thanks bit-tech for covering all these cases.

Posted by scott_chegg - Wed Sep 19 2012 07:43

Loving all the MiniITX coverage.

Posted by Krikkit - Wed Sep 19 2012 07:52

scott_chegg
Loving all the MiniITX coverage.
Me too.

This looks like an excellent bit of kit, the PSU solution is a really good idea to let you use proper CPU coolers, rather than crappy low profile jobs.

OT: Spelling mistake in the 2nd paragraph, first page, "bushiness" should be "business" methinks. Also, last sentence of the 4th paragraph should probably be "so read on" rather than "but read on".
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