Gaming consoles may not be as versatile as PCs, but one of their greatest advantages is their size and design. PCs on the other hand may be versatile and powerful multimedia and gaming machines, yet their insertion into elegant living rooms can be problematic. Large systems and tower cases are a major visual dissonance in a living room, whereas consoles were designed with that specific purpose in mind.

Motherboard manufacturers have been trying to combat this issue by creating highly advanced and fully featured Mini ITX motherboards specifically designed to be the heart of powerful gaming systems. Recent energy efficient CPUs also reduced their cooling requirements, allowing the use of smaller and quieter coolers. Still, most of the ITX cases that became available were not nearly as small as a console, as manufacturers had to compensate for the width of expansion cards and the size of optical drives. However with their newest Mini-ITX design, the Node 202, Fractal Design is looking to change this, producing a bare-minimum sized case specifically designed for building a gaming PC.

Introduction

Fractal Design is a well-known Swedish designer of PC cases. Most of their ITX designs are not an exception to the aforementioned rule, sacrificing volume for component compatibility and performance. However the company wanted us to take a look at their smallest ITX case, the Node 202. It is a slim case that physically resembles many other designs that were created for HTPC use, but, despite its very narrow chassis, the Node 202 can hold a full size video card, allowing the creation of very small but powerful gaming systems.

Packaging & Bundle

Fractal Design supplies the Node 202 into a simple, sturdy cardboard box. The monochromic artwork is based on schematics of the case itself, with some details on its features and specifications printed on the sides of the box. Inside the box, the case is well protected between two thick Styrofoam pieces and wrapped inside a nylon bag.

Black mounting hardware and a few cable ties are the core of every case’s bundle nowadays. Fractal design also supplies four rubber feet for the case and a PCI Express riser card. The manual is very detailed and well written. 

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.

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.

Test Setup

Professional testing requires the emulation of real-world situations but with repeatable results; thus, a perfectly controllable test setup and environment are required, especially for comparable results. Testing the thermal performance of any case with a typical real-world setup technically limits the comparability of the results to this setup alone, as an active system interacts with its environment and the change of a single component would alter myriads of variables. As such, we developed synthetic loads that emulate the thermal output of real systems, which however are passive, steady and quantifiable. As such, the thermal testing now displays the thermal capabilities of the case alone, as if it would have to deal with the entire thermal load by itself, regardless of the system that would be installed inside it. Laboratory data loggers are being used to monitor the PT100 sensors and control the safety relays, which are fully accessible via our custom software. The Mini-ITX version simulates a 150 W CPU, 30 W VRM, 20 W RAM and 1 × 120 W GPU card thermal load. For low-profile card setups, we are using a 50 W dummy GPU card instead. Finally, 2.5" HDD dummy loads have also been created, converting 15 W of electrical power to thermal. As such, the thermal load can be very high and only the best of cases will be able to handle it for more than a few minutes.

For the full power test, we are using the aforementioned configuration with the full-size 120W card, plus two 2.5" loads. The low load test reduces the main system's power output down to about 42% (132 Watts total), but the disk loads remain unchanged.

Noise testing has been performed with a background noise level of 30.4dB(A). Advanced noise testing is also being performed, in order to assess the ability of the case to dampen the noise of the components installed inside it. This includes the installation of two noise-generating sources (strong fans) inside the case, one positioned approximately over the first expansion slot and one over the CPU area, which generate ≈ 44.2 dB(A) when unobstructed. During the advanced noise test, all stock cooling options of the case are entirely disabled.

Results and Discussion

The thermal performance of the Node 202 is a complicated matter. From our testing, at first glace it appears to be very bad, which was to be expected from such a small case that lacks any active stock cooling, a scenario that admittedly doesn't mesh well with our test's dummy thermal loads. However digging deeper, it's clear that the is designed to assist the cooling systems of the installed devices - assuming that they are at least close to the latest reference designs - rather than taking on the work itself. This means a modern video card that will draw air from the bottom of the case and exhaust our the rear, along with a CPU cooler that will draw air in from the top of the case and the pressure will force it to exhaust via the vents to the side of the Node 202. Similarly, the PSU intakes air from the bottom and exhausts it to the right side of the case.

This cooling design should be good enough for a typical mainstream gaming system, but it is likely to cause issues with passively cooled or powerful hardware. The lack of active airflow would essentially trap the generated thermal energy inside the case. This is also true for every bit of hardware installed inside the Node 202 and will cause higher operating temperatures even if the CPU and GPU coolers are as described above, but small amounts of thermal energy generated by, for example, RAM modules and motherboard chipsets, should not pose a problem even when their cooling relies on passive, very low volume air flow. However, the thermal energy dissipated even by low power CPUs and GPUs is many times greater and the lack of proper airflow can easily cause overheating and throttling issues.

As the Node 202 has no stock cooling options, it obviously generates no sound pressure at all. The system’s noise entirely depends on the installed hardware and their programmed cooling scheme. The sound dampening capabilities of the Node 202 are limited, but better than we initially anticipated from a case lacking serious measures, most likely due to the lack of openings at the front side of the case. During our advanced noise testing, the Node 202 reduced the sound pressure of the installed dummy noise generator by 2.5 dB(A), a substantial figure.

Conclusion

Fractal Design created the Node 202 for use into modern living rooms, yet unlike some of the other living room-centric designs we've seen in the past, for the Node 202 they did not have an HTPC in mind. The case lacks the capability to support optical and 3.5” drives, essentially preventing the use of optical media and limiting the storage capacity of the system, features that are of primary importance to a HTPC. Instead this is a case intended to accommodate a modern Mini ITX gaming system within minimal proportions, all while maintaining an elegant external appearance. It would be no exaggeration to say that Fractal Design created the Node 202 envisioning the replacement of a gaming console from a gaming PC.

Recapping the design of the case, like some other living room-centric cases, the Node 202 can be placed either horizontally or vertically. However vertical placement will degrade the aesthetics of the case, as the company logo will be sideward and the bottom of the Node 202 is not flat and clean like the top. 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.

The size of the Node 202 introduces a number of limitations and the case is not very comfortable to work with. A lot of attention is needed when selecting the hardware, especially the length of the PSU’s cables, the size of the GPU card and the height of the CPU cooler. Cleaning the filters is a tedious, time consuming process, as both panels of the case need to come off. In terms of quality however the Node 202 does not disappoint, as the chassis is very strong and Fractal Design is using high quality materials.

Ultimately I can't help but to reiterate that this is a case designed for a very specific niche. It doesn’t have an optical drive bay for true HTPC usage, and it doesn't have 3.5" drive bays for use as a small file server. This is a case designed specifically to accommodate a full sized video card (or some other dual-slot PCIe card), and this is what it does well.

For its intended purpose, serving as a living room gaming machine, the Node 202 does not disappoint. With an energy efficient CPU and video card installed, the Node 202 can host a relatively powerful gaming PC. The tight space does pose some restrictions - you're going to want to stick to reference-style blower cards - but otherwise you shouldn't have any trouble getting a latest generation high-end card in the Node 202, a testament to both its design and the relatively low power consumption of the latest generation of cards.

In conclusion, the Node 202 is a case designed solely to introduce a gaming PC into a living room while maintaining a low volume and elegant form. Due to the very limited cooling options and the limiting SFX PSU, very powerful hardware will either cause issues or not fit at all. Still, the Node 202 can accommodate a potent gaming PC that will satisfy most users who want to do some casual gaming into the living room.