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I'm going to start this video with a quote from our new employee, Taran. Is

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that a printer? The answer is no. In fact, it is a computer. Cube cases are

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back in fashion, and Fractal Design has thrown their hat into the

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proverbial box to compete with the existing offerings like the Prodigy M

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from Bit Phoenix, the Air540 from Corsair, and the HalfXB from Cooler

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Master.

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The CMTORM SF17 uses a massive 18 cm fan

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to cool your gaming notebook and it adds a four- port USB hub. Click now to learn

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more. Starting with the outside, Fractal's traditional clean Scandinavian

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design aesthetic is definitely present here. The front of the case is a

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combination of brushed aluminum with a subtle curvature to it and mesh for air

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flow with a small fractal design logo and power LED as the only ornaments. On

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the right hand side, we find two front USB3 ports, headphone and microphone

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jacks, and ooh, a slimline optical drive

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mount that actually hides inside the

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front bezel. This is a really smart compromise between wasting space on a

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bunch of 5 and a/4 in bays and omitting them entirely like NZXT did on the H440.

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And when we pop the front bezel off, we find not only that slimline mount, but

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also a couple of 2 and 1/2 in SSD mounts

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with some cable management room, two dual 120 mm removable fan filters, and

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the cleverness continues. Very, very nice. The top cover slides off with a

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couple of thumb screws at the back just like the Ark Midi does, revealing some

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unfortunately difficult basically impossible to remove noise dampening

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foam as well as dual fan mounts on each

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side. On the right is a dual 120/40 mm

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fan mount that will work with a 240 or 240 mm radiator if you remove the hard

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drive cages first. And on the left is a dual 120 140 millimeter fan mount that

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looks like it would support a 280 millimeter radiator, but due to

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clearance constraints with the cooling on your motherboard and memory, it

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supports only a 240 mm radiator like we've got in there. On the back of the

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case, we find a three fan speed controller with settings for low,

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medium, and high. Definitely nice to have, but it would have been even better

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if it was pre-cable managed and, you know, already like plugged in and ready

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to rock like NZXT does on their cases. And we also find a couple more fan

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mounts. Boy, this case has a lot of those. Up to 10 fans total in the front,

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the top, and the back. The last thing on the back is motherboard IO and five PCI

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slots, which is a great configuration since it allows two dual slot graphics

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cards and an additional PCI Express expansion card in between with certain

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motherboards such as the Sniper that we have installed right now. On the bottom

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of the case are a couple more fan filters. It looks like Fractal expects

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this case to be configured for negative air flow since one of them sits right

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under the power supply and the other sits kind of in the middle of nowhere

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just as a random extra filtered intake.

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There are a couple of drive mounts on top of it that can be used for 3 and 1/2

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in or 2 and 1/2 in drives. We did one of each just to try it out. And the only

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complaint here was that the drives are so close to the bottom of the case that

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many SATA power connectors will not fit very well. And there's only one cable

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management spot running to one of them. So, the one on the left is a bit of a

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tight fit to run power and data to. On

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the left, we've got a nice large side panel window that we can remove to

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reveal one side of the segregated

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internals. So, on this side, we've got the skinny white PCI slot covers. And

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then on this side, the powerful black power supply cables are well, wait, hold

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on a second. Both sides actually have both black and white stuff on them

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because this is the 21st century, Donald. Anyway, with the side panels out

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of the way, we can see that the inside is segregated only for the purpose of

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creating thermal zones. So, on this side, we've got the NATX motherboard,

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which takes up pretty much the entire height of the case. That's what makes

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the Node 804 so short. Those two drive slots that I talked about before, and

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our AIO liquid cooler that fits, but

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required us to swap low profile memory for the Dominators that we had planned

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to use. The design is actually similar to other cubes, but the cable management

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choices that we can see here seemed a little bit odd. We've got these two

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massive holes on the right and at the bottom, which combined with the large

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CPU cutout at the back, weaken the motherboard tray significantly. Then

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along the bottom, we just get zip tie mounting points instead of additional

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holes for front USB, audio, and the like. I'd have rather seen Fractal

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include smaller holes for the 24 pin and video card connectors and use that extra

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strength to put in some other strategic mounting holes instead. Moving over to

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the backside, we've got room for as long a power supply as you could possibly

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want and some cool Velcro tie downs in the cable management zone that reveal

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another reason I might like to have smaller grommeted holes on the

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motherboard tray so I could keep this rat's nest out of sight. We also find

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the bulk of the hard drive mounts. In total, there are eight 3 and 1/2 in

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drive mounts here, but I suspect most people would have trouble actually cable

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managing all of that in here. We used the little spot in the top to simplify

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routing the eightpin motherboard connector and fan controller cables, but

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there's still just overall not a lot of room to work back here. And it was

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easier to mount our rear hard drive in the second from the bottom slot so that

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we had room for cables behind it. If you were clever enough and used tricks like

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pre-plugging in the drives and then installing them in the case and whatnot,

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this would bring your total up to 10 3 and 1/2 in drives and two 2 and 1/2 in

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drives, which is extremely impressive, especially when you consider that

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additional fans can easily be mounted to keep them all adequately cooled. So, if

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you figure it out, wow. All right, so let's just close with some general

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thoughts about the case. Embedded thumb screws are awesome. NZXT is using them

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on their side panels and I want everyone to start doing it. They don't cost much

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more and they really are a hassle saver so you don't lose your screws. Fractal

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would have liked to see those included. The overall build quality of the case is

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quite good. There is some flex to the chassis without the side panels

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installed. So I can kind of flex it a little bit here. But once they're on, it

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is completely rock solid. I love the compactness of this case. It feels a lot

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more space efficient than something like a Prodigy that with its feet isn't

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actually much smaller, but only accepts an ITX board and a bunch of drives or an

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NATX board and just a couple of drives for that version. But those usual

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challenges with small cases are definitely here. Building in the case in

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the first place isn't the easiest thing in the world, and upgrades will feel

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like a chore for full tower users when they need to remove entire hard drive

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cages just to install one new drive, for example. It's not a hardcore criticism

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of the Note 804 or anything, so much as it is a warning for anyone buying it. No

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amount of smart internal design adds volume to the inside of a case. So, as

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long as you're aware of what you're buying, then Fractal's latest

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reimagining of what I felt was a pretty wellestablished case category gets a big

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thumbs up from me. It's a great choice for a classy looking compact gaming rig,

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and it can also double as a pretty

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robust storage box as well. Thank you

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for watching, guys. The link for where to buy this product is in the video description below the like, dislike, and

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share buttons, which I would love for you to use accordingly. Also in the

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video description is a support link that we'd also love for you to use. If you

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appreciate what we do, you can get a t-shirt, give us a monthly contribution

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watching and as always, don't forget to subscribe to Linus Tech for more unboxings, reviews, and other computer

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