Fractal Design Node 804 Cube Case
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2015-05-07
·
1,573 words · ~7 min read
0:00
I'm going to start this video with a quote from our new employee, Taran. Is
0:04
that a printer? The answer is no. In fact, it is a computer. Cube cases are
0:10
back in fashion, and Fractal Design has thrown their hat into the
0:14
proverbial box to compete with the existing offerings like the Prodigy M
0:19
from Bit Phoenix, the Air540 from Corsair, and the HalfXB from Cooler
0:23
Master.
0:31
The CMTORM SF17 uses a massive 18 cm fan
0:35
to cool your gaming notebook and it adds a four- port USB hub. Click now to learn
0:39
more. Starting with the outside, Fractal's traditional clean Scandinavian
0:44
design aesthetic is definitely present here. The front of the case is a
0:48
combination of brushed aluminum with a subtle curvature to it and mesh for air
0:52
flow with a small fractal design logo and power LED as the only ornaments. On
0:58
the right hand side, we find two front USB3 ports, headphone and microphone
1:01
jacks, and ooh, a slimline optical drive
1:05
mount that actually hides inside the
1:08
front bezel. This is a really smart compromise between wasting space on a
1:13
bunch of 5 and a/4 in bays and omitting them entirely like NZXT did on the H440.
1:18
And when we pop the front bezel off, we find not only that slimline mount, but
1:23
also a couple of 2 and 1/2 in SSD mounts
1:27
with some cable management room, two dual 120 mm removable fan filters, and
1:33
the cleverness continues. Very, very nice. The top cover slides off with a
1:39
couple of thumb screws at the back just like the Ark Midi does, revealing some
1:43
unfortunately difficult basically impossible to remove noise dampening
1:48
foam as well as dual fan mounts on each
1:52
side. On the right is a dual 120/40 mm
1:56
fan mount that will work with a 240 or 240 mm radiator if you remove the hard
2:01
drive cages first. And on the left is a dual 120 140 millimeter fan mount that
2:07
looks like it would support a 280 millimeter radiator, but due to
2:11
clearance constraints with the cooling on your motherboard and memory, it
2:14
supports only a 240 mm radiator like we've got in there. On the back of the
2:19
case, we find a three fan speed controller with settings for low,
2:24
medium, and high. Definitely nice to have, but it would have been even better
2:28
if it was pre-cable managed and, you know, already like plugged in and ready
2:32
to rock like NZXT does on their cases. And we also find a couple more fan
2:36
mounts. Boy, this case has a lot of those. Up to 10 fans total in the front,
2:42
the top, and the back. The last thing on the back is motherboard IO and five PCI
2:48
slots, which is a great configuration since it allows two dual slot graphics
2:52
cards and an additional PCI Express expansion card in between with certain
2:57
motherboards such as the Sniper that we have installed right now. On the bottom
3:02
of the case are a couple more fan filters. It looks like Fractal expects
3:05
this case to be configured for negative air flow since one of them sits right
3:10
under the power supply and the other sits kind of in the middle of nowhere
3:14
just as a random extra filtered intake.
3:17
There are a couple of drive mounts on top of it that can be used for 3 and 1/2
3:22
in or 2 and 1/2 in drives. We did one of each just to try it out. And the only
3:26
complaint here was that the drives are so close to the bottom of the case that
3:31
many SATA power connectors will not fit very well. And there's only one cable
3:36
management spot running to one of them. So, the one on the left is a bit of a
3:40
tight fit to run power and data to. On
3:43
the left, we've got a nice large side panel window that we can remove to
3:46
reveal one side of the segregated
3:50
internals. So, on this side, we've got the skinny white PCI slot covers. And
3:54
then on this side, the powerful black power supply cables are well, wait, hold
4:00
on a second. Both sides actually have both black and white stuff on them
4:05
because this is the 21st century, Donald. Anyway, with the side panels out
4:10
of the way, we can see that the inside is segregated only for the purpose of
4:14
creating thermal zones. So, on this side, we've got the NATX motherboard,
4:18
which takes up pretty much the entire height of the case. That's what makes
4:21
the Node 804 so short. Those two drive slots that I talked about before, and
4:26
our AIO liquid cooler that fits, but
4:29
required us to swap low profile memory for the Dominators that we had planned
4:34
to use. The design is actually similar to other cubes, but the cable management
4:38
choices that we can see here seemed a little bit odd. We've got these two
4:42
massive holes on the right and at the bottom, which combined with the large
4:46
CPU cutout at the back, weaken the motherboard tray significantly. Then
4:50
along the bottom, we just get zip tie mounting points instead of additional
4:54
holes for front USB, audio, and the like. I'd have rather seen Fractal
4:59
include smaller holes for the 24 pin and video card connectors and use that extra
5:04
strength to put in some other strategic mounting holes instead. Moving over to
5:08
the backside, we've got room for as long a power supply as you could possibly
5:12
want and some cool Velcro tie downs in the cable management zone that reveal
5:17
another reason I might like to have smaller grommeted holes on the
5:21
motherboard tray so I could keep this rat's nest out of sight. We also find
5:26
the bulk of the hard drive mounts. In total, there are eight 3 and 1/2 in
5:30
drive mounts here, but I suspect most people would have trouble actually cable
5:34
managing all of that in here. We used the little spot in the top to simplify
5:39
routing the eightpin motherboard connector and fan controller cables, but
5:42
there's still just overall not a lot of room to work back here. And it was
5:47
easier to mount our rear hard drive in the second from the bottom slot so that
5:51
we had room for cables behind it. If you were clever enough and used tricks like
5:57
pre-plugging in the drives and then installing them in the case and whatnot,
6:00
this would bring your total up to 10 3 and 1/2 in drives and two 2 and 1/2 in
6:06
drives, which is extremely impressive, especially when you consider that
6:11
additional fans can easily be mounted to keep them all adequately cooled. So, if
6:15
you figure it out, wow. All right, so let's just close with some general
6:19
thoughts about the case. Embedded thumb screws are awesome. NZXT is using them
6:24
on their side panels and I want everyone to start doing it. They don't cost much
6:28
more and they really are a hassle saver so you don't lose your screws. Fractal
6:32
would have liked to see those included. The overall build quality of the case is
6:35
quite good. There is some flex to the chassis without the side panels
6:40
installed. So I can kind of flex it a little bit here. But once they're on, it
6:45
is completely rock solid. I love the compactness of this case. It feels a lot
6:50
more space efficient than something like a Prodigy that with its feet isn't
6:54
actually much smaller, but only accepts an ITX board and a bunch of drives or an
6:59
NATX board and just a couple of drives for that version. But those usual
7:05
challenges with small cases are definitely here. Building in the case in
7:09
the first place isn't the easiest thing in the world, and upgrades will feel
7:13
like a chore for full tower users when they need to remove entire hard drive
7:18
cages just to install one new drive, for example. It's not a hardcore criticism
7:22
of the Note 804 or anything, so much as it is a warning for anyone buying it. No
7:28
amount of smart internal design adds volume to the inside of a case. So, as
7:34
long as you're aware of what you're buying, then Fractal's latest
7:37
reimagining of what I felt was a pretty wellestablished case category gets a big
7:41
thumbs up from me. It's a great choice for a classy looking compact gaming rig,
7:46
and it can also double as a pretty
7:49
robust storage box as well. Thank you
7:52
for watching, guys. The link for where to buy this product is in the video description below the like, dislike, and
7:57
share buttons, which I would love for you to use accordingly. Also in the
8:00
video description is a support link that we'd also love for you to use. If you
8:03
appreciate what we do, you can get a t-shirt, give us a monthly contribution
8:06
or change your browser bookmarks to sites that give us an affiliate kickback
8:09
when you buy stuff like Amazon. It helps us out a lot. Thank you again for
8:13
watching and as always, don't forget to subscribe to Linus Tech for more unboxings, reviews, and other computer
8:17
videos.