Node 202 review: Mini-ITX Gaming For the Living Room

Inside the Box:

• Fractal Design Node 202
• Fractal Integra 450W PSU
• Stand
• Riser card
• Adhesive Feet
• Manual

The Outside

The Node 202 looks great. Its actual design is simplistic, which is a common theme from Fractal Design, but the slim look is much preferred to the boxy Nodes we see elsewhere in the range. It’s mostly comprised of three parts, with the top shell lifting off after removing the screws from the underside. This is small but I’d still say noticeably bigger than consoles.

The front sees the most features, from what is essentially a ventilated box. The only bit of branding is on the front, Fractal Design is near the top, or right depending on how you have this orientated and it looks quite nice. The branding appears to only suit this when laying flat but I quite like it either way.

The front I/O ports sit neatly along the bottom, much like a console. The connectivity isn’t the greatest but two USB 3.0 ports and an audio/mic jack are an OK place to start. The on button sits just above or to the right of the front I/O depending on how you have it setup. The power button looks great, it’s an angular piece of plastic that works well with the design of the case and has a small amount of illumination.

Rear

Looking at the Node 202 from the back, we can see it’s just about an inch wider than a standard I/O shield. There are two expansion slots and you can fit a 2.5 slot GPU in here without issue.

Aside from that, there is nothing to report at the back, although, this is where the PSU power extension comes out.

Fractal Design Node 202 Black — Compact Mini Tower Computer Case — Mini ITX…

The Top/

Side/ Bottom

The top of the case (when laying horizontal) is one entire piece that securely screws into the base plate. The sides are just airflow ventilation panels and don’t come off as you would see from a regular PC case. The sides are part of the entire top shell, which lifts off.

There is a small square ventilation section to help the CPU with airflow but other than that, it is pretty basic.

The bottom is kind of a back panel, except it isn’t fixed to the rest of the chassis. The bottom joins the top cover in creating the shell of this PC case but the third internal part is where we see cable cut-outs, tie points and storage. Just four screws separate the two “panels” and the bottom is where we see some extra ventilation. There is a small vent for the PSU and a GPU sized vent for the graphics card, two 120mm fans, or both.

The Node 202 ships with an included stand. When using the stand you can set this up vertically and it feels incredibly sturdy. There is no wobble and the PC case slides into a very snug fit, meaning this is going to take quite a bump before falling over. Alternatively, you have this lay horizontally, with included rubber feet to prevent slipping on the table. With the PSU and GPU intake being on the bottom, it is advisable to have it vertically for cooling purposes but it can manage well enough horizontally.

The Inside

Lifting the lid on the Node 202 reveals a clever layout. Removing the top panel is relatively simple, you unscrew the four screws at the bottom, flip it over and voila. That being said, it was a little fiddly when re-attaching but it’s easy enough.  

The lower cover can also be removed via the clips and has to come off if you are wanting to clean the magnetic intake filers for the GPU/PSU. The clips are a little fiddly again, with you having to unclip it one by one. 

The interior is incredibly easy to work with, despite its small form but Fractal Design has done away with 5.25” and 3.25” device support. Inside, there is a single drive bay that attaches to the inner frame with a single screw. You can mount two SSD drives to the inside but I’d advise going for an M.2 SSD drive if you can afford it. I used an M.2 with a single 2.5” SSD to support it, giving me a bit of much-needed room to stash cables in the drive bay.

 The interior is split into two areas, giving this chassis room for a standard gaming system and full-sized video card. Our model shipped with an SFX PSU preinstalled but the compartment can fit a PSU up to 130mm long. There is a kettle lead that loops around the case to keep external power at the back of the chassis without interfering with the layout.

This SFF PC case can only accommodate for a Mini-ITX sized motherboard and comes with the stand-off screws already in place. The board just barely fits, with minimal space around the edge for cable management. There is a touch of room to manage your front I/O cables in quite a neat fashion but you are definitely going to want to break out the cable ties. The CPU cooler clearance is about 56mm, which is enough for some stock coolers but double-check this before buying. Intel stock coolers fit no problem but some AMD coolers are a bit bulky.

A key feature to the Node 202 is its ability to support a full-sized GPU; however, with a case this size, there are always going to be a few limitations. This case uses a PCIe riser card to connect the GPU in the other chamber. The card you go with can be up to 310mm long and about 50mm thick when using no intake fans. If you wanted to install intake fans (which is recommended), the GPU you go for can only be 35mm thick. It may be advisable to go for a blower-style thin profile GPU but with a 450W PSU pre-installed, you are probably looking at an impressive mid-range build at best here.

When building in the Node 202, it will be a bit tricky for inexperienced builders. Even if you’ve built your fair share of PCs over the years, a case of this form factor can still pose a challenge. So yes, a tight fit with the interior but this chassis stays true to the form factor and the layout design is intuitive and builder-friendly. That being said, the case isn’t very versatile, you can create a decent gaming system and little else. There is no modularity like we see with most Fractal Design cases these days but the unique nature of the Node 202 is still very appealing.

Fractal Design Node 202 Black — Compact Mini Tower Computer Case — Mini ITX…

Features

Despite being quite old and small, the Node 202 still comes with a few key features. Like most Fractal Design cases, the Node 202 has excellent build quality, with high-end materials and solid construction. This is quite a versatile machine made for both the living room and computer desk. The Node 202 can stand it vertically with the use of the stand and lay down horizontally for the home theatre setup.

Small Form Factor – The Node 202 stays true to the form factor and is truly a Mini-ITX chassis. This features a 10.2-liter volume and is incredibly slim, much like a console. This may only support SFX power supplies and Mini-ITX motherboards but it can still fit a full-sized GPU(up to 310mm). 

Due to the small footprint of the Node 202, we see an impressive interior layout with separate chambers. The motherboard and graphics card are separated in what Fractal Design call, thermal interior design.

Dust-Free – Where ever we see an intake vent, we see a dust filter. With such a small foot-print, keeping dust out of this PC case is more important than with a mid-tower as dust can add heat. While the dust filters aren’t the easiest to access it’s great to see them included.

A lot of pleasing features to really help get the best out of my components and the pre-installed PSU made things even easier. This is going to be a great addition to the modern living room but with no 5. 25” drive bay, it might not replace everyone’s HTPC needs.

Our Verdict

The Fractal Design Node 202, in many ways, is a superb Mini-ITX chassis. It offers a unique layout for SFF builders and will look the part in the living room or at the gaming desk. The vertical or horizontal versatility means there is space in almost any setup for this PC case.

The Node 202 is a bit of a challenge to build in but the layout is logical and there is still a bit of wiggle room to manage your cables efficiently. Like most Fractal cases, the Node 202 is built from high-end materials and constructed to last.

While the node 202 can’t strictly be used as an HTPC, due to no 5.25” drive bay, it can bring high-end gaming into the living room, with enough space for a full-sized GPU. Cooling is limited with a case like this but it can still handle a decent gaming system and offers that console form factor. A great Mini-ITX case.

Fractal Design Node 202 Black — Compact Mini Tower Computer Case — Mini ITX. ..

Fractal Design Node 202 Review

Written by

Matthew Lambert

February 11, 2016 | 16:09

Tags: #best-htpc-case #best-mini-itx-case #htpc #mini-itx

Companies: #fractal-design

1 — Fractal Design Node 202 Review2 — Fractal Design Node 202 Review — Interior3 — Fractal Design Node 202 Review — Cooling Performance4 — Fractal Design Node 202 Review — Performance Analysis and Conclusion

Performance Analysis

The first thing to note is that the vertical orientation benefits both the CPU and GPU more than the horizontal one, which is to be expected. For the CPU, it’s only ever a difference of 2°C or less, as in both orientations its ventilation area remains unblocked. For the GPU, however, we see an increase of 13°C as the vent serving the GPU is next to the floor horizontally, thus limiting the availability of cool air.

Relative to other cases, the CPU results are a little on the warm side, but the differences are very small. It’s worth remembering that the Node 202 has a dust filter over the CPU vent whereas the windowed RVZ02 we tested did not. Still, the warmer results apply for both tests i.e. with and without the graphics card installed. Having the GPU there does warm up the CPU by 4°C or 5°C, but this isn’t anything to be concerned about, and it doesn’t affect either orientation significantly more than the other. While the two components are thermally separate for the most part, a graphics cards will still result in an appreciable increase of warm air in the case and around the other components.

Click to enlarge

The GPU results, however, are not very good. Even the best result, a delta T of 59°C in the vertical arrangement, is 8°C warmer than the SilverStone RVZ02 in its horizontal operation. When vertical, the RVZ02 is essentially as effective as having the card on an open bench, and a massive 20°C cooler. Such a big difference may at first seem odd given how similar the two are in their internal designs but the key, we believe, is the proximity of the GPU intake fan to the ventilation area. Fractal leaves a sizeable gap between the two to make way for fans, while in the SilverStone case the GPU is almost touching the case edge. There is also the fact that the tested SilverStone chassis had no dust filter whereas the Fractal one does, but going by the CPU results this shouldn’t make this big a difference. If you’re going to be gaming with the Node 202, we definitely recommend standing the case vertically or using the fan mounts – otherwise you risk throttling or excess noise as your GPU tries to make up for the airflow deficit.

Conclusion

The Node 202 is a great little chassis in many ways. It looks the part for a living room PC and, once you’re inside, is surprisingly easy to work with and not even that bad for cable routing. Despite its size, you can install some powerful hardware inside and have yourself a lean, mean Steam Machine. With or without the PSU, it’s also pretty good value, and remember again that the PSU has a handy short cable set.

However, we do have some niggles. Firstly, getting into the case and closing it up again has got to be easier than it currently is, especially as it’s needed to clean the dust filters. SilverStone solves this by having external filters, which of course don’t look as sleek, but unclipping the bottom panel and realigning the top panel in the Node 202 are both processes that need work.

Click to enlarge

Second is the GPU cooling, and you shouldn’t overlook this too quickly, especially in something designed for the living room as a hotter GPU means a louder one. Yes, Fractal does leave room for fans, but it seems that with most cards you’ll only have room for slimline models which aren’t massively effective. Plus, it’s another cost and another potential source of noise. SilverStone’s solution is simply more elegant, and it leaves the RVZ02 room to have easier to use 2.5in drive mounts, a slimline optical drive mount (arguably still relevant in the living room) and even a 3.5in HDD mount, provided your GPU is less than 200mm, which ITX versions of the GTX 970 and the R9 Nano both are. For gaming machines, a 3.5in HDD is an inexpensive means of storing today’s massive games.

These two points of contention stop the Node 202 from earning an award, though that doesn’t mean you won’t get on with it – we can definitely see it winning people over with its looks, especially stood next to the less understated RVZ02. Either way, it will be interesting to see what other cases of this calibre emerge in the coming months as homemade Steam Boxes start to flourish.

1 — Fractal Design Node 202 Review2 — Fractal Design Node 202 Review — Interior3 — Fractal Design Node 202 Review — Cooling Performance4 — Fractal Design Node 202 Review — Performance Analysis and Conclusion

Fractal Design Node 202 Black Mini ITX Computer Case | FD-CA-NODE-202-BK

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UCFL 202 buy — price in Ukraine open with an outer clip in a cast chavun case for 2.

Brand: NT

Country of manufacture: China

UCFL 202 size

Size in mm

• Internal diameter (d) = 15;
• Hull extension (A) = 113;
• Distance between opening centers (E) = 90;
• Hull width (B) = 60;
• Extend from the edge of the body to the central line of the bag (I) = 15;
• Open in the middle of the mastilla till the middle of the frostbite path (N) = 12. 7;
• Flange height (G) = 25.5;
• Inner clip height (Z) = 33.3;
• Head height (Bi) = 31.0;
• Bolt opening diameter (S) = 12;
• Fixing bolt = M10.
• Vaga: = 0.48 kg

Marking (designation) UCFL 202

• according to GOST — 480202;
• for ISO/DIN — UCFL 202.

UCFL 202 price and harvester

Price for UCFL202 Types of oval flanged bearings of Chinese manufacture UCFL 202 NT at a found price. As much as you need more high quality, our catalog contains a wide range of analogues in premium class ucfl 202 housing bearings.

Analogs UCFL 202 NT

• UCFL 202 CX (Poland)
• UCFL 202 SKF (Sweden)
• UCFL 202 KOYO (Japan)
• UCFL 202 NSK (Japan)
• UCFL 202 NTE (Slovak region)
• UCFL 202 FBJ (Japan)

UCFL 202 stocked components

Bearing housing type FL202 — mechanically machined with a gray chavun, which is part of the so-called, sub-oval flanged oval housing site. Open the fasteners in the bearing knot, roztashovani parallel to the axis of the shaft. Rhomboid housing FL202 can be opened 2 and equipped with oil supply valve. In the oval housing mounted housing bearing type UC 202.

Suspended oval corps vuzol UCFL202 NT vikoristovuetsya in a s_lskogospodarskomu, budіvelny ustatkuvannі і tekhnіtsі, textile, grub, woodworking, garnicho-species footwear industry.

Features of oval housing bearings in the UCFL series — the way of fixing on the shaft. The oval bearing of the UCFL 202 housing bearing is fixed with two locking screws under a straight cut one to one, thereby ensuring the high strength of the fastening.

How to buy a housing bearing UCFL 202 good quality is guaranteed

You can buy a flanged bearing in a housing UCFL-202 (480202) for help by filling out an application online, or by contacting the managers of the Bre store ndbearing daily from 08.00 to 20.00 manually:

Phone: +38 (050) 817-94-80.