Recently, we took a very close look at Fractal Design’s Define R4. It was a surprising experience, providing a combination of both innovative and simple tried-and-true design features. As we mentioned in that review, Fractal Design takes a “less is more” approach to what goes in to designing enclosures. However, two things home theatre PC (HTPC) enclosures must have is an overall smaller chassis and both functionality and a pleasing aesthetic. We wanted to know if the new NODE 605 HTPC enclosure offers everything that consumers want. Does it have the right features and is it good enough for your media cabinet?
There hasn’t been a worthy HTPC enclosure to talk about for some time so please join us for a look at the Swedish engineered Fractal Design NODE 605 enclosure. Let’s see if this is cinematic bliss or merely amateur art.
Features and Specifications
If you weren’t already aware, many of the features are standard amongst Fractal’s designs. They like logical and attractive sprinkled with the noise dampening “Bitumen” material. In some cases, the material blocks quite a bit of noise caused by noisy coolers and fans. We’ve summarized some of the more noteworthy features below…
Technical Specifications
- 7 expansion (PCI) slots
- 4 HDD/SSD slots – supports either 2.5″ or 3.5″ HDD / SSD
- 1 slim-line ODD ROM Slot (can only be used with mATX or smaller motherboards)
- PSU compatibility: 180 mm (including any modular connectors) with both hard drive cages mounted or 190 mm (excluding cables and any modular connectors) with one hard drive cage mounted
- CPU cooler compatibility: Approx 125mm with side-mounted fans – For coolers with top-mounted fans, Fractal Design recommends that you add at least 30 mm clearance for decent airflow
- Case dimensions (W x H x D): 445 x 164 x 349 mm (excluding front panel – 440 x 162 x 341 mm)
- Net weight: 6,0 kg
- Five cooling fan vents (three – 120mm fans + two – 80mm fans)
- Two 120mm Silent Series R2 fans are included: front left and right installed
- Removable air filters for side fans and PSU
- Integrated three-channel fan controller
Graphics Card Compatibility
- 180 mm with both hard drive cages mounted
- 255 mm with one hard drive cage mounted
- 290 mm in the top two ATX expansion card slots with two hard drive cages mounted
- 280 mm in the top four ATX expansion card slots with one hard drive cage mounted, containing one 3.5″ HDD and one 2.5″ SSD
The NODE 605 chassis is as compact as designers could make it which means you’ll have to pick and choose your video cards carefully. Many HTPC systems can get by just using today’s Intel and AMD CPU integrated graphics processors if gaming is not a concern. This is more than enough to power a several 2TB+ drive storage solution.
If you want the system for more than playing back videos and music, a video card such as a GTX 660 Ti will fit nicely with one drive bay installed. Otherwise, a GTX 650 Ti will fit without removing anything. A standard PSU will fit without issue. This deserves a section of its own so we’ll cover that in our installation notes in more detail.
MSRP of the Fractal Design NODE 605 hits the market in the $149 – $159 US price range. But the biggest question we need to answer is whether that pricing is justified.
What’s In The Box?
The NODE 605’s accessory payload is fairly standard for most enclosures, HTPC or otherwise. Inside the box you’ll get the installation manual, all your motherboard and hardware mounting screws, and even some zip ties. The manual is fairly well written with good diagrams and language that is clear and concise in the English language.
Unique in the payload are a set of slim 5.25 inch device mounting brackets that allow you to mount a slim optical device. As you’ll see from the front face plate, this is the only type of drive you can install internally and these brackets make it happen. However, you will need the proper power adapter to get a standard SATA power connector to attach to one internally so make sure you source one of those too if you decide to add an optical drive.
Fractal Design NODE 605 Exterior Inspected
I broke down the case inspection into subsections in order to properly itemize the most unique features. It should be easier to digest plus it should help you decide if the enclosure fits your particular needs immediately.
The front is made out of a finely brushed black aluminum face plate. The important thing is that it blends very well with the rest of the chassis which is made out of steel. Other than a single LED lit power button, a small front door opens to reveal the front panel USB, audio, FireWire and card reader slots.
The chassis has a seamless appearance since the top is one solid piece which fits nicely against the front. A lot of eyes see this so it has to look good. There are four finely machined 120mm fan vents on the left and right sides where two of the included Silent R2 fans are mounted. The back of the chassis is pretty simple sporting Fractal’s signature white PCI slot covers and two additional 80mm fan vents.
Let’s move on to a look at the interior to see what we can actually fit in this chassis.
Fractal Design NODE 605 Interior Features
As mentioned earlier, the NODE 605 has as single lid rather than full shell like many other HTPC enclosures. Just a few screws later, it lifts off. Once inside, the birds eye view reveals two white removable “hanging” HDD/SSD trays. There are rubber grommets to limit HDD vibration installed in each one. Four small holes accommodate an SSD on each side. The interior is otherwise pretty simple and uncomplicated for getting set up and seems to provide a good amount of room for cable management.
It’s pretty easy to cool these kinds of enclosures. Two 120mm fans come mounted in two of the front four available vents with filters installed. There are also two rear 80mm fan mounting positions as well. These ports are typically not nearly as effective as the 120mm cross cooling, or a wind tunnel. However, it is possible to redirect the 80mm fan(s) to blow cool air directly on to your CPU cooler if noise and/or temps are an issue. You may have to change the orientation of your CPU cooler fans to make this effective.
Test System Configuration
When I see a new case design, I like to examine how well the features function and how efficient the air flows throughout the case. This is done using my loudest and hottest system which includes an AMD Phenom II X6 1100T, ASUS M4A89GTD PRO/USB3 motherboard, Corsair Dominator 4GB 1600MHz DDR3 memory, NVIDIA 8800GTX Ultra, Antec 1000 Watt High Current Pro Platinum power supply and Seagate 500GB SATA2 hard drive. Since many of us build our HTPCs from whatever is leftover, the parts give us both a worst case plus real world test scenario.
For temperature monitoring, four sensors connected to the NZXT Sentry LX were attached to the side of a stock AMD CPU cooler, Southbridge PCH (chipset), and center most back PCB of each video card. Temps and system noise were monitored with the fans off, low, medium, and high. Both Prime95 and Furmark were used to fully load the system so that all the important components would heat up.
Installation Experience
Full size ATX motherboards will obviously fit. However, CPU tower coolers over 5.5 inches tall won’t fit which includes most of today’s top performing coolers. Users will have to stick with the stock (albeit often loud) CPU coolers or move into one of the high end horizontal coolers available on the market. We recently reviewed the Noctua NH-C14 horizontal CPU cooler and it’s quite excellent, but an all in one liquid cooling system like the ASETEK 510 to 570LC, Corsair H40 to H80i, or the Thermaltake Water 2.0 Pro and Performer would also be good options as well.
Dual radiators unfortunately do not appear to fit because you need some place to mount the hard drives and/or SSDs too.
SSDs attach straight to the inside of the white storage tray via black screws that Fractal provides. There’s no need for grommets because SSDs don’t make noise or vibrate. Hard drives mount with screws also provided in the accessory baggy. If you’re planning to add your own DVD drive, make sure you use an ITX or micro-ATX motherboard to allow for more space to work with.
Finally, you have about 7.375 inches to the first white tray and 10 inches to the second white tray. The NVIDIA 8800 GTX Ultra (10.5 inches) wouldn’t fit unless all the trays are removed. The bottom line is you don’t want to utilize video cards longer than a GTX 560 Ti. However, there is just enough room that you could install both hard drive hangers and install just an SSD in the one hanging over the video card.
For the best possible results, use a GTX 660 or GTX 660Ti if you require both storage trays for full sized hard drives. Both cards are fairly short, but if graphics power is less of a concern, even the NVIDIA Geforce GTX 650 Ti would be a great fit and it’s VERY short.
Now that we have a well put together system with some challenging parts, let’s measure the thermal and noise level performance and take this review home.
Thermal Performance
The enclosure was was tested in its stock, factory fan configuration and my own DIY user preference where the fans were moved to the port closest to the system itself. This will hopefully answer the logical configuration questions you might have.
As you can see, the NODE 605 helps manage temps decently given the extreme heat this system generates. However, the cool air isn’t directly hitting the system in the default configuration. Moving the right side 120mm fan to the side rear port improves cooling. Adding 80mm fans to the back or moving the left side 120mm fan back had no measurable affect on temps. But moving the fans did impact system noise. Let’s check that out next.
Noise Level Measurements
To see how much noise the NODE 605 blocks, noise was monitored with the system idle and loaded down with tasks again and again. An average noise reading was recorded. Keep in mind that the test system is not the ideal system for this chassis. HTPC users typically choose better components to keep noise down.
As you can see, the NODE 605 doesn’t exactly block a lot of noise but the air flow is optimal for shutting the stock cooler fans right up. Again, HTPC users will likely select quieter components in an effort to minimize distracting noise during movies and music playback. In fact, replacing the stock CPU cooler with a Noctua NH-C14 and GTX 8800 Ultra with an EVGA GTX 660 made the system quieter than the ambient noise in the room so we highly recommend that at least these two updates be made.
Final Thoughts
Evaluating Fractal Design’s NODE 605 enclosure has been a surprisingly simple albeit technical experience. It offers just the right features needed to be functional from the latest front panel IO features to the sound dampening material used within. Users have the option of installing a maximum of four 3.5 inch storage drives. That’s enough for an SSD for their operating system and three large capacity storage hard drives. Unfortunately, that’s also the limitation most compact HTPC enclosures face. This is when we would recommend external storage options like the RAIDAGE GAGE104U40SL-SAUF 1U 4 Bay RAID Enclosure or other external storage array might come in very handy.
In terms of cooling, the potential is there for creating a very quiet HTPC despite the default fan configuration. Thanks to the sound dampening in the case, noise is fairly well minimized with our selection of components. While the stock configuration doesn’t quite manage the hot spots, it’s the safest configuration as some motherboards may have CPU sockets a little too close to the edge which can conflict with the 120mm cooling fans. My professional advice is, if you have the space and can move the fan over without causing issue, is to make sure you do this. It’ll help keep that CPU cooler as quiet as possible and help with temperatures.
Obviously, the NODE 605 is a very attractive HTPC enclosure that will probably have visitors wondering what exactly you have inside your media center cabinet. But what will this pretty face cost you? Currently, the NODE 605 can be found for about $159.99 from places like Amazon, Newegg, or NCIX. It’s comparably priced to the competition but does offer some features that others do not, but presents it in a tasteful and stylish look.
Based on all of the strong points and value, we’re giving the Fractal Design NODE 605 one of our coveted Recommended Awards.
Pros
- Attractive, jet black aluminum front
- Simple, functional layout
- Extra potential for cooling
- Sound dampening Bitumen material
- Front panel comes with card reader
- Fan control 3-speed switch
Cons
- Compact interior may limit expansion possibilities
Overall Rating: 9.0 / 10.0
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