Gadgetory

our 2015 Computex coverage is brought to you by fantex nvidia corsair and CI x silverstone and in win make sure to support them for helping us bring this great content to you there were two new cases announced from fractal design and Computex both targeting the ITX crowd the first one is the no 202 the slim tower like chassis is getting more attention and I'm happy to see fractals version of it it's a very simple exterior shell keeping to that minimalistic design something that the fractal design is known for and the front there is a pair of USB 3 ports audio jacks and the power button and the note 202 stands on this base for vertical orientation that I personally love however can be placed in a horizontal position as well where a fractal design logo would be properly showcased as otherwise it's on an angle when vertically placed at the back there are two PCI brackets and the dual slot GPU can be installed right above utilizing a PCI bracket and given the interior placement of an SFX power supply here's your power input and the back and here's the internal layout and a top right is an ITX motherboard spot with CPU coolers up to 56 millimeters supported and an SFX power supply right below up to 130 millimeters long and you can notice all the case cables are black and already pre routed into the main chamber for storage the note 202 can only accommodate dual two and a half inch drives every ventilation port is dust proof that's really good to see there's one big filter for the GPU chamber one for the CPU and one for the power supply GPUs up to 310 millimeters will fit and I notice the spacer in the middle most likely to make sure the GPU does not bend and make contact with the fans as there are two 120mm birthday announced in the GPU chamber also one thing I noticed that with the front IO cables is they are pretty thick and thus a long GPU would overlap this area and I'm a little worried about proper cabling and making sure the GPU can comfortably sit there the riser card for the PCI slot was not present on a showcase sample but it will be included with a note 2 or 2 and at $79 you are looking at the well-rounded ITX case I personally love these slim designs the other case they've announced is the core 500 I think is ribbed in place in the note category but it shares the exterior elements with the for series so that makes sense this is an ITX design as well with two PCI brackets and the silent are three 140 millimeter fan at the back included for exhaust all of the ventilation ports come with magnetic dust filters something I'm really happy to see for this form factor taking a look inside we find a fairly is similar layout today our note three or four case but this time without all the drive caddies instead there's a five and a quarter inch drive bay and a three and a half inch drive bay right underneath for storage we get an SSD mount at the front with appropriate cutouts out to the side for routing your SATA cables the rear bracket can support two or three and a half and two and a half inch drives at the same time but these rubber grommets available to prevent vibrations and the core 500 can accommodate ATX power supplies up to 140 millimeters to maintain compatibility for GPUs up to 310 millimeters and so here I wish an SFX power supply mount was available but the most impressive part about this case is its water cooling support with this top bracket this would allow you to mount radiators up to 280 millimeters so you can install an all-in-one CPU cooler no problem plus the bracket is removable for easier installation all in all the new releases from fractal design mark an ever rising trend for ITX systems combined with efficient layouts thus prevent elation and gaming ready if needed so it's exactly what I want to see from case manufacturers moving forward so let us know which of these cases you'd like us to review first the note 202 or the core 500 so we can build our own systems into it and tell you the full story you