Gadgetory

hey this is Dimitri with Harbor Canucks and welcome to another video review so the move towards more compact yet powerful systems is emerging stronger than ever and of course knowing fractal design they sure cover the entire spectrum when it comes to cases their node series is the designated small form-factor line with focus on home entertainment but with ambitious enthusiasts it could potentially be a lot more so they were taking a look at the node 3 or 4 priced around $90 now sure resembles a microwave or some other appliance with its glossy finish and it's also sized appropriately for what it's designed for on the left side we get GPU ventilation with a removable dust filter and more venting on the other side for your power supply exhaust here we also find audio jacks 2 USB 3 ports with a USB 2 adapter included and a power button the note 3 or 4 is equipped with rubber standards to prevent vibrations and better stability and here we also find a removable power supply dust filter now cooling in this little guy is hidden behind the front cover where all the cables are attached and we have a removable dust filter for the couple of 92 bloomer fans now because the front panel is so closed off there is small opening in the bottom and ventilation at the top to help with air flow at the rear we get a pair of PCI slots power extender at the bottom left to speed fan controller and the locking mechanism for your PCI brackets removing the thumb screws and taking off the cover we first see a 140 millimeter exhaust fan and a fan hub that connects all three fans inside it is powered through a single molex connector now dry storage in here is actually quite interesting we have three suspended drive brackets that are first secured by two thumb screws at the back and they low-profile screw in the front now for a single time use that front screw is fine but it did wear out on me only after a few times so just be aware of that the drive caddy itself can hold both two and a half and three and a half inch drives with rubber grommets for the ladder and as you can see mechanical drives must face inside the case while as these do to their small form-factor can face either orientation I actually kept the SSDs facing the other way to avoid all the cable clutter which brings me to cable management and I'm very happy to see small integrations like cable timeouts at the top bar for your fan wires and plenty more on the floor for the rest of routing now there is a reason for the power extender and that's because power supply is installed at the front once that's in place I saw how much room there was at the back and that's a full inch underutilized and I think this is a huge wasted potential here as moving to the other side we have all these cables and basically limiting clearance for dedicated graphics cards our unit is 170 millimeters so for a chance to install a full sized graphics card you must use a power supply of 160 millimeters or shorter especially if using modular units and that is why that extra inch in the back would have been so useful allowing that much more clearance without compromise so looking at what type of graphics card clearance we have it is impressive to see basically 12 inches of space but this will only fit with shorter power supplies so I'd suggest around 140 millimeter units if you want to utilize that full space for your graphics card CPU towers of up to 165 millimeters will fit but because of how the drive cage is designed for one the drives stick out slightly and also don't forget about the cabling that will follow so thicker coolers will not fit in starting with the assembly getting our motherboard in place and some wiring done the front of the case looks a little scary and also airflow restrictive now what I did here was to route my cables behind the drive brackets to the other side to avoid all the cable mess facing the motherboard this still allows you to install all the drive brackets without problems and actually use the space between the SSD and mechanical drive throughout the large 24 pin cable and as you can see it looks quite tidy for such a limited space and again I don't think that's full inch of the back is utilized even after all the cabling is done so this was a very poor this choice from fractal now because of our long power supply we couldn't fit a full-size graphics card in place but our low-profile r7 240 was able to fit just fine measuring at 7 inches and before we conclude there are two things to mention the USB cable is backwards compatible which is very considered from fractal and since all the cable concentration comes out on the left side the same side the fan hub is located so it would be easier to have that relocated onto the other side without the need to route molex all the way across the motherboard into the top-left corner so the node 3 or 4 brings a lot of excellent features for a home entertainment system starting with a large storage potential and pretty great default cooling now what makes the 3 or 4 special is the ability to turn this into a mini gaming station with close to 12 inches of clearance for your graphics card and a pretty seamless cable management we also get an integrated fan controller and dust filters on every intake now on the flip side there is wasted room potential behind the power supply that consequently restricts dedicated GPUs to be installed if your unit exceeds 160 millimeters there's also no protective shroud on the front fans considering cable routing is going to be tight but the note 3 or 4 isn't designed for an enthusiast setup but it turns out it has potential as long as you're aware of the power supply clearance limitations now it doesn't fully hit that damn good mark but if future revisions take that into account we'll be more than happy to see it compete with the rest of mini ITX offerings so guys thanks for watching and between the recently announced 250 D from Corsair the original beat phoenix prodigy or this which one will you choose and why liddie comments down below don't forget to subscribe and we'll see you in the next one you