There were a few considerations I had regarding performance and serviceability of an out of the box solution, and also the sense of technical adventurism kicked in and I went with rolling my own. Taking a look at the Node 804 itself from the front and it features a nice brushed aluminium design, which goes over great with me.

We remove the pre-installed rear exhaust fans to install a Corsair H80I all-in-one liqud CPU cooler to keep our results consistent. The dual chamber layout separates hot running components from the cooler ones and allows for unrestricted airflow over the motherboard, processor and graphics card.Thermaltake's Core V21 is another fine cube case that would also make for a good NAS box or gaming PC case, but it doesn't support as many 3. AnandTech has reviewedseveral Fractal Design cases in the past, from ITX cases to super-tower behemoths. The Fractal Design Node 804 is affordable, has plenty of internal space for numerous fans and drives, and performs well when the system is full and under load. In short, adding radiators to any internal location where they can fit – 120’s, 240’s even a 280mm rad – will necessitate removal or moving of certain components like drive cages, sacrificing serviceability or limiting options like the length of a GPU.

Installing hardware into the Node 804 was a piece of cake, partially due to the fact of it’s dual chamber design and the fact Fractal Design did a great overall job and made it just about as modular as it can be, without having to flat pack it and make it require assembly. It comes with 3x pre-installed fans as standard but there is plenty enough room to add some more of your own if you want. Since this is a NAS build, we pulled back the processor in the UEFI BIOS by disabling boost and having the chip run a little cooler.They refer to themselves as similar to the IKEA of the PC world and even go on to say “ In the world of computer components, there is only one name you should know, Fractal Design. Having the PSU and main storage array located behind the motherboard and other components helps keep everything simple. As mentioned, that’s the exact reason I went with an SFX supply, the Corsair even came with the mounting plate conversion.

There is also a pre-installed fan in the rear chamber with room for more, plus a bottom-mounted PSU which has a dust filter on the bottom of the case and also a couple of velcro straps that one would assume are to help hold cables down and out of the way, again to allow for better airflow and a bit of tidiness. SSDs behind a plastic cage, and a mounting area for an old skool laptop-style BluRay or DVD slot loading drive. On the other, they’re extremely expensive in comparison to just about anything else, as the motherboard and power supply will provide fewer total connections (SATA, USB, etc), but cost more. Ultimately, it’s important to highlight that you can use any case you’d like and the cases below are not the only cases you can use.The left side is taken up by the window panel and the right is bare aside from the front I/O, which consists of two audio jacks and two USB-A 3. Fractal Design Node 804 is designed with a minimalist brief, resulting in a sleek black cube PC case. I used this case to build a NAS earlier this year and found that it’s not up to the normal Fractal design standard.

As this is a dual-chambered case it will offer even novices a chance to have a clean, well-put-together-looking build and will, of course, result in it is worthy of being shown off. If you want something a little more resembling a PC, the Fractal Design Define 7 XL is worth checking out with its insane 18 3.Stripping the case down to it’s skeleton form and we can see most of the options the case has to offer. Like the outer shell of the case, all inside panels and components are painted black for a sleek finish. Many European companies that manufacture PC hardware were founded during the past few years, and the vast majority are basing their business model on European quality and design prowess.