Fractal Design has positioned itself well among the other big names in the enclosure industry, always providing a clever design, nevertheless still manage to remain affordable. Their no frills exterior design makes these Fractal cases directly recognizable among the masses. The clean and stylish finish might be dull to some, but to me it is a nice step away from some of the transformer look-a-likes one can find in the industry.

The Box art is pretty standard, as long as it protects the innards well. On the box one can already spot one of the several features of this Node 202: the end user has the option to choose between horizontal or vertical orientation via the included standard. Like mentioned above this might allow it to blend it more with other multimedia equipment in your living room.

The Fractal Design Node 202 is a two compartment small footprint enclosure; the dimensions are 377mm x 82mm x 330mm when being positioned horizontal. If one adds the rubber feet the Height increases from 82 to 88mm. These dimensions mean the Node 202 is only compatible with Mini ITX motherboards. One also has to take into account that if one procures the Node 202 without the Integra PSU, one has to look for an SFX PSU up to 130mm long. Advantage of the case/PSU bundle is that the included Integra PSU has the cables trimmed down in length and only the utmost necessary connectors are foreseen.

After unscrewing four screws one can lift the entire top of the Node 202, thus giving access to the two compartments. On the left we see the room for a graphics card featuring maximum a dual slot cooler and measuring maximum 310mm in length. The right compartment houses the mini ITX motherboard and SFX power supply. This design should isolate the main heat sources from one another. For picture reasons we removed the bundled Fractal Design 450W Integra PSU. One spots 3 dust filters, two in the left compartment and one on the right for the PSU cooling.