Fractal Design Node 605 Silent HTPC Case Review

Node 605 Final Thoughts & Conclusion

Fractal Design really did a great job with the Node 605. The face of the case is a beautiful black aluminum design, which also has a way to keep the front I/O ports hidden in style. The whole HTPC concept may be questionable by some, but others (like myself) see the value and luxury behind it. The Node 605 really will look gorgeous beside your other HTPC components, and it certainly fits in with mine.

The dust filters for the fans and the sound dampening material on the cover are a very nice touch. I know I certainly do not like listening to my PS3’s fan kick in occasionally when watching movies, and the sound dampening material and fan speed controller are wonderful with preventing me from hearing that noise. The included fans were very quiet at full power, which is a plus.

The aesthetics and functionality of the Node 605 are simple, yet gorgeous! If you can’t tell, I fell in love with the front of the case, while loving how easy it was to work inside.

Building inside the Node 605 wasn’t at all compact feeling and was relatively easy. The case is plenty large so there is lots of room to work with. Having the ability to mount four HDD’s inside is a nice plus if you want a ton of localized storage. When mounting a PSU, I would highly recommend something modular to keep the number of wires down. This case is big, but not that big! The PSU that I initially used had such a large clump of wires, that I ended up having to remove one of the HDD cages.

Having the ability to use DTX, Mini ITX, mATX, or a full sized ATX board provides you a ton of flexibility with this case. The only unfortunate part is, if you use anything larger than mATX, you lose the ability to use the slim ODD bay. Should your motherboard allow for a dedicated GPU to be installed, you can install up to a 290mm card, which gives you yet another large amount of options available to you.

The Fractal Design Node 605 does run you $150.47 shipped on Amazon, which made me half expect some sort of tool-less option on-board somewhere. This was the only real big gripe that I had with this case. With most cases today having some sort of tool-less option, this felt disappointing, but it isn’t a deal breaker by any means. The requirement of a slim-line ODD was also not cool, but I’m happy to see a disc drive bay on this case. I feel that these minor issues are easy enough to look past.

Fractal backs up the Node 605 with a full one year warranty, which is a nice piece of mind for your new investment.

Legit Bottom Line: Fractal’s Node 605 is a beautiful and simple HTPC case, and while missing a tool-less option, it is still plenty worthy of being a centerpiece in your home theatre setup.