The front of the chassis features a very stylish looking brushed aluminium panel. On the right hand side we have a small square power button and below that we have a full width flip down panel that hides the main input/output area.
With the panel flipped down we find a slim line optical drive cover, firewire, microphone, headset, 2 x USB 3.0 an LED light and the built in card reader. The card reader offers support for Micro SD, Standard SD and Compact Flash, perfect for playing music from your tablet device, or image and video from you camera or smartphone on your TV.
Down the left side of the chassis we have two 120mm ventilated fan areas to allow for airflow within the chassis.
The right side features another two 120mm fan mounts but also a toggle switch that acts as a fan speed controller for the main chassis fans.
Around the back we can see that the Node 605 offers up 7 expansion slots, each fitted with a high quality, reusable and ventilated cover. We also have room for a pair of 80mm exhaust fans (not included) and our PSU mounting area on the right hand side.
Flip the chassis over the chassis we find four high quality feet, the rear two are just rubber pegs but the front two have been given a chrome trim. This makes the front free more pleasing to the eye should the chassis be in a position where they are visible in your home cinema setup.
So if you can only have a slimline ODD with an ITX build and there’s no 5 1/4 bay, this means the only way to install a BluRay drive is with an ITX board. Don’t get me wrong, I like Fractal Design but I think there’s a serious flaw here. The point of a media centre is that it’s a centre for all media. With no option for an optical drive with larger motherboards you become somwhat limited on it’s use.
How about using it a a media server? Well, no, not really. A limit of 4 drives reduces it’s usefulness, plus you don’t need a full ATX motherboard for a media server, M-ATX or ITX would do just as well.
It’s a good looking case and no doubt it’s quiet and easy to build but I have to question it’s usefulness for it’s target audience.
ATX boards are VERY GOOD for media centers that will be used to receive satellite and terrestrial TV signals and will also be used for gaming and bluray (after all, the goal is to have everything in a single box, that’s the job of the word “center” in “media center”). You’ll see your PCIe and PCI slots rapidly taken once you add a few tuners and a serious audio card. So this case is an awful design IMO. If you plan on using an m-ITX motherboard, you have plenty of options out there that are much better than this case. If you want ordinary ATX, you’re better off with solutions from Antec, for instance.
Really bad design IMO. Good looks, terrible functionality.
I Also wonder how Fractal Design became well known for their slick styling, when the styling of every one I’ve seen seems to be that of a featureless black box.
It’s called minimalism. They’re known for it because it’s a rare quality given the obnoxious aesthetics that typify PC cases.
Hey look! It’s a Lian Li PC-C60 without all the annoying 3.5″ and 5.25″ drive capacity and ATX/GPU/ODD configuration options! Thumbs up!
I believe you can have a micro-ATX motherboard and still be able to fit an optimal drive.
optical drive, thank you for correctly me iPhone…
This is great, except for trying to find a slim blu ray drive, and using said slim blu ray drive. Someone will break that flimsy thing in a home environment. Would have been nice to allow a normal drive that has its door and button integrated with the case, or a slot load as on some other nice cases.
No IR window makes this a no-go. It makes no sense to have this beautiful clean case and then have to plop an external IR receiver on top of it or leave the flip-down door open to install a IR dongle. I also don’t understand the decsion to leave off a 5.25″ drive bay. The Lian-Li PC-C50B comes closer to what I am looking for but it too has no IR window. The search continues…