Specifications, Availability and Pricing

The Node 304 is comprised mostly of steel for the majority of the frame and panels. There is a bit of ABS plastic used for the frame of the front bezel. The last choice of materials was to place brushed aluminum that is anodized black to match the chassis and is used to dress up the front of the Node 304 as it completely covers the plastic component of the front bezel. Since there is no optical bay in the bezel, Fractal Design went with the completely clean look, and all ventilation for the chassis is on the top and bottom of the bezel, both sides of the chassis, and of course the rear of the chassis offers exhaust ventilation.

Moving over to the feature set, the front I/O offers native USB 3.0 with a USB 2.0 adapter built in and HD audio 3.5mm jacks. Behind a pair of 92mm Silent Series fans you will find new drive trays inside. These are dual drive racks that will fit both 2.5" and 3.5" drives for a total of six bays. Along with the motherboard tray that will house a DTX or Mini-ITX motherboard, you can also find a 140mm fan in the back, two expansion slots, and a built in fan controller that can control three fans. What is also nice about this design is that there is room enough to install a tower cooler as long as it is shorter than 165mm tall. If you use the right length PSU, and 160mm is recommended, you are then left with 310mm worth of room for a video card inside of this SFF design.

Even though the Node series is relatively new to the market, I was still able to locate quite a few places currently showing stock. On the low end of the pricing is NextWarehouse.com with a price just north of $90 and that is to your door. On the higher end of the spectrum is Newegg with a $104.98 price with shipping included.

As of this moment I can say things look really promising for the Node 304. Let's dig a little deeper, shall we?