Specifications
The final specification is listed below. Due to space constraints, we showcased the Fragabyte with a 24″ Benq RL2450H. When testing, we used the BenQ XL2730Z 144Hz 2560×1440 27″ Gaming monitor via DisplayPort.
Whilst the CPU wasn’t overclocked, don’t underestimate the performance potential of this compact gaming demon.
Noise
Overall, the noise profile was very good but it isn’t a silent rig. The CPU fan isn’t loud but it is audible under load and gaming will generally load it right up. The hard drive couldn’t be heard at any point during our testing or the demonstrations. You would need to have your ear almost touching the drive to hear it start up or access data. The power supply is also very quiet and remained quiet under load where we recorded the power draw to be around the 330W value.
The graphics card proved to be the most audible component and we don’t blame the Windforce cooler for this, it was just a matter of not having the right card available for an optimum result with regard to fan noise. The Gigabyte GTX 970 G1 Gaming 4G is a good performer, and made less noise than many stock coolers that I’ve seen in the past but it also made more noise in the Node 202 than other cases where I’ve tested the same card. This is undoubtedly due to the confined nature of the graphics card chamber. Mark this down as one of the few examples where aftermarket coolers are not necessarily your friend. I’ve since tested the FRAGABYTE with an AMD R9 Fury Nano and found it to have a much lower noise profile with better benchmarks. At 17cm long, the Nano has a lot of space around it for airflow.
Sponsorship and Branding
We also need to declare where the parts we use came from. We purchased the CPU but all the other parts were either provided by vendors for this project or review samples that we had available. In recognition of this, we have added some sponsorship branding to the system related to component selection. We would also like to note that aside from receiving the components, we have not been paid or received any additional incentive to use these parts. We would happily purchase and use any of the components of this build in our personal systems.
We would like to thank the sponsors for making this project possible so that you guys can all see a practical example of what you can achieve in a small form factor without any modding or complex construction.
The important part…. how well does it handle gaming?
We tested out a range of titles to see what kind of performance this little rig could give us and for a 1080p HTPC setup it’s overkill. The results below are all from our 2560×1440 testing.
- TITANFALL: Typical ~70FPS with 2xMSAA and Anisotropic filtering at 8x. The gameplay was smooth and enjoyable.
- Call of Duty Advanced Warfare: Average of ~70FPS with the typical range of 65-80FPS recorded depending on the level of activity.
- Call of Duty Black Ops II: Crazy frames for 130 – 180FPS in game. This was a great competitive shooter experience on the BenQ 2730Z 144Hz monitor.
- Battlefield 4: FPS seemed to vary from 70-80FPS on Ultra in the Siege of Shanghai.
- Far Cry 4: typical FPS was in the low 50s but we did see up to 70FPS on one of the bell towers at Ultra settings.
- Civilization V: Whilst not really a FPS dependent game, we enjoyed seeing 120-140FPS. The animations were nice and fluid, the ambient effects all unhindered.
- Elder Scrolls Online: This title is really ‘weather dependent’ but we saw 60-75FPS outdoors with a dip to 50FPS in some heavy traffic with in-game rain. Indoors, we saw up to 100FPS. Overall it was a great experience with everything maxed out.
- Elite Dangerous: No issues here, pretty solid 100-110FPS at all the highest settings. The game looked great and with the Saitek X-52 Pro stick and throttle it was pretty immersive.
- Project Cars: ~85FPS from inside the car and ~95 FPS with the external camera mode. This was driving the Audi R8 V10 Plus on the Dubai Auto Drome International track with 19 opponents. All settings at their highest.
- World of Warships: Lots of water, wave spray, smoke and transparency work. FPS seemed to hover in the low to mid 70s with all settings up at their highest.
All up, this pint sized mini beast performed like a standard ATX rig but without the bulk.
