Build Process
First things first, we need a motherboard. I installed my mini-ITX board and immediately felt like I was working inside an ATX enclosure. This case feels cavernous for mITX!
It will be a bit more cramped in here once the ATX power supply is installed below the motherboard, but there is going to be a ton of free space off to the right. In designs where all storage is found behind the motherboard tray this area of the interior will be blank, unless you decide to utilize it in some way (and reservoir brackets are included if you are making a custom cooling loop).
The ATX power supply fits as you'd expect, and sits on soft pads to keep it from vibrating against the enclosure.
Cooling
Here, once again, is where we will spend the majority of our time. The Nano S isn't the largest mini-ITX design I've encountered, but it still offers ATX levels of cooling options. We'll begin with the upper fan mounts, which are closed off by default.
Removing the top cover it's a simple matter to install a double-width radiator up here, and this 240 mm Corsair H100i GTX installed without any clearance issues.
The drawback to using the top mount is noise, as removal of the insulated top cover will no doubt impact sound emination from the GPU, if nothing else.
The front fan mounts are next, and I personally recommend these over the top location if you only need to mount one cooler.
This front location is shielded with a screen filter to keep dust out, and as such you'd want to position the fans for intake. There is so much room up front thanks to the rear-mounted storage that I can't foresee any clearance issues with radiators or fans up front at all.
My full-length GPU still fit (with little to spare) with a front-mounted liquid cooler
Of course you may choose to air-cool your CPU in the Nano S, and there's plenty of clearance for that as well. I personally install a low-profile cooler for air temps in these reviews, but larger tower-style coolers up to 160 mm would fit inside this enclosure as well.
Storage
While there is a hard drive bracket located on the component side of things, on the case floor, I chose to use the primary storage mounts on the back side of the case. Here we have a great implementation of an SSD bracket for a small form-factor enclosure:
It cleverly sits over the rear motherboard cutout, and is removed with a single thumbscrew! In other similar designs I've worked with, the SSD mounts interfered with cable management to some degree. Placing them up over the rear cutout frees up additional space and makes organizing things behind the motherboard that much easier.
For traditional 3.5-inch hard drives (again, other than the floor mount on the other side) there is a vertical mount to the left of the motherboard. This offers rubber mounting points for a vibration-free installation, and the drive simply screws into place from the other side.
With the components in place it's time to see how the Define Nano S performed. We'll first review the testing methodology for enclosure benchmarks, or you may simply skip to the last page.
I still do not understand the
I still do not understand the reasoning behind large MiniITX cases. this is barely smaller than my Fractal Core 1000 which supports MicroATX boards.
I’d have loved for the Nano S to be an impossibly small MiniITX case like the N-Case M1, but alas, it seems to not be the case
(no pun intended)
(well, maybe a little)
I keep waiting for an M1
I keep waiting for an M1 alternative from a company like Fractal to make it affordable. At such a small size aluminum construction (such as the NCASE M1) would be less important, and it could be made less expensive.
I agree that this is close to the size of the Core 1000 (I reviewed the similarly-sized Core 1100 a couple of years ago), but the Nano S is in a different class. Better materials, better interior design, and compared to what I've seen in the past two years this is priced very competitively at $69.99. It's not a budget case, and Mini-ITX is a more expensive platform, of course; a case like the Core 1000 is more economical beyond the initial investment.
There are a lot of other
There are a lot of other differences though. I believe the Nano S is a bit higher quality in terms of overall construction, sounds dampening material and cable management with gromets, etc. It also has a bottom mounted PSU, different front panel I/O, no 5 1/2″ bays, etc. A lot of this stuff is preferential.
The Nano S is also catered towards water cooling and has greater compatibility than the Core series. If somebody wants to build the smallest single-GPU system with a full custom water cooling loop the Nano S fits the bill more than the Core.
Not to mention watercooling in the Core removes HDD mounting options. And the Nano S has filtered intake in the front and bottom, something the Core doesn’t have.
The Core 1000 is 175 x 355 x
The Core 1000 is 175 x 355 x 420 mm (26.1 L). By comparison, the Nano S is 203 x 330 x 400 mm (26.8 L). Now, the Nano S can do a lot of things the Core 1000 can’t, for sure, just not hold an mATX mobo.
Keep in mind that Fractal Design also has the very slim Node 202 as well as the shoebox Node 304/Core 500. They’re offering a traditional mini tower-sized ITX case in the Nano S here, but they do cover other grounds too, unlike some competitors. Though nothing as space-efficient as the NCase M1 or DAN Cases A4-SFX.
I was hoping this would be an
I was hoping this would be an option as a NAS box. Looks like Lian-Li Q25B is still the best option.
Umm. The power supply blocks
Umm. The power supply blocks air flow to the GPU.
Wouldn’t it be better to have the GPU on the floor and the PSU somewhere else? Like up front or on top?
I love this case but am
I love this case but am amazed at all the reviews that fail to point out, when using a stock cooler on a GPU there is a limited air flow space due to how close the PSU sets to the GPU.
When I did my build I used an SFX PSU to make sure there was a real opening there so the GPU could get proper airflow. This is a simple fix and yet no one actually talks about it.
Also the side window is crap. The material they use to keep cost down is VERY easy to scratch. Again something that is not often discussed. With an ITX case, that can be used for LAN events and thus would travel and be prone to scratching I would think this would be important.
Finally a note on the SSD mounts. I used dual SSDs and the mounts are positions so tight to the back of the motherboard that is the cabling passed under the power mount the fit is very difficult to make solid. This is a minor gripe that could have been fixed by moving the SSD mount outward a 0.25″ more from the back of the main board.
Now this is not to say this is a bad case, for the money this case is an awesome budget option and my first choice for a low cost ITX build. However the lack of any meaningful and through reviews on this case is disturbing.
I would say that showing the
I would say that showing the ins and outs of a case, and then testing that case with both liquid and air CPU coolers (not to mention the installation of a 240mm AIO liquid cooler on the upper and front intake mounts for reference, which are not included in testing and included simply to show fit), with thermal and noise performance data provided for each cooler setup, including GPU temps with both options, is "thorough".
As to the GPU clearance, it's not an issue or I would have noted it. There is a small gap between the PSU and half of the GPU, yes; though a gap nonetheless. This would be hardly ideal except for the fact that the other half of the GPU is completely unobstructed. My dual-fan R9 290X performed just fine for a small enclosure.
How is it possible for the
How is it possible for the GPU temps to be 13c on idle and CPU temps at 1.6c with air cooling?
In the graphs, it says
In the graphs, it says “temperature over ambient” that you know how hot it will be in your situation