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First impressions of the MESH Elite Mini Gamer Plus system are positive. The Fractal Design Node 304 Mini ITX is a fantastic looking chassis and having such a small physical footprint means that it is a perfect partner for a variety of tasks, including use in a living room, as a media center unit.
It is only when you look down the checklist of hardware that you realise this is no lightweight media oriented system build. MESH have included a Core i7 4770k – overclocked to 4.2ghz, an AMD R9 290, 240GB SSD, 2TB HDD storage drive, Wi-Fi enabled MSI motherboard and 16GB of fast 2,133mhz DDR3 memory.
Surprisingly the diminutive Fractal Design Node 304 is a very capable chassis and it would work perfectly well if it wasn't for the inclusion of the reference cooled MSI branded R9 290 graphics card.
Not only does the R9 290 PCB get boiling hot to the touch after gaming for any length of time, but the reference cooled R9 290 radiates masses of hot air into the Fractal chassis. While there is decent exhaust airflow and MESH engineers have tuned their cable management, it proves difficult for the chassis to maintain a good thermal curve. After gaming for an hour, the radiated heat from the rear of the R9 290 PCB passes through the center of the tiny case, causing motherboard temperatures to rise significantly.
This issue is exacerbated by the inclusion of the air cooled, hot running, overclocked Core i7 4770k. MESH do offer the Corsair H60 ‘All in One' liquid cooler, at further cost – although the KitGuru review sample wasn't equipped with this £27 extra. We do think the addition of a exhaust fan/radiator would help reduce 4770k running temperatures, and perhaps even help deal with the hot flowing ambient air inside the case.
We have discussed AMD's R9 290 graphics card before, detailing our views of the reference cooling solution. Not only is it running at a constant 95c under load, but we noticed in this MESH system that the core clock speed was throttling to below 800mhz on a fairly regular basis. This negatively impacts gaming performance by a noticeable margin. The MESH Elite Mini Gamer Plus system runs faster when it is cooler, but after a while, you can see the gaming frame rates drop as the reference R9 290 cooler fails to maintain the thermal curve set up in the AMD driver.
AMD’s Catalyst Control Center does allow for end user adjustments, but you need to be very careful on the settings. If you set the working temperature to a maximum of 85c for instance, but don’t increase the maximum fan speed, then the card will throttle substantially more under load – AMD have set it to 95c for a reason, not because they suddenly worked out that ‘hotter is fine’. The end user either has to accept a very high running temperature or an increase in fan noise when playing games.
Sadly, by default, the reference cooled R9 290 is quite loud so you will not want to be increasing fan speeds any further. It is a Catch 22.
While we can't blame MESH for AMD's R9 290 reference cooling issues we do have to question why they are not bundling a custom cooled R9 290 solution, especially when it is running within such a small chassis. In a traditionally shaped full tower chassis heat rises, removed by exhaust fans fitted to the rear and top of the case. In the tiny box shaped Fractal Design Node 304 this is not possible and excess hot air is pushed from the rear of the R9 290 PCB across the surface of the MSI motherboard.
MESH should really be using one of the latest custom cooled R9 290's, such as this one from Sapphire, which we reviewed back in December.
Overall, we have mixed views about the MESH Elite Mini Gamer Plus System. There is no doubt that MESH have built a fantastic looking, high performance system using a checklist of expensive components. Unfortunately combining an air cooled, overclocked Core i7 4770k processor with a reference cooled R9 290 proves a little much for the Mini ITX case to handle.
You can build your own on the MESH website, here.
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Pros:
- excellent built quality.
- great all round performance.
- fairly competitive pricing.
- overclocked.
- quiet when idle.
Cons:
- hot running inside the chassis.
- reference cooled R9 290 will throttle more as ambient temperatures rise.
- will get loud under load.
- Component selection could be improved.
Kitguru says: The full potential of this system hasn't been met – Mesh should use an all in one liquid cooler by default and a custom cooled R9 290. Still, MESH show signs of improving build quality and cable routing.
Well its a lovely looking little system, nice routing too on the cables.
I can concur, the R9 290 is a monster. I bought one and had to return it after a few days, its loud as hell and way too hot running. I think if MESH had used a GTX770 or something like that from MSI it would have worked a lot better. Reference AMD cards are sucky.
I knew it would be too hot going on the list at the start. I have that case, and I do like it, but its going to struggle with that GPU, even larger cases are although they have more room for the hot air to move around, not hang over the mobo.
A custom Palit GTX760 would be ideal IMO.