Final Thoughts
As I said in the beginning of this review it is really hard to find that many high-performance cases out there, especially ones that are actually good. The the brand new Meshify 2 Fractal Design has taken an already good case and made it even better! The whole idea of the Meshify series is to be high performance and high airflow. They are able to achieve that with the completely mesh front front panel as well as a ventilated top panel. Meshify has always been unique as Fractal Design was actually able to make the mesh look cool with its angular design. Beyond that, now on the Meshify 2 the mesh part is actually a door that easily opens up for easy access to your fans and to remove the filter cartridge.
Talking about cooling Fractal Design has outfitted the Meshify 2 with three included 140mm fans (2 in the front, 1 in the rear) and you have plenty of room to add extra cooling. The front supports up to three 120/140mm fans and radiators up to 360 mm, while the top supports three 120/140mm fans and radiators up to 420mm. So if you are doing air cooling or watercooling you have plenty of room. Also if you do plan on doing any watercooling the case does come with the universal multi-bracket which can be used to mount a pump or reservoir in the case.
Another big improvement to this case is the internal layout, which has been brought down from the Define Series. So you have the same internal modular layout, which can be switched from the default open layout to the storage layout quite easily. The storage layout is of course for builds with a lot of hard drives and it is pretty awesome that Fractal Design does include four hard drive trays for the storage layout. This means that out of the box you actually have support for up to 9 hard drives! That is more than most cases and you can actually buy 5 more hard drive trays and two more SSD mounts! So whether you want a more plan build or a high storage build Fractal Design has you covered here.
With that said I do feel if you aren’t doing a high-storage build there is a lot of “dead space” in the case. This will be very apparent if you are not doing any watercooling either. It will be interesting to see if Fractal Design comes out with a Meshify 2 Compact version that would have the two SSD mounts, only two hard drive trays and be a little shorter.
Building in this case could not be easier, I did not run into a single issue during my installation. The cable routing channels and velcro ties do a great job at helping you organize all of your cables and the power supply cable cover cleans everything up. I also really appreciate the included Nexus+ 2 Slim PWM fan hub. It supports three PWM fans as well as six 3-pin fans. Its location makes for less cable mess as well.
The only real downside to a mesh or high performance case is the noise. You are definitely going to be able to hear those two front fans, but of course that is the trade-off for better airflow and performance.
Right now Fractal Design is launching all tempered glass variants of the Meshify 2 for $139.99 and the black solid panel version will be $129.99. With everything that this case offers along with the great quality we know from Fractal Design you cannot argue with those prices. Overall ThinkComputers gives the Fractal Design Meshify 2 a 9 out of 10 score and our Recommended Award!
Pros:
– Great quality
– Modular internal layout
– Easy access to filters
– High airflow
– Supports up to 9 hard drives out of the box
– Lots of room for cooling
– Top and front of the case easily come off
– Price
Cons:
– If you aren’t using the storage layout there can be a lot of “dead space”.
– Fans are noticably louder because of the mesh
