Fractal Design Meshify 2 XL Chassis Review

A Classic Evolved

Final Thoughts & Conclusion

While I’m personally a fan of Small Form-Factory builds, even I can see the limitless potential offered by Fractal’s Meshify 2 XL. I’ve long admired the pictures online of dual-socket systems and other workstation builds, but there were always compromises that had to be made to make it fit. That is certainly NOT the case here. Yes, you can have your proverbial cake and eat it too. Not only can you install massive systems, but you don’t have to give up storage or cooling capacity to do it. With 16+ drives installed, you can still slap a 360mm rad in the top, and a 480 or 420mm rad in the front, and even another 120mm rad in the rear.

If you are the water-cooling type, the integrated vertical GPU mount is nice, but given that most modern GPU’s are somewhere between 2 and 3 slots thick, getting satisfactory temps out of a GPU that is all but touching the glass panel is going to be difficult. Fractal’s Flex B-20 is an easy fix, and you have to buy a flexible PCIe riser anyway so you might as well just make it easy. Again, with the little details, but things like the spot in the top panel for a fill-port just show you Fractal tries to think of everything.

Build quality-wise, It’s up to the usual Fractal standard. Zero sharp edges, tons of small but incredibly useful features, and even knurled drive screws. There are always a million little things you run into putting together a build. You’ll have several “It would be really handy if I could just…” instances in any build, but with the Meshify 2 XL, it’ll be followed with a “… oh, never mind, you CAN do that. Sweet!” My only complaint is with the lower 3.5” drive cages. We just couldn’t get them in or out of the case without going through the PSU hole in the rear. It’s not really a big deal unless you decide to add or remove one (or both) with a complete build but it could lead to a frustrating half an hour unwiring your PSU, cramming one of these through there, and then having to put it all back together.

Great Job Fractal!