Fractal Define R2 Review!

[Disturbedguy]

Disturbedguy's Fractal Define R2 Review

OK, well here it is, this is my first EVER review of anything. So please bare with and I apologise for any images that are blurry or poor as taking photographs is not something I am good at!

Well, first are the customary pictures of the box the case comes in.



^^Side of the box, showing the internals of the case with some information.



^^And the other side of the box, this side showing what the front of the case looks like.

Bit of a SCAN-esk style photo with items in box, only I took one fan out of the box to me more "arty"



^Will come back to the fans later.

Next picture will be the case out of it's box!



Thought you were going to see it in all it's glory, didn't you?

Anyway, the first thing I will say is that this case wasn't in the box in the "traditional" way. What I mean by this, is I was expecting to open the and see the top of the case, I didn't, I saw the front of the case as the case comes in the box, stood up which kind of threw me at first!

Next up, is a size comparision, compared to my current case, the CM590.



^^ As you can see, the difference in tiny, without the feet, I think it would stand the same height as the CM590 which kind of left me thinking hmm, if it is going to be the same size, maybe it isn't as good as I had first hoped.



^^Picture of the right hand side of the case, in this picture you can see where the fan will attach to the side of the case



^^ And left side of the case, nothing really to say about this shot, its a case.



^^ Back of the case with it's pre-set holes for those liquid cooling enthusiasts of you! You can also see one of the fans that come with the case, in the as you will soon see, traditional black and white theme that Fractal use with this case.


^^Front of the case with the protective film half peeled of..ohh frisky!



^^ Image showing how the door of the case opens. The door is heald shut by magnets, rather powerful little magnets I might had that do their job well! You can see the vents at the side for airflow in this shot also.



^^The door of the case opened. I was quite suprised with what I found actually. As you can see, the door has been sound proofed! At first I thought it looked a little plain, but then with a slight touch to right hand side of the doors and they popped open revealing some of the fan bays, with one fan pre-installed! The fans, as you can see from the picture are covered with a mesh/ filter.




^^ Picture of the top of the case showing USB, Power button, Headphones and mic etc. Nice big power button which is something I like.



^^ Shot for the bottom of the case, as you can see it has space for a nice 140mm fan at the bottom and on the right hand side, you can see the filter which covers the vent for the PSU that will sit in the bottom of the case. This is easily remove by simply sliding towards the back of the case.



Blurry close up of one of the feet on the bottom of the case!

[Disturbedguy]

Next up, the inside of the case.

First of all, what I will say is the side's of this case are very tight fitting and it did take a little bit of force to remove the side panel. When I removed the panel I was shocked at the weight of the panel, when I turned it over, I soon realised just why it was so heavy!.



As you can see, there is sound proofing on the sinde of the door and it was quite think, as you an see they also provide a bith that covers the fan vent if it is not in use. This is the same on the other side of the case and the same is done for the vents at the top of the case.



^^ First look at the inside of the case and as you can see the black and white theme is carried out throughout the inside of the case. Bit of a blury shot. As you can *hopefully* see there is a pre cut and pre rubbered hole in the case for the installation of some of them pesky annoying CPU coolers.



^^ Almost forgot a picture of the bits you get in the bits box! Velcro straps, screws finished in black and a mini fan controller that uses an expansion slow at the back of the PC. Very hand indeed!



^^A picture of the left hand side of the case showing the cable management area, lost of holes pre cutter and ermm..rubberised!



^^Close up of the remove HD trays. These are not made from the usual cheap, crappy plastic, but are instead made from metal and as you can see they have rubber feet in them for the HD's to sit on to reduce vibration. These release by pressing on then ends you see sticking out in the photo, they move rather freely and fit back in with a nice click so you know they are secure! It looks as if there will be a fair amount of space between each Hard Drive once installed as well.



^^ An odd angled shot to try and show the space between the drive trays! Will try and get a better shot when drives are in!



^^Apologies for the blurryness of this picture, but what I am showing is the thumb screws used to hold the blanking plates/ your components in place, much better than your traditional screws I reckon!



^^In this picture, to the left you can just about see where the Power Supply will fit and on the right where a 140MM fan will be sitting, Pob, this is the only close up of the filter/ mesh I have at the moment, this looks to be the same stuff used at the front, but during the build, I will try to get better pictures.



^^Holes that run down the left where the Hard Drive trays are, plenty of space to run cables through to help keep them nice and tidy.



^^Bit of a close up of the rubber that is around the hole cut in the motherboard tray for the installation of some CPU coolers.

Thats about it for shots of the inside of the case, rest are too crap to post, but I think I have covered enough. Some random shots below.





I will answer questions at the end of the review, so please, post questions and when I have finished blogging, I will answer all your questions if I can!

[Disturbedguy]

Fan shots!



^^First of all, the fans in a nice pile on top of the box.



^^This pictures shows a fan out of it's packaging and just what you get with the fans. As you can see you get screws, rubber fittings for the fans and the cables come pre-braided for you, saving us all a job!



^^Close up of the fan in my hand.

I will say that these fans felt good, I have opened fans before and thought that they actually felt rather flimsy and didnt like the feel of them, but these just feel good.


So overall I am very impressed with the case so far and also impressed with the fans that I have bought. I wont make any final judgement on the case until I have finished the complete build which I hope will happen sunday.

*N.B: - If anyone would like any specific pictures taken during the build, then please let me know and I will do my best to try and remember to take them. I will also edit this post so I have a list to remind me.

Temperatures idle in old case: -

I used CoreTemp to record the temperatures of the CPU.

(CPU is overclocked to 2.8GHz on my first attempt at overclocking)

Temperature was between 29 and 33 Degrees on each of the four cores.

GPU: -

68 Degrees which I dont like.

Hopefully a clean will sort this out!


If I remember, I will post up temps after an hour or so of gaming.

So far: -

Pob: Close up of the sound proofing from the side to see thickness (none blurry pic )
Close up of the filters on the fans.

Anyway that is all for now, my first time doing this as already stated so I am pretty sure I have missed something really obvious, but I will try to take as many shots as possible during the build process!

[Disturbedguy]

Well here is the final shot.

First I need to apologies for the lack of built photo's, brother took the camera and I couldnt wait for him to bring it back to crack on, so just got it done. For now just the photo's but the write up will follow either today or tomorrow now as I am knackard lol.

First, a shot of the cabling in the old system.




^^Pretty messy huh?



Now for the after shot. I am pretty please with myself as this is the first proper attempt I have made at cable tidying in a case. No cables are really blocking any of the fans and have kept them as out of the way and tight as possible. If I would have a bit more space and room in some places (which will be detailed in the write up) I think I could have done better.

But for what I have done today, I am pretty pleased.

[Pob255]

Cool-o I'll be intrested to hear your thoughts on this case.

[Disturbedguy]

Well I am just about to upload the pics..i hope the quality isnt too bad :s This is my first review of any item..so :S

[nibbler]

It looks nice, was considering it recently. Where did you pick it up?

[Pob255]

Can I request some close up's of the sound dampening meterial on the case side panels (esp at the edge of the material to show the thickness)
And the front fan filters.

Oh an in focus please
see if your camera has a macro function, that's a function that lets it focus close up.

[Disturbedguy]

I can get close up's yes, as for the in focus..hmm now you are just getting cheeky
Will have to look for information about the camera as it is my brothers!

Will try and get a better picture of the inside of the case also.

[Biscuit]

Im looking at getting this case aswell dude thanks for this

[Disturbedguy]

Cheers Biscuit.
Hopefully will have the bulk of the review done tomorrow.

Here is the plan: -

Finish review tomorrow in regards to the case with idle temps and temps after 1 hour of gaming.
Saturday afternoon, take current machine apart and shift component to new case. Then sleep.
Sunday wire the thing up, want to spend a while doing it to try and get some decent cable management going on.
If all goes well, post idle temps and load temps sunday night.

There *should* be pictures during the build in the new case providing nothing goes wrong.

Oh and the parts will be getting cleaned and will probably apply some new paste to CPU.

[Disturbedguy]

Well bit of an update, dont want to use the reserved post as that is for pictures of the cable management and stuff inside the case.

Got the hardware in, was pretty quick and easy, would have prefered tool less, but its all good now. One thing I will say, which is the same as I thought about the CM590 is that the case could do with being a little higher but with the motherboard section staying in one place, that way, the fan for some after market CPU coolers can force the hot air up and out of the case, rather than the fan having to face the back of the GPU.

Unfortunately, my brother has took the camera so I have no pictures of the hardware installed!

[Pob255]

Well as with the cm690 you should be able to fit an aftermarket cooler to point upwards if you're using an intel system as the mounting holes form a square.
If it's an AMD system you are often more limited as many aftermarket cooler on fit in one direction on an AMD socket

[Disturbedguy]

It is an intel system, but with a fan at the top of the case, there is no room for the CPU cooler fan.

Pob, I promise to get you the two pictures you asked for..just as soon as I figure out how the hell to use the thing in macro mode

[Disturbedguy]

Quick update, didnt get round to doing the write up last night..football got in the way.
Hopefully tonight after the gym or tomorrow night...being my only free night that doesnt involve some form of get fit-ness this week.

[dave87]

You need to update your system specs


Good looking case, plenty of space for kit in there. Hows the build quality compared with other cases you've used?