Fractal Design Define R5

[HEXUS]

The successor to the popular Define R4 is here. Is it any good?

Read more.

[azrael-]

It took Fractal Design five iterations to finally equip the case with four identical feet instead of the larger pair of feet at the front versus the smaller pair of feet at the back. Hurrah! Too bad they went for four smaller feet.

I'm also liking the reversible door. I for one have my case sitting on my desk to my right. Which brings me to my only real gripe, top-mounted buttons and inputs. Pretty useless when your case is not standing on the floor.

[Bagpuss]

Phew!!!

Runs hotter than my Corsair 450D, temptation to change chasis averted.

nice looking case though..in a crazy Swedish minimalist kind of way.

[Dottorrent]

Huzzah! More radiator places!

[Mauley]

Some nice upgrades but I will stick with my R4 for now. Only just bought the thing for petes sake.

[Pob255]

I really wouldn't class the fractal design drive tray system as a bad feature.
Yes the drives are held into the trays with screws, however they use some good thick rubber grommets, the trays are metal not plastic and getting the trays into and out of the cages is tool less.
It's a far better system with better vibration absorption than almost any other tray or rail system out there, where the rubbery pads are really not thick enough, the only one that's as good/better is the zalman/lian li system where you screw in thickly grommeted screws that then slot into the cage in place of rails.

[eugenius]

Questions:
1. can you buy another 5 bay hdd cage and use two in the front?
2. Can you mount a smaller (80/92mm) fan in the front top when you do that?
3. Failing 2, can you attach a 120/140mm on the inside of the top 5 bay cage?
4. Does the fan controller work with 3 pin or 4pin fans?

[paulspiteri]

Does the front panel still fall off if you look at it wrong?

[Shahman]

Hopefully the R4 goes down in price now.

[lalith]

Decent!

[Bradeh]

Will wait a while for price to drop a little then will definitely pick this up.

[paulk]

I've used R4 for over a year and loved it. Mostly. Today I went splurging on a new CPU / mobo & ended up getting the R5. I'll be building it out tomorrow. It's obviously got some great improvements and I think the review and comments here cover most. It seems like the drive trays and maybe even the cages in the N4 are stronger and, in fact, my first impression after pulling off the sides and having a bit of a gawk, was that the newer model is a bit..um.. cheaper in terms of materials. It's not by much. The covers and their fragile tags mentioned in the article are examples of this. Mind, we are talking fairly minor, mostly cosmetic, elements. I'm hoping/expecting the build to go well. I have high hopes for the case sides; the swing-in mechanism looks smarter than regular slotting which ended up bunching cables in the R4 despite my best efforts (including damaging a square of dampening foam on the inside of the right panel. Quibbling, all, no doubt. Should I have upgraded? Ask me in 48hrs.

[paulk]

If you have a good case (and especially R4), it's really not worth the upgrade. R5 has some nifty improvements but the R4 is more solid and 'feels' like it will be longer lasting. Even the noise dampening materials seem cheaper and slimmer. The perfect world is somewhere between both models I suppose. How much you might like or dislike features of either will be very dependent on where your case lives and how often you need to access it.
In any event, Fractal Design make awesome cases that are shh...very quiet...shhh.

[LANCode41]

does anyone know if the Asus P9x79-e ws will fit into the r5? also is the corsair H80i compatible?

[levifig]

does anyone know if the Asus P9x79-e ws will fit into the r5? also is the corsair H80i compatible?

Super curious about this too! Anyone? Might order one tomorrow just to try it out…

[LANCode41]

Hi, it's confirmed that it won't fit and the grommets are slanted so it only supports atx. Can't remember where I found this info.