Fractal Design Define R2

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pwrusr

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After looking around online I couldn't find any where in the US that sells this case.

Anyway, I E-Mailed Fractal and asked them if they had plans to bring it here...
Their response:
Thank you for your interest in the DEFINE R2 case.

I will fly in the next days to Las Vegas to attend the C.E.S.
Our goal is to lay in the first quarter the first contact to some prospects in the States and Canada.
I have a couple of names on my list like Newegg in US and NCIX in Canada etc. which are our goal customers.
After the fair I can tell you more.
I guess it will take a couple of month until the business is starting up and the first container from Asia are arriving In the USA.

Maybe you have some good contacts/ prospects which I should call?
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i really wish this was available in the US. It would hands down be my next case if I could get it for ~$100. After shipping and taxes from the UK, it's $150, which is a little steep for me.
 
Yeah I feel the same as you. I'm waiting a little bit more then I'll try e-mailing them again to see if they were successful getting their foot in the door here in the US .
 
anyone know of a particularly good/cheap place to have this shipped over?
 
That's a really nice looking case. Too bad I have so much invested into my PC-A05N. Maybe some other time.
 
It is a very nice case. Miles better than my old Antec 300. I would definetly recommend it.
 
Nice case. Very simple/minimalistic and it's reminiscent of Lian Li, but is the build quality really the same? For $100 though, the case seems like it's worth that amount of money. If Fractal releases their cases to the states I hope they'll stay within the same price point
 
I'd just like to add my thoughts on the Fractal R2.
It's not a bad case, by any means ... you get what you pay for. It's very quiet, lots of acoustic padding etc, and the HDD mounts are really excellent. Cooling as standard is not great, with one (filtered) 120mm intake fan unfortunately restricted by the door, and one 120mm exhaust fan. There is another intake fan space, and two top 140mm mounts, as standard these are covered by more acoustic padding. Removing this padding makes the case's cooling far better, but ruins the look of the top. The case's build quality is somewhat variable, I build systems for a living and have built a lot of these cases. Some of them, the acoustic padding tends to fall off, from the case sides or on the inside, it's fairly random. Not a problem as it does stick back on, but annoying nonetheless.
Cable management is fairly good, the main chamber of the case can look very clean and tidy almost to the point you wish there was a window to show it off, but the other side of the case does become a mess as there's not so much room. With multiple HDDs it does get very tight and some of the power cables etc just have to be kept in the main chamber.
I would say for a quiet, minimalistic build, one of these cases would be perfect if you added another Fractal intake fan, and maybe a 140mm top exhaust if you didn't mind removing some of the padding.
 
I love this case. If I could find it for <$150 after shipping I'd bite. Seems to be around $120 over in europe, but shipping it here is really expensive...
 
Looks like it will soon be in North America in NCIX of canada in about 2 months time. They have yet to get any takers in the US though :(

At least with NCIX it should be cheaper then having it shipped from Europe.
 
Calum said:
I'd just like to add my thoughts on the Fractal R2.
It's not a bad case, by any means ... you get what you pay for. It's very quiet, lots of acoustic padding etc, and the HDD mounts are really excellent. Cooling as standard is not great, with one (filtered) 120mm intake fan unfortunately restricted by the door, and one 120mm exhaust fan. There is another intake fan space, and two top 140mm mounts, as standard these are covered by more acoustic padding. Removing this padding makes the case's cooling far better, but ruins the look of the top. The case's build quality is somewhat variable, I build systems for a living and have built a lot of these cases. Some of them, the acoustic padding tends to fall off, from the case sides or on the inside, it's fairly random. Not a problem as it does stick back on, but annoying nonetheless.
Cable management is fairly good, the main chamber of the case can look very clean and tidy almost to the point you wish there was a window to show it off, but the other side of the case does become a mess as there's not so much room. With multiple HDDs it does get very tight and some of the power cables etc just have to be kept in the main chamber.
I would say for a quiet, minimalistic build, one of these cases would be perfect if you added another Fractal intake fan, and maybe a 140mm top exhaust if you didn't mind removing some of the padding.
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Thanks for this. Not interested in buying one myself, but I've been curious about them since I first took notice back in October or so. Looking about EU forums, all I found (not that I dug all that deeply) was loads of fanboi chatter about how it was the perfect case which I always take as a surefire sign of people unwilling to be honest and look w/ a critical eye.

I mean, I think the R2 looks like a FANTASTIC chassis for ~$100, but every case has some flaws, regardless of price.

pwrusr said:
Looks like it will soon be in North America in NCIX of canada in about 2 months time. They have yet to get any takers in the US though :(
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Sucks but I suspect that it's because many retailers like Frys/Newegg/etc try to build up brand recognition and w/ Fractal only having a single design... Hopefully someone USA distributor will pick them up though, because this case would be a great alternative to stuff like the CM 690 II for people who want an understated look as opposed to LED fans and windows.
 
coconutboy said:
Thanks for this. Not interested in buying one myself, but I've been curious about them since I first took notice back in October or so. Looking about EU forums, all I found (not that I dug all that deeply) was loads of fanboi chatter about how it was the perfect case which I always take as a surefire sign of people unwilling to be honest and look w/ a critical eye.

I mean, I think the R2 looks like a FANTASTIC chassis for ~$100, but every case has some flaws, regardless of price.
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You're welcome. Any more questions, feel free to ask, I do work with these on a daily basis so I'm pretty familiar with them.
Personally the case isn't to my tastes and I think there are far better cases for the money out there, but just because I'm not a fan (no pun intended) doesn't mean I'm unwilling to point out the good points, I like to think I'm fairly unbiased. And for the record I'm not into LED fans and windows, and I was very interested in the Fractal cases when they first came out, just couldn't afford one and am now glad I couldn't.
 
I must say the customer service is great from Fractal Designs. I damaged one of the sidepanels on my case, emailed Fractal and got directed to their UK branch. Within minutes of giving them my address a new panel was in the post and dispatched for next day delivery. No questions asked, afterall, the damage was my fault. Hopefully I should be getting it tommorow if Parcel Force deliver while I'm in.

My only critisisms of the actual case would be the paint and the rubber gromits for the cable management holes. The paint looks good and the finish is nice, but it is quite easy to scratch. It's not super fragile, but I do have a little scratch on one side panel. The rubber gromits are not secured to the holes very well either. When putting the cables through a couple popped out. This is not a problem as such, but a bit annoying. You could easily put them back in, but I just left the ones off came out.

On the whole it is brilliant value for money though. Before I saw this case I was in love with my Antec 300 and didn't see me changing cases for a long time. However, within days of seeing this I couldn't believe the amount of features for the price. Since I am bit obsessive with my cables and how the interior looks the idea of it being painted black inside and having cable management holes were great attractions. The cooling isn't quite as good as with my Antec 300, but I didn't expect it to be better. Only a few degrees difference. It's much quieter, I am using 3 Fractal Design 120mm fans and two Xilence 120mms and am happy with the noise.
 
What would you say are the biggest negatives of the case?

I read somewhere that the padding issue is solved, true?

How is the exterior finish to the case, clean and well built?
 
I'm not sure about the issue with the sound proofing. I've seen a couple of cases online, but all of mine was stuck on fine, and the stuff on the new side panel is glued well too. I would imagine that they have solved it now anyway.

Like I say, the only issues are the rubber gromits coming out and how the paint is not brilliant at resisting scratches. Other than that it's brilliant. The paint on the outside and inside looks great, a lot of attention to detail has been put into designing it. The build quality is the best I've ever had, but it's also the most expensive case I've had so I'm not really one to judge. I've not had any problems anyway.
 
Not sure if the padding issue is solved, as I said it wasn't hugely widespread but I can say I haven't seen any Fractals come through recently with the padding falling off so it could well be solved.
The rubber grommits is something I forgot about - they do fall off very easily and are a pain to fit back on, but it's not a huge issue.
Something else I forgot - the optical drives aren't all that easy to fit, they require a little force and wiggling. This is universal, I've never built a Fractal that hasn't had this issue, but again it's not major.
The exterior finish is nice, I don't think it's too prone to scratches or no more so than any case. Then again, I haven't tried to scratch it and I have to take special care when building, so it's unlikely I would have scratched it anyway.
 
My latest ones:

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Other than the sidepanels being rather thin, sometimes a bit awkward to get them on again, and the little sticky out pins bending. The paint not being brilliant either as Ive got a small scratch already, Im perfectly happy with it, you need to buy more fans though as it runs far too hot as default. Added 2x 140mm top, a 140mm on the side and another 120mm in the front and it cools a lot better, and undervolting the fans means its still nice and quiet.
 
I thought the mnpctech link had been posted above, but I guess not. Glad you posted it pwrusr because I guess I forgot. Also, Bit-tech did a review. Their testing shows the stock cooling sucks (not really a surprise), but otherwise they liked the case, especially for silent builds. With so many different locations for adding fans, all it'll take is a lil' experimenting w/ additional fans and cooling should be fine for most users.
 
Does anyone here own the Fractal XL? I've only seen one review (bit-tech) and it didn't get great marks for cooling, I would like to know if there's any suggestions from owners.
 
Riddleofsteel said:
Does anyone here own the Fractal XL? I've only seen one review (bit-tech) and it didn't get great marks for cooling, I would like to know if there's any suggestions from owners.
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Yes, arrived today. It has some flaws, but I really like it. I read that review too and I aggree the default cooling config does sucks (more fans blowing air out than in). Even out the config (e.g side panal fan), the 22cm fan does start moving a fair amount of air. Also the fans arn't very powerful (600rpm I belive), after all the dust filters, they don't move very much at all.

Buying a couple of decent 140mm fans isn't the end of the world and it comes will with a veriable fan controller (pointless for low rpm fans). After that a would say the cooling / noise balance is perfect.
 
Wiseguy2001 said:
Yes, arrived today. It has some flaws, but I really like it. I read that review too and I aggree the default cooling config does sucks (more fans blowing air out than in). Even out the config (e.g side panal fan), the 22cm fan does start moving a fair amount of air. Also the fans arn't very powerful (600rpm I belive), after all the dust filters, they don't move very much at all.

Buying a couple of decent 140mm fans isn't the end of the world and it comes will with a veriable fan controller (pointless for low rpm fans). After that a would say the cooling / noise balance is perfect.
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Can some of the exhaust fans be flipped over to be intake as well?
 
Sure, it's just a matter of retating the fans (altough I would keep the rear and top as exaust). By having side intake, rear exhaust, top (22mm) exhaust. Is keeping my 4.8ghz SB in the low 70's (it was touching 80c default). With 3x 1000rpm 140mm fans, temps should improve furthermore and still be quiet.
 
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