HardOCP News
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The crew over at ThinkComputers has published a review of the Fractal Design Define R5 case today for those of you interested.
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Fractal Design Define R5 Case
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B00nie
[H]F Junkie
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I never understood how people can stand looking at the striped, angled boxes that look like they were straight out of a transformers movie. There's beauty in simplicity.
Zefram0911
[H]ard|Gawd
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just in time. I was going to do a new build and this case was near the top of my list.
BunnyKillBot
n00b
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A 6 page review that concludes with 'Grandma Law #1 “If you don’t have anything good to say then don’t say anything.”' and fails to take the nuance of its own advice, coupled with a use of the word 'fractal' that seems to be as marketing misused as 'quantum'. This might as well have been the 'quantum design define q5'
tldr, boring review, boring case.
tldr, boring review, boring case.
cvinh
2[H]4U
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Not bad, my favorite case has to be the 750D. I do like those full windowed side panels.
1337m0dd3r
[H]ard|Gawd
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Nice case, though I'll have to stick with my r4 for now 
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I think my main gripes with the R4 are no easily accessable rear ssd trays (have to mount before motherboard) and no HDD light. Only other issue I had was for some reason I could not get an amd mobo to fit properly with its I/O shield, three ports not lining up and thus unusable.
" I could not get an amd mobo to fit properly with its I/O shield, three ports not lining up and thus unusable."
Whaaaaaaa? That's on your board. I have put a mini itx and mircro atx, atx and eatx.. and ALLL of them match up just fine. I have two R4 sitting in front of me, and the door is plastic. The cases are sweet, but they do weight more then my dead dog.. god rest his doggie soul
Whaaaaaaa? That's on your board. I have put a mini itx and mircro atx, atx and eatx.. and ALLL of them match up just fine. I have two R4 sitting in front of me, and the door is plastic. The cases are sweet, but they do weight more then my dead dog.. god rest his doggie soul
Never said it wasn't. My intel mobo fit in it fine. The amd board is warped perhaps, its spent 3+ years old in a rosewill case. Yet it fit ok in a corsair 650d I tried it in. Just annoying.
dandragonrage
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I have a Define R4 and I've had several motherboards fit perfectly (such as an Asus Maximus VI Hero and an Asrock Z97 Extreme4) but I had a mATX Gigabyte with holes that didn't line up very well. I got that board installed with, if I remember correctly, all screw holes but one. The other screws in the holes I did use needed to be installed in a specific order to accomplish even that. The I/O shield didn't fit well, but fortunately it was close enough. I've had the occasional board do the same thing in various other cases as well. I tend to blame the boards and not the cases (except in cheap cases where this happens with most any board).
The Gigabyte board in question was a Z87MX series.
I do really like my R4 and had been wondering how the R5 compared. A friend of mine just bought this case (not sure if R4 or R5) last week on my recommendation and is so far liking it as well.
The Gigabyte board in question was a Z87MX series.
I do really like my R4 and had been wondering how the R5 compared. A friend of mine just bought this case (not sure if R4 or R5) last week on my recommendation and is so far liking it as well.
Yeah this is a gigabyte 970 atx board. I tried varying the mobo standoffs but the top quarter of the board/IO section just wouldn't line up to let me use the PS2 and top two usb ports. While not absolutely necessary, it made things easier as this mobo gets cranky in bios with keyboards not in the top usb port or the old PS2 port. I'll see if it works in an enthoo pro next week.
At least my 2500k runs great in its new R4. Now my Corsair 650D... don't get me started.
At least my 2500k runs great in its new R4. Now my Corsair 650D... don't get me started.
What do you mean the "front panel"? If you're referencing the "brushed" front panel on the R4 then that wasn't metal either, it's cheap plastic. The entire front fascia of the R4 is actually plastic.
Leonardo Leonardo
n00b
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Airflow is actually extremely important. Derp.
This isn't like the old days where people would mash in like 12 80mm fans in a case. The idea is to put them where you need them to get a good airflow going for your specific setup.
dandragonrage
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You only have to think about airflow if you're doing something extreme. Maybe you are. Dunno. Maybe also if using a crappy stock CPU heatsink.
Airflow in this case is pretty good. Better without the door being closed but there are air vents all the way up the sides of the front bezel/door unit (which is about 2 inches thick) so it's still decent with the door closed if you have the proper fans.
I just did a build with this case. It's an awesome case. Quiet, tons of WC options, decent build quality, understated(doesnt scream 14 year old that just got into PC), lots of space behind mobo tray, plenty of cable management built in, nice window, included fans are quite decent, dust filters are awesome and well thought out. Just an all around super functional case. Perfect case? Nah, but it's pretty bad ass. I truly believe to really get to the next level from this you'd have to drop 300.00 + for a Caselabs. Was very surprised with this one, it will go down in my hall of fame of cases.
mangapc
Limp Gawd
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Thats how Fractal Designs does all their cases. I have a Define R4 and a Node 804. They are both amazing cases and I would recommend them to anyone.
Obnoxiously large? Looking at the measurements it seems about the average size for any mid-tower case.
limitedaccess
Supreme [H]ardness
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Mid-towers in general (as a whole) have been getting progressively larger.
But this is because of the market shift in terms of what goes in a case and desirable features:
-bottom mounting PSUs (and internal separate chambers for cooling)
-more space behind the motherboard (cable routing, SSDs)
-80mm->120mm->140mm fans (or larger) transition
-support for 2x (or even 3x) fan configuration radiators due to the rise in AIO water -cooling,larger potential component sizes (eg. GPU and air heatsink).
If you actually go back over the years mid-towers were much smaller (and especially narrower) than they are currently. I have a Fractal R3 and Sonata Plus for instance and the R3 is much bigger despite both being mid-towers for standard ATX mobos with similar drive configurations. The R3 of course needs to be bigger to accommodate extra features but it still is lacking in terms of features compared to the R4 and now R5 which in turn need to be enlarged to accommodate those features.
I disagree. The Antec p180 mid tower is 10 years old and it's bigger than the R5 (though it's almost 1" wider, but much shorter about 1/2" less depth).
Antec: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811129154 21.3"(H) x 8.1"(W) x 19.9"(D)
Fractal: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811352048 17.76" x 9.13" x 20.51"
Happy Hopping
Supreme [H]ardness
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I just finished off installing a system on this R5, the review has already gives the +ve points on this unit. So I'll just point out the -ve aspect on this case:
1) The holes at the top left corner of the PC is too small, w/ that hole, you are supposed to bring the 8 pin CPU power port from the bottom of the power supply, to the back panel and push thru. So you have no choice but to bring the 8 pin CPU power cable at the front, and thus totally defeated the purpose of a dual panel design. By comparison, the Antec P100 hole is big enough for me to push thru
2) The 3.5" tray is metal, there are 8 of them. It's not necessary to have them in metal, most other brand is plastic, as the metal tray gets heavy. Of course, you can eject the cage if you don't use it
3) The front USB 3.0 are NOT color coded in blue, if you're building this case for ordinary home user, they have no idea where the USB 3.0 should go w/o the color code
4) 1 of the wire (I think it's the Reset wire) that goes to the motherboard is NOT color coded, so we have black and black, and you have to fig. out which one is +ve, wihch one is -ve.
overall, w/ all the other brand name dual panel design titanium case that I set up, I won't go w/ this case again because of (1). Because I buy the dual panel titanium design case to hide the cables. When that hole is too small, and that 8 pin has to flow on top of the motherboard, it looks unprofessional, not to mention this case is more $ than other titanium 2 panel case, such as the Antec P100. The fans are bigger than the Antec case by 2 cm, but I don't need it. In short, the small things that I gain doesn't offset the above issues, mostly (1) and (3).
1) The holes at the top left corner of the PC is too small, w/ that hole, you are supposed to bring the 8 pin CPU power port from the bottom of the power supply, to the back panel and push thru. So you have no choice but to bring the 8 pin CPU power cable at the front, and thus totally defeated the purpose of a dual panel design. By comparison, the Antec P100 hole is big enough for me to push thru
2) The 3.5" tray is metal, there are 8 of them. It's not necessary to have them in metal, most other brand is plastic, as the metal tray gets heavy. Of course, you can eject the cage if you don't use it
3) The front USB 3.0 are NOT color coded in blue, if you're building this case for ordinary home user, they have no idea where the USB 3.0 should go w/o the color code
4) 1 of the wire (I think it's the Reset wire) that goes to the motherboard is NOT color coded, so we have black and black, and you have to fig. out which one is +ve, wihch one is -ve.
overall, w/ all the other brand name dual panel design titanium case that I set up, I won't go w/ this case again because of (1). Because I buy the dual panel titanium design case to hide the cables. When that hole is too small, and that 8 pin has to flow on top of the motherboard, it looks unprofessional, not to mention this case is more $ than other titanium 2 panel case, such as the Antec P100. The fans are bigger than the Antec case by 2 cm, but I don't need it. In short, the small things that I gain doesn't offset the above issues, mostly (1) and (3).
I don't understand this one. I have this case, and I my CPU Power cable goes through there into the MB socket.
I'd be pissed if they switched it to plastic.
I generally agree here and the strange thing is that older versions were color coded.
I'd have to try to reverse it to know if it'd actually matter, but as I recall all of the connectors had print on one side and that side always faces out. If the switch can only work one way, then I agree it'd make more sense to have it red/black or black/white, but I honestly don't recall thinking about it when I put my system together...but maybe I just forgot
Personally, my biggest issue is that there are only 2 external bays. I'd prefer 3 or 4 (make the extra ones removable). I paid 80-90 for mine, which seemed pretty reasonable to me. Then again, I didn't get a window (by choice) and I think those cost more.