Advise please - case Fractal Design Define R5 Black

Hi all,:)

It's not quite time for a new PC yet, I still like the one I have. But, I have been thinking about upgrading some parts.

Main Question is about a computer case.

 

current parts:

ATX board - GA-Z77X-d3h (gigabyte)

i5-3570k.

Correction, it's a 92mm Hyper TX3 old model.

and

8 GB 1600 Mhz Corsair Vengeance Ram.

Nvidia GT430 videocard

Sata3 SSD Sandisk Ultra 256Gb (old model).

Sata3 HDD 1TB - WD Caviar Black (old model)

One display. 21.5 Inch I think. 1440x900

DVD writer ASUS F1ST

500W Corsair PSU

 

All that is in a very old case at the moment. I think it originally housed a intel celeron/pentium 1.7Ghz or something.

It only has one front intake fan, and no exhaust fans. The only exhaust is the PSU.

Airflow was abismal, especially intake. When I opened the 3.5" external cover, air RUSHED[/] in.

When I saw that I hacksawed out part of the front panel, so air would be drawn in better. That helped. Now opening the 3.5" slot there is hardly any airflow through that anymore.

 

When I built the pc, two years ago, I found it hard to choose a case, so I put that off till later.

It ran fine at base frequency for a long time. But lately I have tried some overclock settings and enjoyed the results.

Did not like the temperatures I saw though.

 

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Now I've slowly built a list of 'wants'. I will probably buy them streched out over some time. starting with a case.

-Case.

-2fan, or maybe 1fan water cooler. H100 seems to be what people recommend.

(Case must have plenty room for the H100, For my first water cooler install I don't want to be restricted for room)

-nvidia gtx

-a new PSU, 600W I think. (and a UPS).

 

 

What do I want in a case:

-Roomy, so the heat has somewhere to go. And ample room to guide cables.

-Silent. I've had it with that deep hum whenever a DVD spins up, or when FSX is running and the videocard fan spins at full blast.

-Nice amount of front panel connectors.

 

I checed out all cooler master cases I think.

I looked at their "quiet" segment, but all those cases seem tight. Also, in reviews they don't seem to have great cooling qualities.

I looked at others as well.

Two I really liked are the midi size Storm Trooper, and expecially the Storm Enforcer.

But, what I read is that CM cases ar nicely tricked out, but are not the greatest build quality. Not built heavy, and therefore noisy.

I don't have recent enough experience with CM cases to judge any of thsat myself though....

 

Then I also looked at cases from Fractal Design.

I looked at the core3000, but that all looked a little tight.

 

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A few weeks ago I saw one that really got my blood racing.

***** The Fractal Design Define R5 Black *****

I really like it.

Very roomy.

Adaptable removable drive cage, door can be mounted to open left or right.

Cooling openings in clever places. 2 x Large on right panel. 2 x 14 on front esily accessible. 3x14 max on top. and some on bottom.

And my personal favorite: Rubber panels to close cooling openings that are not in use are incluuded. So spilled coffee on the PC won't drip through the vents into the PC.

Unfortunately only two 14cm fans included, but I'll get over that.

Case is heavy (10kg). Damping materials in the Side panels. Has a door. So should be silent.

Has a three fan drive controller built in. (I want one, but fan controllers could be bought seperate as well.)

 

Before I pushed the button I wanted to as you'alls opinion.

I think this is Ideal. Roomy, Quiet, and Great Cooling. Do you like it as much as I do?

 

I see two slight negatives perhaps.

1--Is the cooling really good?

This case, because of the door, does not draw air straight in. On the sides of the doorframe are slots, all the way around.

I only found a few comparisons with this case in it. Do these slots have a very negative effect on the cooling capacity of this case.

 

2--There are no grommets on the back to put water cooling tubes through. (for mounting a watercooler outide.)

Not really something I wanted to do yet anyway. But you never know what the future may bring

 

Any negative sides I overlooked?

 

Any advice on how well this case keeps things cool, how quiet it really is, and on the build quality will be much apreciated!!

Or anything else that comes to mind.

Thank you,

il88pp.

Adding. I have no experiences with either brand. So any info on them, and about difference in quality, would be very usefull.

I have 2 Fractal Design cases, an Arc Midi R2 and a Define R2 XL. Both have been great cases, and I haven't had any issues with cooling in either one. The R2 is a little on the heavy side, however it also doesn't rattle or vibrate with the several hard drives inside it (it's housing a FreeNAS server).

Thanks. That's good news. It's always hard to judge from the 'reviews'.

I'm still not decided, but that's because the R5 may just so much bigger then the case I have no. Maybe it's a bit over the top.

But it would set me up for years to come, so it looks like it is going to be the R5 eventually. I'll just have to sleep on it a few more nights.

 

The door will take getting used to, never had that.

I may not need all the drive cages, but I ran out of space in other cases and that's is even worse.

But I'm still in love with the cable management, the cooling, and the way the drive cage can be used with the way the fans are mounted flush in the front. Also the fan controller is a big plus.

 

Thanks again loki. Even if not the r5, I will get a Fractal Design. They get very good reviews all round I see, also on techy geeky sites.

 

il88pp

Hi il88pp,

 

I'm very jealous of your chosen case! Looks like a good one!

 

I may have to pick one o' those up for Christmas...

 

Please let us know how it all works out.

 

Good luck!

 

E-Buzz :pilot:

I have two of their R4 cases. They're excellent at keeping the noise in and the dust out. The only quibble I have is the location of their SSD mount points, but if you use one of the drive bays or don't add/remove drives you'll be fine.

 

Cheers!

 

Luke

Thank you both for that! I'll keep you posted.:)

I use the Fractal case you refer to and I can fit everything I dreamed of in it. 4 HD, 2 CD, Full ATX board, Dual SLI GTX 980 graphics and water cooler in the roof. LOVE IT.

Bglass, thank you.

That (space) was one of my reasons mainly for choosing this one.

Not that my pc has that many/large parts (yet). Full ATX, medium-large aircooler, but only one ssd and hd, and a small Vcard and cardreader. It's more that I'm fed up with always having cuts and grazes on my hands after messing inside. And fumbling with cables to disks and drives.

 

I love how in this there is so much room between board and drives, board and right side, front fan and drive bays, top and board. Room all around.

It's the only case that in reviews/tests with images looks like it is really roomy. And on close inspection those images show parts inside that are the largest in those product lines!

 

The exterior size difference still feels like a hurdle, but on comparing again, other cases are almost all just as wide&deep. So there's on getting away from that change. (current 18.5cm wide going to 23.2)

Those give far less space inside so the choice is obvious.

 

The other reason is of course peace and quiet. My current case is 'plasticy' and thin. With a 10kg weight, and 14cm fans, I'm sure this one will be much more quiet.

I think I will push the button tomorrow.

I have a feeling more and more new stuff will follow. Especially the roof-cooling is very very tempting.:)

 

Thank you, il88pp.

Oh, Bglass, one question if I may,

I saw in the images the front grill looked rather "crude" for lack of a better word. Very large gaps in the grill. big enough to poke a finger through and accidentally damage the dust filter. (or worse if the dust filter would be permanently taken out!).

 

I never had a case with a door. Seems inconvenient.

I first thought to maybe take the door off permanently.

What do you think?

Would you say running this with the door permanently removed is a bad idea?

-regarding fingers.

-regarding higes, being exposed to damage.

As I type this I realise it may also be a bad idea concidering noise perhaps?

Would be interested to hear your thoughts.

il88pp

I never had a case with a door. Seems inconvenient. I first thought to maybe take the door off permanently.

 

Why? I almost never open mine. Do you constantly shuffle optical media in or out, because that's the only reason i need to open my door.

 

Cheers!

 

Luke

Good point.

No I don't use that too often. Not 10 times a day. mor elike once a day/several times a week.

But when i use a cd I'm often inserting/ejecting/inserting several times. And opening and closing the door all the time seems a hasstle in such moments.

 

I don't have it installed at the moment. But I plan to pop my card reader in to the lower 5 1/2 drive slot. That would also require regular access.

That may at some point be replaced by a E-Sata connector.

 

Also, when getting at the innards, I usually lay a case on it's side. Or at an angle resting against a bookcase. If the door falls open each time I do that it's a problem. Plus when laying it on it's side I want a good grip on the front and back. So grabbing a door which is loosely attached is not really an option.

Say it falls open while rotating the case on it's side. It might get squashed and snap off at the hinges. Would be a waste!

 

I agree, it is not essential, not a deal breaker. But it was the first thing I thought when I saw the case. "Looks great, but the door, I hope it can be removed."

 

I found out the door can be switched left-right. And removed permanently as well. But when I saw what was behind the door I was surprised. No mesh like most cases, but what looks like 'prison bars':):)

Yes! Arctic Design Define R5 black Arrived and parts put in. Putting it all in took about 8 hours. Figuring out the cable routing, inspecting everything was delivered ok, swapping the door to the other side, checking out the fan controller, counting the screws, finding the screwholes, adjusting cable lengths, jotting down old cable connections, and taking apart the psu and cleaning the dust out of that. All in all pretty quick I think.

 

Fans were pre-mounted. Everything else also. Only a small box of screws and standoffs came included separate. Perfect.

 

All installed now, computer boots a-ok.

 

I only found two small niggles, my fault for not reading adds correctly. Nothing wrong with the delivery or anything like that.

1. I had expected a 5.25'' to 3.5" converting front side cover to be included. It wasn't. I probably saw it for another case and mixed it up. As they can be found seperate (included with mount rails for 3.5" drives) it's no biggy.

2.The case does not have a speaker inside. (bios beep speaker) I had not even checked any cases for this. I expected them all to have one. Easily fixed, I lifted the old (tiny) speaker out of the old case and attached it with a binder to the drive cage. Simple.

 

Inside it's all very neat. Only the 8pin able runs from psu to board directly. To short to go behind tray and back. All else is routed behind the tray.

When looking at the mess I made back there my heart sank. How to ever close the right door... I tried, to see how much it would go... And it just closed without any forcing!

 

Wow. First impressions. Sturdy, whisper quiet.

 

It is sure a lot heavier and more bulky then what I had, but I'm very happy I treated myself to this. This case will last a lifetime.

Having 4 Usb ports up front two2 and two3 is already a pleasure. My old case had none.

 

Off to listen to the silence now.:) I can hardly hear that old gt430 and CM212 any more:)

 

Thank you all for the great advice. Have a good one, il88pp.

The front grill opening size is fine. It was hard to judge the size of the gaps from images, but they are smaller then I thought. No chance of even getting a pinkie finger through. I may run the case without front door in future, but I'll leave it in place for the time being.

 

The door itself closes tightly. I haven't discovered what holds it shut yet, but it is a tight close, and laying the case on it's side there is almost no chance the door will accidentally swing open. It also will only swings open 90 degrees, so even if it were to open during that it would not get squashed.

The results are great.

My CPU is i5-3570k 3.4ghz base (turbo to 3.8)

If overclocked that to 4.1ghz I used to get temps running up to 75-76 degrees Celsius pretty quickly, then staying there steadily. More then I wanted to see.

 

Now at that same overclock, I get these temperatures. No higher then 61 Celsius.

So that's almost 15 degrees lower!!

Videocard used to go to 80, even 85 at times. Now significantly lower also.

I'm a happy chappy!!:):):)

 

 

This image was taken after running fsx at a high detail airport for at least 40 mins, with real temp running in the background, as well as Internet Explorer. Also 10 thing in the system tray.

 

 

I also did a full AV scan, including scanning .zips, all scan options selected.

That scans the 120 gb on my SSD, and also around 420gb on a 4-5 year old HDD.

In the old case that was so noisy sleeping in the same room would have been almost impossible. Now not even a whisper. If anything I heard the cpu-fan a little.

Magnificent, just magnificent.

couldn't be happier.:)

il.

I had made a small error. I connected the fans (looked like 3pin) to the mainboard (4pin pwm fan headers).

Corrected now, because a day later I looked up if that was right saw 3pin to 4 pin header will have no variable speed. So I decided to use the case's fan controller instead. I hooked the fan controller to a PSU-Sata, and the fans to the fan controller.

As I did, I saw the included fans are not even 3 pins, the connector is, but there are only two wires, so they are two pin fans.

Anywho, it works very well. At Idle, browsing, AV scanning I use setting 1 or 2 , when running fsx I set the controller to 2 or 3. (3 is highest available).

Much quieter, and cooling still excellent at lower speeds.

 

I am so happy with the results! Yesterday I happened to fly over London at about 25.000 ft in the b737_800. Normally frames would drop to 14-18 if I did that. Now a steady 29.9-30 (locked at 30). Wheeee! :)

 

Because of the great results of the lower temps, and because the CPU cooler can still get a bit noisy at times, I decided to upgrade my CPU cooler.

No Watercooling construction just yet, I'll have to think about that for a little while longer. As a temporary solution I will upgrade my 92mm CM-hyper TX3 (4-5 ears old) to a

- 120mm Gelid Solutions Tranquillo Rev.3

I'm hoping a new 120mm fan will improve things. I saw some good reviews about Gelid and their quiet fans.

I also ordered a extra 140mm Noctua NF-A14-Fan. To blow air from the front of the case through the lower drive cage. 4pin, so that will go to a system fan header.

Happy days!:)

 

-Edit-

* I see the Noctua NF-A14 comes with a 4pin to 3pin converter, so I could connect it to the fan controller instead. Not sure yet.

* I have removed the upper drive cage and put the drives in the lower cage.

* Also, I removed the speaker from the drive cage and attached it to the perforations next to the Pci-slots. Less chance of getting caught on the wire and damaging the pins when it's in that position.

OK, I'm convinced!

That case is definitely going on the Christmas list!

Thanks for the detailed reports il88pp!

E-Buzz :pilot:

Speaking of details. I just had a look at the fans, and saw they do have three pin connections. (I said 2-pin earlier.)

 

I mixed it up. The fans are 3-pin.

 

It's the fan controller connectors that have two wires to a three pin socket.

 

(so you won't be able to stick a 4pin fan into the fan controller without some work or a 4pin to 3pin converter.)