Fractal Design Define R3: A Fan Favorite Keeps the Noise Down
by Dustin Sklavos on November 11, 2011 1:22 AM EST- Posted in
- Cases/Cooling/PSUs
- mid-tower
- Fractal Design
Noise and Thermal Testing, Stock
My frame of reference for the Fractal Design Define R3's internal design may be Corsair's line, but for performance I'm actually more interested in seeing how it compares against Antec's elegantly silent Solo II and NZXT's 90%-of-the-way-there H2. The Solo II may have run hot, but it was also the quietest case we'd tested. Meanwhile, NZXT's enclosure suffered from the design flaw of having no real ventilation for the intake fans to pull air through. That was a concern I had with the R3, but the ventilation is definitely there.
Thermally the R3 isn't as big a winner as we'd really like, but it beats the Solo II and H2, and given its intended purpose a middle-of-the-road thermal performance isn't bad at all. And as I've mentioned before, if you're willing to sacrifice a little silence for more performance, there are plenty of ways to go about doing so.
The R3 winds up ranking among our quietest enclosures tested at both idle and load, beating NZXT's H2 and trading blows with the Antec Solo II while delivering superior thermal performance. If nothing else, Fractal Design has achieved a nice balance here and easily steals the show from the equivalently priced H2.
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slacr - Saturday, November 12, 2011 - link
The main differences are:Paint, a bit less shiny and more rugged.
Sound dampening material, R2 has only bitumen where the R3 uses a mix of foam and bitumen.
Softer grommet material for cabling
Larger rear cutout
No big deal imo, I use the R2 and build a computer for my father in an R3
Juddog - Friday, November 11, 2011 - link
It seems almost like they had a NAS usage in mind when they designed the case. It would make a perfect NAS box on the cheap.piroroadkill - Friday, November 25, 2011 - link
Nah, for that, get yourself the Define Mini and use a microATX board.Has 6 3.5" and 2x 5.25" in the exact same, elegant design.
Would be nice and compact.
zero2dash - Friday, November 11, 2011 - link
Glad to see that you finally have one to review. :)-On mine, I did some fan re-configuration. I'm sure for review purposes, you have to review the case with the stock setup....in any event, in my white R3, I took out the FD fans and put 2 S-Flex SFF21E's in the front, 1 SFF21E at the bottom mount position next to the psu, and 1 SFF21E in the rear of the case. I left the ModuVent covers on the side intake and the 2 top exhausts. I'm running a 2600K oc'd to 4.6 GHz @ 1.35 Vcc using a TRUE in push/pull with SFF21E's and my load temps stay around 60C.
The point being - if you set up the R3 like most of the enthusiast 'open air' cases out nowadays, it can definitely hold it's own and compete with them. When I bought the case, I was looking for Antec 300 performance with silence....IMHO, I've achieved that goal.
-Also on mine, I didn't have the issue you mentioned with the standoffs not lining up....mine lined up just fine.
-If I have to list a gripe about the case, it's that the front dust filters are more of a PITA than I'd like to clean. The Antec 300 is a perfect example of dust filters done completely right; it takes 2 minutes to remove, rinse, dry, and reinstall a 300 dust filter. The R3 is quite different. I don't like having to grab a screwdriver to uninstall the fan/filter "sandwich" and then pry the filter off. Luckily with the door and the vents, the front doesn't get too dusty.
-One other minor gripe is I wish the case had a HDD activity light. Some people hook the power LED light up to the HDD header on the board, which does work obviously....I just wish it had a small LED at the top for HDD activity. Nevertheless, it's certainly not a deal breaker.
barry spock - Friday, November 11, 2011 - link
now do the Define Mini! That's what I have, and I really like it.derickso - Sunday, November 13, 2011 - link
agree, please review this box!earle36 - Friday, November 11, 2011 - link
I'm also an owner of this case and absolutely love it! Spec wise I have a Core i5 2500 k running stock, a 6950, and an Asus P8P67. I keep my computer on my desk close to my head, and my previous computer was obnoxiously loud - especially when playing games. When I set out to build a new computer at the beginning of this year, I had a few criteria for choosing the case. Looks, Sound, and Cooling Performance.I love the way this case looks - it's not very outlandish or super geeky looking. And considering that it sits on my desk in the living room of my tiny apartment in plain view - that's a big deal to me. I don't want to my case to have several LEDs and an eccentric shape / design that sticks out like a sore thumb.
Sound-wise I couldn't be happier. The design here is very thoughtful - love that you can open / close the vents, and that they have the sound dampening material on them too. I've left the side and top vents closed, and I bought some Nexus case fans that I put on the front, CPU, and back of the case. These seemed a bit quieter than the stock fans. I used my motherboards' software to control the speed of the fans so that they're inaudible while the system is idle (somewhere around 1100 - 1200rpm). I bought a Seasonic Power Supply that doesn't use the fan while idle. When I play a game, the fans crank up, though they're completely overshadowed by the fan on the graphics card. Still, It's by far the quietest case I've had and VERY quiet.
Cooling wise I've made a small sacrifice in performance so I could have a silent case. Idle it sits between 80's and 90's Fahrenheit, I haven' t seen it go over 120 under load.
Overall couldn't be happier with this case!
londiste - Friday, November 11, 2011 - link
I was literally buying the case when I noticed that it can barely fit 5870 with stock cooling and no way it's going to fit it with the Arctic Accelero Xtreme I have on the thing.I hate this, especially as practically every other Fractal Design case has removable drive bays - arcs, define r3 mini, but not the define r3.
zero2dash - Friday, November 11, 2011 - link
Barely fit a 5870?Considering a 5870 is 11" and I had plenty of room to fit a 6950 which is also 11", plus mine has a beefed up cooler on it....yeah there's no problem fitting an 11" gpu in the R3.
pics for ref: http://s249.photobucket.com/albums/gg212/zero2dash...
zero2dash - Friday, November 11, 2011 - link
Well mine's actually shorter than that but there's still a good 2" of clearance there, I don't think you'll have any problems fitting an 11" card.