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
Assembling the Fractal Design Define R3
Putting together the Fractal Design Define R3 was actually surprisingly unusual. Everything goes in the usual places and there aren't exactly any particularly strange decisions, but when it came time to install our testbed into the R3, I found that parts of the inside were ever so slightly off kilter. The interior feels like one of Corsair's designs, but one that just doesn't quite come together like Corsair's do.
Installing the motherboard was easy enough, but unfortunately Fractal Design doesn't have any standoffs pre-mounted into the tray. What you'll notice, though, is that a standard ATX motherboard does ever so slightly overlap the grommets and mounting holes surrounding the motherboard tray. Our test board is by no means oversized, but the edge is maybe a millimeter or two beyond the edge of each grommet.
The optical drive bay and hard drive trays are also anything but toolless, but given the acoustically optimized ambitions of the R3, that's not too surprising. The R3 uses the same white steel drive trays for 3.5" and 2.5" drives that the Arc Midi does, and they fit in snugly and securely. You'll still have to screw the drives into the trays, but that's not altogether unusual. Meanwhile you'll also have to manually screw in the optical drive to mount it in the 5.25" bay, but at least the shield pops off easily enough; there's a small lever on the side that you push in, and the shield just pivots right out. Fractal Design includes thumbscrews explicitly for mounting 5.25" drives, and they work well.
Mounting our GeForce GTX 580 wasn't a huge hassle either, although the spacing on the enclosures we test always seems ever so slightly off, and I feel like there's at least a shred of human error involved there. When an enclosure doesn't include an easy way to mount the motherboard, there's usually a margin of error for getting it aligned perfectly and making sure the GTX 580's bracket doesn't wind up having to stretch. So the GTX 580 had to be gently nudged into place, but it was secure and mounted using a thumbscrew.
It's here that I'd like to point out that Fractal Design also includes an expansion slot mounted fan controller with the R3. You don't have to use it and for our testing I actually elected not to; there are only two fans in the case, and both can easily be manipulated using our motherboard's built-in fan control. Cabling the fan controller in the Arc Midi also served to muck up our installation a bit, so I opted to test the R3 using motherboard control instead. When we get to the results, you'll see this wasn't an issue.
Remember when I said the interior of the R3 wound up being ever so slightly off kilter? The power supply and cabling is where that comes into play. The gap between the end of the motherboard tray and the drive cage winds up oftentimes being better for routing cables than the smallish holes in the tray, but on the flipside it results in a messier installation. The interior of the R3 may in many ways look like a Corsair case, but it doesn't work out that way in practice. The hole for the cabling to connect to the power supply is too small, and the hole that was intended for the AUX 12V line above the motherboard tray is about the right size, but runs right into the top rim of the case. As a result, the plastic plug part of the cable can't fit through the gap, or at least couldn't with our testbed; it just butts up against the inside rim of the case.
If it seems like I'm making a mountain out of a molehill, you're probably right. The interior of the R3 is still by and large well enough designed, and it's not going to be particularly difficult to install a system into it. The problem is that there are all of these little things in it that keep it from being a perfectly clean and easy installation the way the Corsair cases it resembles tend to be. If they fixed the holes in the motherboard tray by lining them up better and expanding them a bit, we'd probably have a much easier time. It's a small fix, but it would go a long way.
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BitJunkie - Saturday, November 12, 2011 - link
I intended to buy this case, however, it was out of stock and predicted to be out of stock for some time. I ended up getting the Arc Midi with a separate noise damping kit for recent build. I also purchased extra case fans, a noctua D12 and Gainward phantom 560 gfx card to team up with an i5 2500k. Its fast enough and silent.20 deg / 30 deg idle
40 deg / 50 deg oc'd and full load.
Nice that at idle the CPU operates at ambient temp.
I tried some experiments:
1) No noise damping kits
2) full noise damping (all inner surfaces covered and no intake fans)
3) 2 No x 140mm intake fan and 2 No x 140 mm throttled venting fans with noise damping cut to cover the exposed panel sections
for 1) it was super loud, for 2) the case got very warm and mobo temps kept creeping up. For 3) I ended up with a super silent case with lots of space and good airflow.
Given that the Arc Midi is a newer design, removable drive bay, larger cable routing slots and perfectly aligned stand-offs I'd say that it is ahead of the R3. With the addition of fractal design noise damping kit (foam with bitumen backing) then it is way ahead of my friends R3.
Still the R3 is a great case and the write up here is to my mind a bit more critical than it needs to be. For my last build, I used a Lian Li tower that cost me over USD 200. Found this experience to be as good and probably easier on balance.
I have more money than I need, don't really care about paying for premium kit if it gives value - I still buy Fractal Cases - would even do so for an epic build. Quite depressed to see that high end cases dont give actually give significanltly better build quality or utility than the Arc Midi - I'd really like an excuse to buy them.
I want a case that looks good and doesnæt come from some sci-fi movie film set.
So long as you are not gated by thermal performance, I dont see the R3 case being a limit on rig performance - so long as you can get the components in it that you want to. Key dimensions are well specified by Fractal so check out their website and use your brain.
Dustin Sklavos - Saturday, November 12, 2011 - link
Honestly I'd rather be overly critical than not critical enough. As a consumer, someone buying the end product, I'd rather the reviewer have missed something awesome than something that was going to make my life difficult.That said, the R3 is certainly a fine case and one of the better ones I've reviewed, easy enough to recommend for sure.
BitJunkie - Sunday, November 13, 2011 - link
Good points Dustin. I've been reading anandtech since 2002 and the reviews that you and your colleagues post are excellent. I wouldn't wish that you change your style or approach at all.I suppose my intention was to say that the negative points that you raised, which are valid, are not significant in my decision making process when I weigh them against the other points that I feel are important.
Of course, because you pointed them out, others are then free to make their own evaluations on how important they are.
Keep up the good work.
petrucius - Saturday, November 12, 2011 - link
I am so going to buy one of those for xmas.Great design and looks, love it.
petrucius - Saturday, November 12, 2011 - link
Oh and I almost forgot - great review, thank you! :)einard - Sunday, November 13, 2011 - link
And I can highly recommend it. So many good points compared to the bad ones. Dust filters work like a charm.It works well with stock, but I've gone to the step of adding two more intake fans (bottom and front) and the side door outtake fan. I'm running xfire 6950's and it sure gets hot down by the outtakes - but that just keep my feet warm during cold days :)
Also, to top it off I removed the padding infront the one of the top fan spots. Even though its right next to the read outtake, it get hot around the cpu, and by opening that up it allows for natural removal of air.
By using the simple fan controller that follows with the case, you can control three fans I believe - which I use to tune the intake fans to just so much that I have a slight overpressure in the case to keep dust out. I don't know the results after this, but I'm betting that if you add those three fans plus removing the padding you can get some crazy good results for a cheap case.
I wish someone would go to the step and testing the case to it's full potential (challenge for you Anand)
Daedalus454 - Monday, November 14, 2011 - link
I've been using this case for about 6 months now. I've used more expensive cases from Antec, Cooler Master, etc in the past. IMO this case is the best one I've ever used.I'm very surprised that you weren't able to fit the 12v power cable through it's grommet. I had no issues while using the 12v 8-pin on my SeaSonic X-650 power supply, and more recently with an NZXT 12v extension cable. I'm also running the power cables from my top and rear fans through this same grommet, and I can fit the 12v 8-pin plug through the grommet with both of these power cables in place. Does your test power supply have larger-than-normal connectors perhaps?
I actually prefer the slight overlap between the motherboard and the side grommets, as this allows me to more easily make smaller u-bends in my cabling which, to my mind, results in a cleaner case layout. I did end up running the main ATX power cable through the gap between the mobo tray and the drive chassis, as you mentioned, which I don't really have a problem with. It puts a lot less side load on the motherboard power connector that way in any case.
In my experience, if installed correctly, brass motherboard standoffs are extremely rigid - I doubt your issue with the video card not lining up perfectly is related to the use of removable standoffs. I find that there's a lot more wiggle room where the motherboard screws into the mounts, and if a video card doesn't line up, I just need to loosen all the motherboard screws and gently slide the mobo in the right direction.
I'm running my R3 with two 120mm intakes, a 140mm bottom intake, a 120mm exhaust, and a 140 top exhaust, running through an NZXT Mesh fan controller. With the fans set to a "reasonable" speed I can cool an idling Phenom II 955 (with a CM Hyper 212+) at 1-2 degrees above ambient. With the top 140mm fan, I prefer to mount the CPU cooler horizontally so that it exhausts straight out the top of the case.
milic - Sunday, November 20, 2011 - link
I am looking for real silence, just wondering: are FD fans good enough to be kept or is it worth switching to top of the line Noctua NF-S12B FLX? and great review by the way, this case is really top notch for valuemilic - Sunday, November 20, 2011 - link
Ooops edit: Daedalus454, interesting comments, on the side, what is the NZXT Mesh fan worth? looks nice, no real information displayed but does it really matter? :-)Flashfir - Monday, November 21, 2011 - link
I'm running this with sflex-e as exhaust, 1 as the upper front intake, a stock fan for front lower intake, and a 140mm xigmatek for bottom intake. it runs pretty quiet my friends say they can't tell if my computer is on walking into the room.if you got any questions, lemme know. I'm also running a hyper 212+ and a 955.