Reviews
Fractal Design Define R2 Titanium Chassis Review
Test Setup
The following setup was used to test the Define R2 Chassis:
- Intel Core 2 Quad q6600
- Thermalright Ultra 120 Extreme + Noctua NF-S12B
- MSI P45 Platinum
- HIS ATI Radeon 4770 512MB
- 2 x 2GB 800MHz G.Skill
- Corsair Dominator memory cooler
- 2 x 320GB Western Digital Caviar Blue Raid 0
- Corsair HX 650W
Installation
If you happen to be new to building computers then the included users manual is about as much use to you as shaving with a toothpick. If you’re hoping for a fully fledged installation guide then you’ll be sadly disappointed. Perhaps the general consensus among the Fractal Design team was that those opting for a case of this stature would already be experienced system builders who have no problems working without a set of instructions. You will however be pleased to hear that regardless of the lack of instructions it’s a fairly straightforward affair assembling a system in the Define R2. On the motherboard tray the areas to which you screw in the motherboard mounts are clearly marked for both matx and atx motherboards, so you will know exactly where to install your mounts. The one surprising element of the installation was the 5.25″ bays. Most chassis’ these days come with some form of tooless installation for this part, which allows drives to be locked in place at the click of a button, however we are back to the old fashioned screws with the Define R2. Whilst it doesn’t take that long to install a drive, it is a minor inconvenience we could do without, but I suppose the lack of this feature is reflected in the superb price one would expect to pay for this chassis.The hard drive mounts are very intuitive and a lot of thought has gone into them. Simply pressing the metal tabs and a gently pulling forwards releases the mount to which you screw your hard drive onto the four rubber grommets and slide back into place when you’re done.
As you can see from back of the motherboard tray our socket 775 backplate lines up nicely with the cutaway, however our MSI P55 GD65 LGA 1156 based motherboard didn’t fair so well. In fact it would be impossible to remove the backplate without first removing the motherboard from the chassis, as is the case with most p55 and x58 motherboards. When the Define R2 was designed these other sockets weren’t planned for or were simply forgotten about, but it’s likely this cutaway will be revised in the future to allow all manner of backplates to be accessed without having to removed the motherboard each time.
With the system installed and the cables routed through the provided cutaways the airflow is unrestricted and the computer looks clean and tidy. The cutaways are large enough to allow even the large 24 pin motherboard power cable to fit through and a small cutaway above the motherboard tray allows the 4/8 pin cpu power cable to pass up the rear of the motherboard tray. With a lot of cases the room at the back of the motherboard tray and the sidepanel left a lot to be desired, but there is ample space to fit the the sidepanel on with a mass of cables around the back.
On the next page we take a look at the chassis’ Thermal Performance.
Tags: case, Chassis, Define R2, Fractal Design
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