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Cases Fractal Design Define R3

Discussion in 'Hardware' started by Cutter, 4 Feb 2012.

  1. Cutter

    Cutter What's a Dremel?

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    Having spent a good couple of hours trying to make a final decision on which case to buy to house my new system, I'm leaning towards the Define R3.

    Only issue is that I'm looking to house a GTX 580 card in it on a P8Z68 motherboard, and am concerned about clearances. What are other people's experiences with this case/mobo/card combination? Any recommended makes of GTX580 in terms of length?

    I've also come to the conclusion that if they only made a Define R3 with removeable/splittable drive cages like the ARC Midi, it would be perfect for what I'm after!

    Before anyone asks, my concern with the ARC Midi is its more open top due to the large mesh filter, and with a little boy who loves throwing water around, well ...
     
  2. flame696

    flame696 Terminating People Since 1980....

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    I've had the fractal r3 with a Evga gtx 580 and there is plenty of room. I've now got the arc midi and they both very different cases, R3 is a very quiet closed case build quality is solid and is perfect for a quiet setup. The arc is a more open case which is much more customisable especially as you mentioned the drive cages can be removed. If you are worried about you kid spilling something then go for the R3 but if you want to be able to remove the HDD cages then go for arc midi
     
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  3. jamesn

    jamesn What's a Dremel?

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    i have the r3 as per my signature and no issues at all..
     
  4. N17 dizzi

    N17 dizzi Multimodder

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    I have an R3, 580 and P8Z68. I also have a 140mm fan in front of the HD cage as a card cooler (ready for SLI 580s or 2 28nm cards), there is about 5mm clearance between card and fan.

    Plenty of room
     
  5. jamesn

    jamesn What's a Dremel?

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    :D
     
  6. N17 dizzi

    N17 dizzi Multimodder

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    I know for me I don't have much room but for OP he will! If that's why you're grinning! :)

    Take the fan away and you have room to swing a..... very small insect :p

    [​IMG]
     
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  7. Cutter

    Cutter What's a Dremel?

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    Thanks for the replies guys! Had been trying to trawl everyones sigs to see if anyone had the specs I was looking at - bit of a tedious job so I figured I'd try a post instead! :D

    Flame696 - I'd seen your ARC midi setup in the "photos of your computer" thread which was quite helpful in terms of getting an idea about spacings. Was a bit thrown by your sig though which says you have an EVGA 580, whereas the pic (an older one?) looks like an MSI twin frozer?

    N17 Dizzi - that's a really helpful pic there too especially as your PSU is one of the ones I was looking at! What make of 580 is that? Colouring looks like it might be a Zotac board? What sort of temps do you see in there?
     
  8. Blogins

    Blogins Panda have Guns

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    Little tip you might find useful, once your HDD or SSD are installed in the R3 trays just flip it upside down and insert them. This way it's orientated the right way for the PSU SATA power cables! Also a reference 580 should be fine just beware of larger non-reference boards such as Gigabyte. Might be a snug fit in an R3 with the latter so it's worth doing your research first.
     
  9. N17 dizzi

    N17 dizzi Multimodder

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    Well the PSU I can't recommend enough, in fact, I am falling in love with Corsair. Everything I have had from them has been such quality in every respect.
    I think my next case will be a Corsair at this rate.

    The 580 is indeed a Zotac, you have a good eye :)

    I have a custom cooler installed, the Gelid Icy Vision.
    With the stock cooler I was seeing around 80 - 84c in Battlefield 3, Skyrim and Vantage etc, that was without the extra fan on the HDD cage and side panel exhaust, which probably wouldn't have made much difference to the stock cooler and is purely there now in anticipation for SLI. (hopefully tomorrow but maybe next week).

    Bare in mind, I do have fairly high ambient temps so you might have more joy/less heat if your keeping the stock cooler.

    I suggest you look at some old threads about Fractal R3 cooling to get some ideas.

    Me and Blogins in particular have had quite a bit of discussion about it (he helped me a lot)

    Here is one such thread http://forums.bit-tech.net/showthread.php?t=223060&page=2

    Feel free to throw me any questions, I won't promise I can answer them but I will try! :)
     
  10. flame696

    flame696 Terminating People Since 1980....

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    That was my MSI 560ti i only got the gtx 580 a couple of weeks ago. There is still huge amount of space left if i wanted i can put a longer card.
     

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