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Hardware Fractal Design Define S2 Vision RGB Review

Discussion in 'Article Discussion' started by bit-tech, 24 Apr 2019.

  1. bit-tech

    bit-tech Supreme Overlord Lover of bit-tech Administrator

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    Read more
     
  2. Wakka

    Wakka Yo, eat this, ya?

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    £225?!

    What's with all these case manufactures suddenly thinking they are Lian Li?
     
  3. bawjaws

    bawjaws Multimodder

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    Not my cup of tea at all, but it's good to see Fractal Design trying something different. I'm a big fan of their cases (although not this particular one!)
     
  4. MightyBenihana

    MightyBenihana Do or do not, there is no try

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    And here I am still waiting for a nano s update. 10 cases of marginal difference at ATX size and nothing on the MITX side. Come on Fractal Design.
     
    N17 dizzi likes this.
  5. SuperHans123

    SuperHans123 Multimodder

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    How can these termites justify the cost?
     
  6. N17 dizzi

    N17 dizzi Multimodder

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    I am using the Define C mini TG, for £80~

    That is pricey.
     
  7. Anfield

    Anfield Multimodder

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    Can someone explain the purpose of having tempered glass on the right side of the case?

    I mean I can understand it on the left side of the case, cases with windows have been popular for years and tempered glass looks a million times better than some Lidl acrylic so it makes sense there, but on the other side where we desperately try to hide away the cables as much as possible?
     
  8. bawjaws

    bawjaws Multimodder

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    How else am I going to the see the RGB SSDs that are mounted behind the motherboard tray? :happy:
     
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  9. Anfield

    Anfield Multimodder

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    Nah, Fractal (like many other case brands) thought of that and provides alternative SSD mounting points for that purpose:
    So the glass panel on the right remains as an avoidable cost and aesthetic negative.
     
  10. Gareth Halfacree

    Gareth Halfacree WIIGII! Lover of bit-tech Administrator Super Moderator Moderator

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    Fun fact: despite buying a fully modular PSU this time around, and having had a mostly-modular PSU before, there are so many cables in the side of my Define Mini that I have to lay it flat and basically lie on the side panel in order to slide it home...
     
  11. Wakka

    Wakka Yo, eat this, ya?

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    To be fair, if you are a proper cable management ninja-god, showing that off can be just as impressive (possibly more so, actually) as a bunch of RGB components.

    Like this:

    [​IMG]
     
  12. bawjaws

    bawjaws Multimodder

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    Oh dear. What have you got in there that has so many cables?

    I've just done some aggressive cable tidying in my M1 and I've got the cable spaghetti / rat's nest under control for the first time since I started using that particular case. I found that double-sided cut-to-length velcro tape is the best thing in the entire world, so now all of my cables are tucked out of the way and bundled up and there's no loose wiring flapping around. It's also knocked a few degrees off my operating temperatures as the majority of the rat's nest was directly in front of the main intake fan!

    Unfortunately, I'm now at the point where I'm dreaming of taking things a bit further: I'd love some custom-length PSU cables, but they are super expensive and wouldn't really do too much. But it's super annoying that the distance from the PSU to my GPU is about six inches tops and the PCI-E power cable is nearly a foot and a half. Similarly for the two SATA SSDs - ideally, the SATA power leads for these would be about 8 inches rather than 18. Guess I'll just have to live with the current solution of folding them back on themselves a couple of times and securing the resulting bundle with velcro ties.

    Oh, and I realise that I should have fed the EPS cable between the back of the case and the motherboard, but it's too late now - I'd have to take the board out to do so and I don't have time to completely disassemble and reassemble everything just to hide one cable.
     
  13. bawjaws

    bawjaws Multimodder

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    This is a very good point, actually. There have been plenty of amazing build logs where people have shown off their fancy custom cabling jobs to great effect.
     
  14. Gareth Halfacree

    Gareth Halfacree WIIGII! Lover of bit-tech Administrator Super Moderator Moderator

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    In my defence, it's a small case!

    There's the motherboard (ATX, 12V CPU), four SATA devices (optical drive and hot-swap drive bay at the top of the case, 2TB data drive and old 500GB SSD at the bottom of the case), RTX 2080 (8+4 pin, from memory), fan controller (four-pin Molex). I think that's about it. Then, obviously, the SATA cables themselves. Fan cables, too, but most of them are on the other side of the motherboard. Oh, and there's the front-panel cabling (USB 3.0, 2x USB 2.0, HD audio, power, reset, power LED which I've disconnected 'cos my stupid Asus motherboard makes it blink annoyingly in standby...)

    I could improve things a lot if I shortened the various cables, but nuts to that. The side panel can stay on for the next five years, like the last build I did in the same case...
     
  15. bawjaws

    bawjaws Multimodder

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    Oh, yeah, a fan controller is just asking for trouble! Sooooo many wires. And molex for stuff like fan controllers needs to die. In fact, molex needs to die in general.

    My M1 has a fair amount packed into it. From the PSU there's the motherboard ATX & EPS, a SATA power cable with two devices on it, and both a 6-pin and 8-pin PCI-E. There are two SATA SSDs and an M.2 (yay for nae cables there!), a 2070, three fans (one needs an extension cable and the two for the CPU run off a splitter and both have LNAs), then the front panel USB 3.0 and audio plus power switch and HDD and power LEDs. Oh, and there's the internal power cable from the back panel to the PSU at the front. Not pretty.

    And why are USB 3.0 plugs so big, and the cables so thick and unwieldy? They also tend to be twice as long as you actually need, which all makes managing them a bit of a nightmare.

    Thank god you can just whack the side panel on and never have to look at it all! And thank god for that little front panel connector block thingy that ASUS do so that you can just plug that into the motherboard and then connect up each of the annoying single-pin plugs for your various switches and LEDs. Makes life soooo much easier in a small case.
     
  16. Gareth Halfacree

    Gareth Halfacree WIIGII! Lover of bit-tech Administrator Super Moderator Moderator

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    Yeah, this is what it looks like on the happy side:
    upload_2019-4-25_10-2-41.png

    It's not *too* bad, although there's a surprisingly large bundle of cables coming out of the PSU for such a dinky little build. Biggest visible mess is the fan controller (red and black wires to the left under the coffee-and-cream fan), which I could sort with three-pin fan extensions. If I could be bothered.

    At least the airflow from the main intake fan is unobstructed, though I don't know how much good the bottom one is doing right up against the non-removable drive cage...
     
  17. bawjaws

    bawjaws Multimodder

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    Are those beige wires leading to the PCI-E slot under your GPU extra USB 2.0 ports? Not seen one of those in action for a while :D

    And it's amazing that whilst your case is fairly wee, there's so much empty space at the front :p:
     
  18. Fingers66

    Fingers66 Kiwi in London

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    @Gareth Halfacree you need one of these (it can take 4 x 2.5" drives):
    [​IMG]

    Then replace your optical with a slot load drive and the 2TB with a 2.5" version then you can remove the bottom drive cage (with force if necessary), then your RTX 2080 can breath.
     
  19. Gareth Halfacree

    Gareth Halfacree WIIGII! Lover of bit-tech Administrator Super Moderator Moderator

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    Yup!
    There's only two 5.25" bays in here, and both are filled, and nowhere to put a slimline optical without cutting into the case. The bottom drive cage is also welded into place.

    Even with the PCIe HDMI capture card blocking half of one of the fans, there's no real airflow problem I can see: don't think I've seen the 2080 go above about 60-odd degrees while benchmarking (though I haven't watched it while gaming, 'cos... y'know, I'm gaming, not looking at temperatures.)
     
  20. bawjaws

    bawjaws Multimodder

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    It certainly doesn't look like you're going to be starved for airflow there, with two fans at the front for intake and a top and rear exhaust.

    Seems like the Turing cards run pretty cool. I've been really impressed with my 2070 when it comes to temperatures. In a wee case without any direct airflow on the GPU, it hasn't gone above 77°C and that's with the GPU fans at about 65% speed, at which point it's fairly loud but not unpleasant. But at anything below about 45% fan speed is basically inaudible. I'm sure that I could drop a couple of intake fans in underneath the GPU and cool things down a bit further, but it hardly seems necessary.

    Oh, and 100% fan speed is 3,500 RPM which isn't very relaxing :jawdrop: Fortunately that's never been attained in actual use, just when fannying around with manual control :D
     
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