Hardware Fractal Design R2 Case Review

It's not really fair exposing a silent pc case to such hot components. Silent cases are designed to run a modest setup quietly, and therefore have a snowballs chance in hell to handle high-wattage hardware. That does not necessarily mean that this case had bad performance. You just tested it after the wrong parameters.

It's a bit like using a screwdriver to hammer nails into wood, and then determining that the screwdriver is clearly inferior to the hammer. It's not, it's just not designed for that purpose.

But apart from that, I liked the review. It still had a lot of interesting info.

 

100% spot on, not that bit-tech's methods are bad, the use of the hardware is made to put all cases through the same testing hardware... but If your buying a silencing case then your probably not the person who runs their i7 at 4.8GHz...

 

So wait.. reading through all your replies people want:

a) to put in all the fans so they can run high performance kit in it, but don't care about the quiet functionality - it's the look that counts.
a²) OR, want both, plus all other mutually exclusive events to suddenly co-exist
b) think we put too high performance stuff in it, because it's a silent case, despite the fact it's ATX and has 8 hard drive spaces.
c) accept that "this is how it is out the box - this is what you buy"

Do you now all see why we do things the way we do? One set of hardware, an even, easy to read baseline to work from and a value score that represents the case, as is, as you buy it. No extra fans, no special fans, no low/high performance kit, no server/home theatre/sli/crossfire/eyefinity/green drives/ssds/watercooling/or any other of the million iterations of kit out there. With a base line you should be able to work out how much more or less heat your system outputs and how that will affect the temperature and performance (oc, or noise).

 

@Bindibadgi
I think we all believe you are doing a great job, otherwise we wouldn't be here. We appreciate both the style and the content of your work and indeed I suspect many of us feel you are the best of the best.

I understand that it can be frustrating to always be asked for more however for a case such as this, from a smaller manufacturer, clearly designed with scope for more cooling, with so many good features we are all hoping it is a winner and many of us will look to buy only on your say so.

in the past bit-tech has provided additional cooling http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/cas...omega-review/4 and indeed in this review you went the extra with the opening of the case.

I look forward to the blog post and again its that responsiveness that sets you above the other sites.

 

oops sorry multi post - your f*ing s*tty servers you c**ts are just like all the rest of teh cr**py sites

;-)

 

Please review the Silverstone Fortress FT02 and Lian Li PC-A70F, too.
http://www.silentpcreview.com/article1015-page4.html

 

removed it.

FT02 should be coming, but ill arrange the Lian if it's new.

 

For Lian-Li the PC-A77F is much more interesting. It's also "über-new" as it supposedly gets released in March.

 

Actually, that's exactly what they are designed to be...when complying to the ATX standart...which they do.

 

I totally respect your testing methods and they make a lot of sense. However, the strength of feeling about this case is quite large and Baz recognised that. The thing is, another couple of "quiet/silent" fans would probably not impact the noise that much, but would likely yield much better results. What else offers sound deadening, vibration dampening, dust filters and a decent amount of 3.5" bays at this end of the market? Nothing!

Quietness is about more than just only having two fans. My Antec Super Lanboy has twin 120mm (both swapped out for "silent" models) and vibration dampening for the HDDs, but it's tiny and still has noise leakage. But it wouldn't house much more powerful hardware without overheating.

Plenty of us would probably just go with another couple of fans to keep noise levels much as they are but be assured we could run and overclock the lastest hardware. We're just asking nicely if you could knock something together on this occasion, because of the sheer volume of people interested and the unique opportunity that this case might present.

 

Any chance you can include at least one side view photo of the case, with the test hardware fitted, in future case reviews, just to get a visual idea of how much space is available in the motherboard area? Especially with longer and longer graphics cards appearing too. Cheers.

 

Right, a very interesting box at a very interesting price...

You mention the top with fanholes and connectors...is there no picture?

Silly me...there's a link to Fractals website, and it's not spectacular. Topview

 

I'd love to have this case I'd put a Window in the Side Panel and most likely add some Water Cooling for the CPU and add some more fans so my GPU's would stay cool. Then again by the time I'd get around to doing this nVidia's new GPU's would be released and the word around the Internet is that there going to run very hot.

 

I like the look of this, wow, i think i should budget a little better next month

 

still not seeing the update... have I missed it?

 

I only just discovered this case today - I had completely missed this review and suffered a rather embarrassing facepalm moment this morning...

As soon as I saw this case on ebuyer this morning - before having read any reviews or any other info - I wanted it. The looks are clean and simple (in fact, it looks fantastic to me!), cable management is infinitely better than my current case, and there's ample opportunity to expand the cooling potential; seriously, six fan mounts in a case designed to be quiet? Frankly, I didn't even expect any bundled fans! I think this thing is crying out for me to get a watercooling loop in there...

As far as the review goes, I think it's a fair representation of a retail product. The components used to test are specifically designed to generate heat, and thus test the potential of the stock case. As long as the same hardware is used in all case reviews, it gives a good basis for comparison. I know it's not representative of the hardware in use today, but I would assume that a good majority of the readership here will already be familiar with their own hardware, cooling and temperatures - it's not hard to imagine how your own hardware would stack up in this case.

Besides, isn't the whole genesis/spirit of bit-tech about modding? If a stock piece of hardware doesn't do the job for you then get the dremel out and make it work for you!



And yes, first thing that came to my mind when I saw "Fractal Designs" were Mandelbrot & Julia sets....

 

bit-tech true to their words have re-tested with extra fans

a resounding BINGO as a result
"on par with the Antec 902!"

http://www.bit-tech.net/blog/2010/01/25/fractal-design-define-r2-follow-up/#last

 

Following the huge amount of interest shown in this case by the ladies and gents in the bit-tech forums, we've since re-tested this case with a couple of extra fans installed. The results were, predictably, very good - who would have thought that if you add extra cooling to case, it's able to cool better? Anyway, skip over to Harry's blog post to read more!

Ha, and true to form, the bit-tech community beat me to it! Thanks memeroot.

 

I'm really interested in this case. I love the looks mostly. I wonder can any of the owners who have posted shed light on complaints I've read on other forums that the bitumen smells? Is it true? I'm going to be running a hot pc, if I buy the case I'll be sticking an i7 in it. Despite putting in plenty of fans, I imagine the internal temperatures will be fairly high - and I'm wondering what effect that might have on the sound dampening material, if it's bitumen based. I'm also a little worried about what chemicals might be released if the compound warms up.

Any comments on how the case smells and if its gotten worse as the case warms up? Thanks

 

Oh yea it smells (great) but I can't tell you if it smells when warm. Only that Baz pulled off one slab then had to take it off me because I kept taking a quick whiff of it everyday. Reminds me of the chem labs