As promised, here’s part two of our review! We’re building one of our standard test systems using this chassis and the following components:
Asus P8Z77-V Deluxe motherboard
Intel i7-3770K CPU @ 4.5GHz
8GB G-skill Ares 2133MHz RAM (2x4GB)
Corsair H100 self-contained liquid cooling
Crucial M4 SSDs
Seasonic X-560 PSU
AMD HD6450
Click through to see how the build went!
If you’re in the market for an understated, quiet case that performs well and leaves plenty of room for expansion the Fractal Design Define series is quite likely to be on your list of cases to investigate. The latest revision of the case is R4, which draws upon user feedback on the R3 and features a host of minor changes. So how does it fare?
Here is a comparison of the Define R3 and R4, side by side – the R4 is the larger, black case and the R3 is in white.
When the front panels are lined up like so…
The rears meet like so:
Same length! As for the width:
As you can see the R4 is substantially wider – it also replaces the grille and twin rubber grommets for water cooling with a vertical PCI expansion slot, which is arguably more useful. The rear exhaust fan mounting has gone from a 120mm-mount to a 140mm mount – 120mm fans can also fit, mind. The front intake and top intake/exhaust fan mounting points are also 140mm-compatible now as well on the R4 (again, 120mm still fits).
As you can see the R4 is slightly higher, too.
More comparisons to come as well as a full write-up of the R4 🙂