Tip: Highlight text to annotate itX
Hello everybody! That is Techno-Kitchen and me, Katie Kamikaze.
Today you will see in our review all you wanted to know about Define R3 chassis from Swedish vendor Fractal Design
It was made special for users who love silence and want to store big amounts of data.
There are 4 colour variations, you can see them on your screen.
The chassis has soundproof design.
Thick plastic front wall hides foam padding,
side walls are enforced with bitumen like noise-asborbing material.
ModuVent plate with foam padding covers the side vent place.
HDD are mounted with anti vibration grommets.
The package includes a fan controller for 3 fans.
You will also find a manual, cable strips and a front panel.
There are plenty of screws, their number is shown on the box.
Let's dig into the chassis.
Plastic panels on the front cover 5,25 inch bays.
Fans places are hidden behing the doors.
You need to take out 4 screws and remove the holding element from the filter to install a fan.
One fan on the front panel is included already.
Max overall number of fans is 7.
2 on the front, 2 on the top and 1 on bottom, rear and side panels.
Fans diameter is 120 mm, side panel can bear 120 or 140 mm fan.
The chassis has dust filters for all fans except the rear one.
There is also a removable filter for PSU fan.
ModuVent plates are placed on the top of the chassis as well.
User can choose between silence and cooling power and install fans instead of plates.
This middle tower chassis has 8(!) HDD trays.
Developwers included only two 5,25 inch bays with one 5,25>3,5 inch converter.
Here is a big space for a back plate and 6 rubber covered holes for cable routing.
Expansion slots brackets can be used as many times as needed.
The rear panel has twice as many holes for liquid cooling systems as usual, 4 instead of 2.
Time for assembling.
The PSU fan can be located on the top or on the bottom.
There are additional holes for cable routing along with rubber covered holes.
The chassis doesn't have HDD LED, so there are no cables for it.
Its cable management is the best of all models we reviewed.
Several graphics cards can be installed, their lengh should be up to 29 cm.
The chassis supports CPU coolers with max height of 165 mm.
As I said before, there is no HDD LED.
On top of front panel you will find Audio I/O, 2 USB interfaces, eSATA and power buttion with indigo blue LED.
The noise level at 1 m is 27.5 dB with the lowest fans speed and 35.7 with the highest.
Define R3 is a blessing if you aim for peace and quiet.
It has excellent cable management system and can become a great gaming station with its cooling options.
Do not forget about 8 HDD trays.
Define R3 gets our gold medal. Your host today was Katie Kamikaze. See you next time!
