Gadgetory

fractals define s2 is a case that does not need to exist they already have the r6 and it's pretty much the same case and stand alone the s2 is fine in a vacuum it's fine it's a good case but when you compare it to fractals existing r6 it gets a bit more confusing as to why they even bothered to make the s2 because there aren't that many changes it's the same tooling and we'll go through the changes in this review but at $150 MSRP for each one street price between 100 and 150 for the hard six it is a little bit odd that this wasn't just a straight upgrade kit for the r6 before that this video is brought to you by EVGA r-tx 20 atti XC ultra video card we recently used this to beat our founders edition overclocking results with its additional power target headroom and cooling capabilities the XC Ultra uses a 2.7 extra thick heatsink for quiet operation under low loads but also maintains higher clocks on average over the FE model learn more at the link in the description below we have a lot of notes on these cases so let's go through them piece by piece the r6 we previously reviewed and reviewed it actually pretty positively the primary difference on the front end is that the front panel on this one opens it's hinged on both sides you can swap it around it's got a five and a quarter bay on the front and it has a dust filter down here and you can just remove the entire dust filter if you wanted to assuming you had reach to it which I do not presently and the difference is on the new case the s2 instead of a hinged panel instead of a dust filter that's very easily removable they've changed it to a non hinged front panel right there it does not open they've increased the gap on the side intake so there's actually a bit more space here now than previous and we'll talk about the specificity of that later and have added in a fine filter only on the sides there's no more filter directly in front of the fan so no more of this if you want to clean out the filter now you have to clean out the sides whether you vacuum it or just remove the whole front panel run underwater that's up to you but the panel is no longer him so that's a big difference once you get past that the fans are a bit higher up on the s2 we'll talk about this in the thermal and cooling section than they are in the rs6 on the front of the case the front inside of the case the difference is primarily come down to this drive structure which is gone in the s2 and as a very quick side note and attention to detail note here the branding of the logo has moved as well so if you wanted to get rid of this previously it was on this piece and you could easily pull it out whereas now it's permanently on the power splash ride but not a big deal there so the whole front drive support structures gone on this case and previously here's the thing it's not like it wasn't part of the chassis in this one it was not structurally welded or riveted to the frame or anything like that you could remove this you can move the plate back even and get functionally the same case here to be fair the s2 does come with some reservoir support mounts right here so it adds a bit of water cooling support but this isn't anything you couldn't have made work on the r6 on your own and they could have made an adapter kit for the r6 and sold it separately instead of an entire new SKU as well so that's a bit odd but reservoir support is probably one of the bigger notes on this case versus the previous one I live in that though I mean you can fit three hard drives in there on the backside still you still have access the support so you lose about half the hard drive support as you have here you lose five and a quarter support which for the most part whatever but some people might care about that it is kind of an unnecessary loss though so that's been odd and and then that's more or less it the the r6 can do everything this does in terms of layout it can be an open layout case now moving back further the entire motherboard chassis components is all the same so twins all the same there the power supply shroud in the front you can pop out the front hole and allow support for a bigger radiator again there's a hole here as well not only different there at the top of the case there's still this button we complained about this button before and we pull out some footage of it but there's a button in the back and we complain about it because it's a cool it's such a cool idea but when you push it it doesn't have the mechanical response that makes sense which we need to pop up the panel enough that you can then simply pull it out instead it pops it up so that if you have really long fingernails or a screwdriver they you can probably get it out but the easier way to do it is to use the pop mechanism and then reach inside of the case this one doesn't even come up that much and push it out so I mean once you're reaching inside the case to push it out what is the point it's it's a cool feature it's a cool idea it is so poorly implemented and that's one of our bigger problems with this it's something that we've even complained about before but because it's clearly the same tool and it's the same case it was in this this was an easy product for fractal to make they did not change very much at all so they didn't go out make new tools at least for the most part so I guess it makes sense that they wouldn't have addressed this particularly concerning because they didn't really redo anything but it is sort of annoying to see a feature that is otherwise kind of cool oh go to waste and by the way while I have this out this filter so if you're laughing about a filter attached to a solid block of material you can actually separate them and run just the filter on the top we have some thermal tests of that as well so if you want to get rid of the what they call the mod you vent cover on top you could do so to separate the filter from the vent the the panel though is kind of a pain you should be able to do it by hand but in reality you should be using a flathead to pry a bit because it's pretty stuck in there so another Dane for fractal on usability of the case with the way that was implemented in its entirety that whole top panel needs to be redesigned the back of the case more less famous you still have one fan here yourself two in the front no differences in terms of fan count to the r6 previously and vertical mount still there all that stuff nothing's really changed so then what's different is again when you buy the s2 you get less you're spending the same money as I'm a sharpie or more than street price with r6 you're getting less metal you're getting fewer Drive options because it's again you can take this out if you really wanted to in the old case it kind of adds reservoir support but again there you could definitely make a reservoir fit in this case in a way that doesn't look bad either so it's kind of weird it's everything that's been done to this case seems I could just be like you just sell that front panel and sell these two metal rails and make them fit that case and it kind of seems like you're done I don't know that needs to be a whole skew on its own but we're not saying the case is bad so the Defiant s2 is fine as a case and you'll see this as we go through the review all Patrick's building that's all the thermal review it's a good case it is objectively good build quality it's we liked the r6 we liked the s2 for the same reason it's just that again the fact that it's good is separate from the fact that it does not need to be here and it's odd as a different skewed it just seems like it seems like more of a marketing decision than an engineering one or well I guess it's probably just a marketing decision but it could have come down to we need another SKU the holidays are coming up what do we do there's an idea let's change the front panel so I don't know it's the case is fine but let's go through the build notes and cover the rest of it then get into thermals and noise the main differences from the r6 are the hard drive mounts and all the other parts associated with the front panel the rear two-thirds of the case are identical between the r6 and s2 at least as far as we can tell even the front panel itself is almost the same on the outside but the s2 lacks the hinge door of the r6 that's because there are no front filter intakes like the one on the r6 instead the vents on the side of the front panel are covered with too much smaller filters this has interesting implications for air flow because as we've mentioned in the past placing a filter directly over the fans can reduce their advocacy it's a cool idea but it's also much harder to remove the filters from the s2 since it requires taking the whole front panel off instead of just opening the door there should rarely be any reason to remove them anyway since they could easily be cleaned from the inside of the case if you had to the width of the front vents on the s2 is also subtly different mark that just under 2.5 centimeters compared to the r6 is 2 centimeters fractal design has been putting some thought into thermal performance overall and we'll discuss the results of our testing later in this review perhaps unfortunately removing the front door of the case also removes any possibility of installing a five and a quarter inch drive which is a these days and so it's a bit of a niche market to try and fill the s2 reclaims those extra centimeters instead for more fan mounting space furthered with fewer 3.5 inch drives in the s2 than the r6 a lot fewer which is probably the most obvious difference against the r6 the r6 dedicated its entire front third to a tower of horizontal universal drive brackets hidden behind a steel shield with 12 available slots and six brackets included in the case the s2 has done away with that completely or rather it looks like it has which we'll touch on in just a moment instead of all those drive brackets there are three three and a half inch mounts behind the motherboard tray now that's still more than many mid towers but not nearly as impressive instead of the tower drive mounts the s2 has open air and a removable cover over the now empty hole and the power splash shroud that should mean better air flow but the drive tower was removable in the r6 so the optional power supply shroud cover is the only additional feature in this area the power supply shroud is riveted and unremovable like the R 6 while the top radiator or fan mounts is removable also like the r6 so this is where fractal is getting away from what made the our six unique having more drives for example focusing a bit on silence being a smaller case with a lot of drive support and even having a 5 in quarter and going towards more of what everyone else is doing with the s2 the screw holes for the drive brackets are actually still there though but they're used to attach the forward portion of the motherboard tray instead this is exactly the same as switching to the quote open layout of the r6 by moving the hard drive mounting plate to the other side of the case except there's no other layout in the s2 so it's almost a straight downgrade what we're trying to articulate here is that the chassis is literally the same as the r6 at least almost entirely the same just has different attachments screwed into it and we could unscrew and swap parts to fully convert our s2 into an r6 and vice versa - the five and a quarter inch bay that's cool from the perspective that fractal is offering an additional variants of a popular case but it makes it even weirder that this is a distinct product on its own kale management was already very good in the r6 and is slightly better here since the full-length power supply and motherboard tray hide cables even more effectively front panel connections will get a little Messier if all three hard drive bays are filled of course since the wires will have to be routed between them rather than through them but it's an extremely easy case to work with overall and the build quality as with the r6 is still high wonderful a new feature is the slots for a reservoir mounts on the inside of the case these allow reservoir clips to be mounted in the spot formerly occupied by the drive brackets that's where the bigger change happens so you're going for water cooling this might be a better consideration than the r6 for more thoughts on the layout of this case though check our fractal r6 review because it's the same thing mostly and so the opinions also apply here including those pertaining to build quality moving on to thermal and noise testing now for additional testing this time we tried taking the steel plate off the top mod you vent and taking the front panel off we didn't bother doing a vertical GPU test because we already did that and the r6 and because Fraxel doesn't include a riser cable so it's not really an intended use anyway at least for an eric welds card we've also beaten the vertical GPU thing to death at this point and so we'll refer you to the r6 is vertical mount for those thoughts we're focusing on testing with fractals three stock fans in the s2 today and as always you can check the article linked in the description below for Patrick's written review and for our testing methodology if you're curious how we do these tests we're starting with only the two relevant fractal cases and then we'll move on to comparative charts average CPU temperature and torture testing was fifty six point nine degrees Celsius over ambient when stock which improves a few degrees to fifty three point one degrees delta T over ambient with the steel plate removed from the top of the case with everything stocked but the front panel completely removed CBO temperature was vastly lower and averaged 44 degrees adjusting the event size and the placement of the front filter was movement in the right direction but the front panel is clearly still a huge obstacle to the fans performance of course this impacts the noise as well but we'll talk about that a bit later the stock r6 placed within margin of error of being exactly the same as the s2 but one point eight degrees better in the open layout presumably due to the large gap in the power supply shroud which we left covered in the s2 we feel comfortable saying that the stock CPU temperature is the same in the two cases despite changes to the front panel the s2 actually tactically beat the r6 is cpu result by 1.5 degrees Celsius with no front panel at all since the fans are placed slightly higher in the s2 because of the absence of a five and a quarter bay that said 1.5 degrees is about margin of error compared to some other cases here similarly price the options in the $150 class would include the eight 709 I but same idea for performance and the H 500 P mesh alongside the Lian leo 11 air these are of course very different and how they look and their goals but they are about the same price so if you're open to different types of cases they'd be good considerations with the mod you vent cover removed the s2 lands right around where the defined sea with extra fans performed or the NZXT h 700 would perform the age 500 P mesh is measurably ahead but also an extremely different case with a much different look and goal and that goal is more airflow oriented than fractals s2 is so it might not even work for your needs GPU torture testing is next GB tortured temperature was 59 degrees stock and that's again delta T over ambient not significantly lower with the top vent open and it measured about fifty five point one degrees Celsius delta theory' a minute with the front panel completely removed in this test at least it seems like the front panel isn't the biggest obstacle to cooling and instead the rearrangement of intake fans has more to do with how air is delivered not abnormal really the stock layout of the s2 is again slightly warmer than the comparable open layout of the r6 which can be put down to the gap in the shroud so the two can be considered more or less equivalent the r6 maintained its advantage this time in the test without any front panel which makes sense again because of the slightly lower fan placement and vertical GPU placement is absolutely not recommended unless you using an open-loop card as illustrated by the r6 here no need to do that again with the s2 it's the same thing comparatively the s2 lands toward the lower third of the pack around where the r6 originally performed the case is more silence driven than performance driven so we won't criticize its thermal performance too heavily we need the context of its acoustic performance coming up momentarily to really understand how it does as measured here in the comparative chart the two is overall below average and it's cooling capabilities and not all that impressive so we'll see if it makes it up elsewhere build quality's fine ease of installation is more or less perfect to work with it's just the thermals are not impressive so we need to look to noise after we get through the rest of the charts fire strike extreme is next this is a realistic workload that emulates gameplay allowing insight into performance under real gaming conditions rather than torture workloads GPU temperature during our fire strike extreme test was fifty nine point four degrees Celsius over ambient almost exactly the same as during the power virus torture test it's also just 0.1 degrees different from the stock r6 which is well within our margin of error and the two cases are functionally identical on performance for this benchmark including in CPU thermals again the s2 ends up toward the bottom end of the results chart for this one blender CPU rendering is next providing another realistic workload rendering our monkeyhead test image on the CPU raise temperature to 36.8 degrees celsius over ambient also just 0.1 degrees different from the stock r6 so again the same that's way within margin of error thermals are towards the top third in this chart so it's looking a bit better for this one but it's also a way less stressful test and this is CPU targeted rendering on the GPU for blender raised temperature to 32 degrees over ambient widening the gap with the r6 which averaged nearly three degrees cooler in this test although not that distant overall both of these tests were done in stock configuration which means a big gap in the power supply shroud for the r6 but not the s2 and the fan placement differences that's where our difference emerges we measured noise as well so for knows the define s2 placed at about thirty five point eight DBA and the RF six was at thirty two point eight DBA the difference is not within really audible range for most people most people detect about a 3 DB difference if at all and even the thirty five point eight DBA results is good for a case with three stock fans in it as compared to the rest of those on this chart there's nothing about the s2 that should make it any noise ear or quieter than the r6 then maybe some slight variation due to the front filter placement including that we don't dislike the s2 but there doesn't seem to be a compelling argument to buy it over the rf6 there are 16 skews of the r6 listed on fractals website 16 it has more flexibility in terms of the number and types of drives that are installed it cost about the same as the s2 the advancements that fractile has made our focus on Cooley and especially liquid cooling but it's still not really an ideal case in that department either building a system with a 360 millimetre radiator and then stick it in a case with an unventilated panel is sort of a strange choice other than to make up for the lack of ventilation I guess by using a bigger radiator fractals own mesh fic is cheaper and we think makes more sense in a lot of these scenarios and as a note this isn't discussed a lot if you think about noise if the whole point of this if Fraggle comes back and says well but noise but it's quieter it's quieter than a case with like the metruff I see no because with the case like the match up I see which even doesn't have the best front panel the world either but it's better than a lot of the others you still you get enough just airflow passing through there you can run the fans quieter and there goes your noise so a lot of the time it's an interesting toss-up where companies are trying to do acoustics versus performance and it doesn't have to be they don't have to be opposing if you have good performance you can get decent acoustics with better tuned fans with better fan placement with smarter front panel design so that's not a good argument for anything really but doesn't have to be a high performance case we talk about filtration and air flow a lot this case does not try to be that it doesn't advertise itself as a high airflow case so we're not going to knock it too hard for that it's just that the improvements made to this case are centered around in large part the front panel and those include improving access to air it's just that in reality the differences really aren't compelling so he's not enough to not buy the r6 instead and the measure by sea is still a very good option if you want a case that's cheaper and similar things to this just in some ways better so the strengths of both the r6 and the s2 or that they're well built they're visually clean and they're not overly expensive cases that are they're still good candidates housing a normal gaming PC so again we don't dislike the case we just think it's the same thing as the r6 that we already have the parts that make them different are removable and interchangeable and fax will could sell the s2 as a conversion kit for the r6 if they wanted to so as Patrick says in his written review linked below at any given time if you have the question which one is better the answer is also a question it's which one is cheaper and just buy that one so that's the r6 and the s2 it's fine it just it doesn't need to be here so that's it for this one subscribe for more as always go to patreon.com/scishow your Nexus helps out directly go to store documents nexus nets with one of our mod mats or shirts thank you for watching I'll see you all next time