Gadgetory

what's up guys welcome to Paul's hardware today's video is going to be covering a few things I'm going to be building a system with all the hardware you see here in front of you also I have the define s2 a brand new case from fractal to follow up to the original define s so I'm going to be covering that's and I'm going to be building with the new ZOTAC r-tx 2080 so we'll get a first look at that to the enter max liquid tech tr4 - all in one liquid CPU cooler has a massive contact plate made just for thread Ripper and is rated for 500 watts of heat dissipation high pressure pwm fans mount two rubber channels on the radiator to absorb vibration and the sexy logo and edge lighting on the block is addressable for syncing with your motherboard it comes with an RGB control box - so click the spots or link in the description for more so the original define s was a very popular case if you guys watched Cal's channel bit wit he built his custom water-cooled PC hotline in that I've had a bit of a rivalry between hot line and my custom articled pc arctic panther which is built in a fractal define art v which i've modified so i'm gonna be kind of comparing the s2 to my modified define r5 of course we have the r6 as well i've looked over the reviewers guide for this case and I will say my first impression is that it has all the features that you'd really want right now we just have to determine if it's gonna be worth the hundred and fifty dollar current MSRP that it is launching it I'll be on the case we have our graphics card which is the Zoet X RT x 2080 this is the OC gaming version of that so it has a custom cooler from ZOTAC and the overall cost of the system I should say is about two thousand dollars if you're comparing that to my fastest build you can possibly build right now system which was around $2,400 yes you could swap out some parts here and there for example in that building I was recommending a 20 atti versus a 20 80 this one's a little bit more rounded and I'm also using an AMD platform here with the x4 70 chipset and if you wanna get more cores and threads on your CPU like the 2700 X we have here which is an 8 core 16 thread processor then AMD can get you that for a little bit less money than you currently have to pay on the intel side of course on the intel side we have new launches coming out probably later this month so we'll further this discussion but let's not get too distracted from that the motherboard we're using is the MSI x4 70 gaming m7 ac and this one's going to cost a little over $200 you can get by with a cheaper motherboard 150 to 170 dollar range one of the key things I wanted to make sure the the board had other than the X 470 chipsets and four sockets is also the ability to plug in the front panel USB 3.1 gen2 adapter which this new case has which is a thing that I've been liking in cases so I want to make sure I'm able to plug that in for memory I recommend higher speed memory with Rison this is G skills Flair X kit which will just work with Rison which is cool although again this is a little bit more expensive you can find compatible memory for a little bit cheaper than this but this is a 3200 speed kickass latency 14 my recommendation would be once you choose your motherboard look at the compatibility chart for that find memory that has been tested with your motherboard and a rising processor and then find the memory that's the fastest and the highest capacity that is all compatible I wanted to liquid cool in this system mainly to test out the liquid cooling support of course for the case but also liquid cooling is nice I've got the inner max the fusion 240 here which has some fancy RGB lights on it this one is about 110 220 dollars right now you can't get buy cheaper going with air cooling or something like that of course but that's the beauty of building your own PC you can choose whatever options you want for storage right now I'm just using a 500 gig nvme drive my candidate here is the OCZ Rd 400 although it does appear like OCC has stopped shipping these they're harder to find in the description you'll find a parts list that has a few alternative parts with a DIF nvme SSD drive specifically the WD black which you can get for a very reasonable price right now for the 512 K version similarly we have a pretty overkill power supply the HX 1000 I from Corsair here I'm using this because most of my other power supplies are currently in use I've recommended an 850 watt power supply in the video description again that's only about $80 so you don't have to necessarily spend quite this much but getting a good power supply that's 80 plus gold or platinum rated that's fully modular and that has all black cables is generally what I go for so those are the parts I'm building with today I will stop along the way to give some feedback on the define s2 and of course all these parts are linked in the video's description the stuff I'm using right now as well as what I would recommend you build with if you're trying to build a system that's very similar to this that's assuming that you're really sold on ray-tracing already I guess which you shouldn't be until we can test it further but I know there are some people out there who are like I want to build a system with the RT X 2080 this is kind of the ball park system I recommend to pair with this graphics card okay they define us to is now out of the box and I should point out that I have the gunmetal gray version this is available in four different varieties there's the standard black with white accents there is the blackout version where you don't get the white accents on some of these io shields and everything there's the gunmetal gray version that I have and then there's also a white version all of them cost the same price hundred fifty u.s. dollars now both side panels are just held on by thumb screws in the back so you don't have the push button thing like fractal has used before but it is still a simple means of getting your side panel on and off like many cases and one thing that I really like they've done here with the tempered glass is there's a metal frame going around the outside of it this is actually very similar to what I did with Arctic Panther where I cut a piece out and then put a piece of tempered glass in there this actually isn't terribly heavy either which I think might mean that they were able to go with thinner tempered glass here because it's got that reinforcement from that metal frame but point being it just pops in like any normal side panel would so it's pretty simple to get on and off and it does kind of pop into place here there's a couple little catches that hold it so you don't necessarily need to put the thumb screws in to get it to stay there beyond that you've got a standard ATX layout they do include 340 millimeter fans and these are very nice fractal fans that I've used before and they're very quiet and that is a pretty nice add-on for a case something you don't often consider with the case that might only come with one or two fans is fans can cost you know 10 or 15 bucks plus for a nice one so three of them included it's nice there is some space in the top here and this is that mod you vent panel mod you vent 3 push the button and that pops up when I was taking the case out of the box this popped off and actually getting it to pop back in wasn't super easy I think it might have something to do with the fact these little prongs here are pushing some upward pressure on it but this you push there and it releases these catches and that sort of holds it in place and then of course since this is a mod you vent there's a dust filter right there so if you want vertical airflow to come at the top which I'm going to need I'm gonna be removing this solid panel here to just reveal the mesh underneath so that we can have it air flowing out of that also up on top here you have this removable panel that's underneath the module vents and this is held on with screws along this side but you can remove this so you can install your radiators if you want to this supports up to a 420 millimeter radiator if you go in with 3 by 140 or you can do 360 if you go 3 by 120 as well as pretty much most sizes beneath that for the front you can fit up to a 360 millimetre radiator and then I also want to point out they put a fill port right here on the top point for that but this is spaced off to the right so it'd be away from the motherboard tray and I would have a question as far as vertical clearance up in here if you've got a motherboard with really fat heat sink so that stands out a little bit farther or even if you're going with something like an air cooler in here just because there's not a whole lot of vertical space above the motherboard just something you probably want to keep an eye on if you're considering compatibility for the parts that you choose here's a quick look at the opposite side and here again this fractal is done for quite some time we've got some sound dampening patent padding here to prevent sound from leaking out this mounts pretty much the same way that the tempered glass piece mounts on the opposite side else in here you can see the integrated fan hub fractals calling this the Nexus Plus pwm fan hub that's actually got six headers that are not PWM those are just voltage control three they do have PWM and then of course you can wire this up to your motherboard so it can operate those at the speed based on your CPU temperature or whatever other how do you plug it into I've got some velcro straps here for vertical routing of cables up and down I also got some nice rubber grommets for passing through your cables tie-down points scattered throughout a couple removable 2.5 inch mounts there and then these removable 3.5 inch mounts and these are new for this design so just a single thumb screw holds those on at top these are metal cages and they do go completely around the 3.5 inch drive I also got 2.5 inch mounts in there too so it's not wasted space if you're not using 3.5 inch drives the side mats here you're also gonna have the silicone o-ring zin them to provide some vibration dampening and then behind the drive cages you can see those vertical mounting points and that is what Kyle has dubbed the reservoir or the wall of mounting various mounting capabilities so if you're gonna mount a pump or something on the opposite side you can do that down here at the bottom we also have some accessories and accessories are pretty much what you would expect I do like the fractal still individually bagging the various screws for various different connection points they've also got an adapter here for fan they've also got some zip ties in there a little YP to wipe down fingerprints and then this accessory which I actually like I thought it was fairly thoughtful it's just a three SATA extension or adapter so that will kind of line up with where you're three 3.5 inch drives would be so and you just need a single SATA plug to power all those drives and finally hopefully finally before I start building let's go over dust filters I really like the dust filter solution the track tile has been using for the define series goes across the entire bottom of the case so if you got any intake fans down there or of course your power supply as well it handles that and you can access it from the front which means you don't have to like get all inconvenient with your case in order to get at that there is also hidden dust filter so they're a little bit harder to get at mature in the intakes so this is a solid front piece and if there is a criticism for airflow for this case it's probably gonna be this all upfront fees but fractal says you do get intake from the sides of these pretty well or well enough and they did include removable dust filters there as well which I thought was kind of nice now they're on both sides again you just have to pull off this front panel to get at them alright guys I'm just reassemble everything here the build is pretty much installed and good to go things got a little complicated but I think it was mainly the power supply's faults cuz I was missing a SATA cable other than that though I do want to point out that the front panel connection points for this motherboard actually counted down and further towards the back and the front panel connector cable is a little short on this case it's just enough to reach the bottom right corner where most motherboards had the i/o but if it's a little bit further off you might have a slightly harder time I was able to still get that plugged in but I did have to stretch the cable over there also for the front panel USB type-c the USB 3.1 gen2 those cables can only be 60 centimeters long max which i believe is what fractal has gone with with this case but also with this motherboard that plug is down at the bottom and a little bit to the left so it was a little bit further away but it was still enough for me to just get it over there and plug it in here's a quick look at the rear side my kill management's even though I have a long power supply down here I still have a pretty good amount of space down there to shove cables I did not spend a long time on the cable management as you can probably tell but I do like having these velcro straps in the middle to kind of consolidate stuff and cinch it down I'm only using the fan hub at the top here to power my CPU fans right now and that was just because of convenience and then I do want to point out that these side trays here actually work kind of as cable pastors to hold those in place when you don't have a 3.5 inch drive installed their time now to peel our protective plastic off of the tempered glass oh that's a nice easy peel not bad at all actually before I put that side panel back on let's stick with the PC building superstition and give ourselves a quick test boot we got power on got lights apparently I did not connect the front panel connectors part that should work huh there's a surface Mountain button work oh yeah surface mount button works so I guess I did somehow and properly connect my front panels yeah do another own thing all right so my front panel connections weren't plugged in properly and I'm gonna completely blame that on MSI Spore manual here for this motherboard usually you have like a full picture of the motherboard pointing about what is what's and you just you don't have that here so this is literally the front panel connector page they show you the pin outs here but they don't exactly show you where it is on the motherboard but because of that I was just blindly like searching down here for these pin outs at the motherboard here and I accidentally plugged all my front panel connectors into a USB header instead of the front panel header more to the point though the system is working so that's that's good I didn't want to bother with all those I've literally just plug the power switch back in but that is enough for me to be able to turn the system back on and say look it works okay one more peel so now that I've built the system and the new fractal define esta to what do I think I like it it's a good case still maintains fractals build quality very solid thick steel panels and everything not a lot of flex to the entire build also everything feels like it comes together pretty well the sound dampening stuff keeps things quiet I like when I turn out build on for the first time like a system that I haven't even gotten into Windows and adjusted any fan settings and everything is just really quiet which is definitely this system right now it's super quiet I also really like with fractals done with the i/o including the USB 3.1 gen2 via a type-c connector and they have USB 2.0 a couple as well as USB 3.0 a couple of those as well and I like all that flexible connectivity right at the front of the case that's some criticisms for this case I think it would just be the module vent top panel here it doesn't exactly sit down there easily it's a little tough to get at to actually sit there and be in place especially with the little button at the back that pops it up it's easy to get off with that button but putting it back on it's just okay of course it's really easy that time the only other thing I think I would add here is if Franklin could include a couple 2.5 inch drive mounts to go up here in the front those two mounts that are included at the back you can remove and put up here in the front so if you have some SSDs that you want to show off you can put them there it would just be nice to have those included so you didn't have to buy more accessories in order to maximize the number of 2.5 inch drives that you can install here my final criticism is the price is pretty expensive one hundred and fifty dollars is getting up towards the higher end of cases that are available so even competing with stuff like fractals own define r6 which has a few more features than this case does but I think fractal has done a great job putting everything together here I like the inclusion of the 340 millimeter fans as well and I think for anyone who has the money and likes this style of design of this case you'll have a pretty good time building your system in it and not doing performance testing right now so there still is more to be said about this case but my first impressions are definitely positive so I'll post link to this down in the description below check it out again available in four different varieties right now and thank you guys so much watching this video hit the thumbs up button if you enjoyed it and we'll see you guys next time