Gadgetory

hey everyone welcome back to Pauls hardware this is my review video on the fractal define are for computer case and I'm reviewing the windowed side panel edition thing is I haven't actually built anything in this computer case yet I haven't done much more than doing an overview video for it over on our new egg TV YouTube channel that's my day job so if you want to see all these specs and some detailed close-ups and some very fancy camera work with this particular case you can check that out it's available on our new egg TV YouTube channel what I'm going to be doing today is actually building a system in this case so I will be returning to you guys very shortly to provide you my feedback and my thoughts on the actual build process and also some more information on that build is going to be available in another video on my channel hope this isn't all getting too confusing but I will be right back probably tomorrow is when I will shoot the review part of this video I'm gonna go ahead and do my build in the fractal with mine a cardboard and they're back and as you can see my build is now complete I'm happy to say it went off without a hitch and all of my initial thoughts about the fractal defying r4 we're pretty much verified as I went to the build process so I'm gonna give you guys a closer look at that while I talk about some of my pros and cons of this case and the bill first off of course build quality and that is something that fractal is definitely doing a really good job with throughout the case you'll notice very sturdy and reinforced panels all the way through you typically do not see much bowing or flexing as you're working with the case and one thing about the side panels on the case in particular typically I don't like these types of side panels that they kind of have the hooks along on top on the bottom and you lay it up flatten and slide it into place usually that's because with lower build quality those side panels flex and Bend and it's a lot harder to get them back on and lined up properly however with this case because again the build quality is there the side panels do slide on and off without too much trouble at all second thing to point out is space there's just tons of it in this case I was installing an ATX motherboard even though this case is not necessarily verified to fit that size however it was able to fit it part of the reason is because there is some space between the motherboard tray and the drive cages a bit of an extra gap there so even though I covered up the grommets that you're supposed to use I was able to still route the cables through that gap and get them all hooked up properly another thing is the grommets themselves so I did use a few of them especially at the top the thoughtful one they put at the top middle was very helpful for me and they really had quality they stay in place I've worked with some cases before where when you try to push the cable through the grommet and then you're cinching it down it just pulls the grommet off of the routing hole that's always a pain in the butt never happened with this case also plenty of space behind the motherboard tray so even if your routing cables over the top of the 24 pin motherboard may motherboard power connector for example yeah still plenty of space to do that and even with side panel on really wasn't any trouble at all another good point here is that they've provided you with two positions for the top 240 millimeter radiator position the reason is if you position it in the middle it looks a little bit more symmetrical however I was really really happy that they put the second position for it which is spaced a little bit further away from the motherboard tray because I would not have been able to use this configuration if they did not so I thought that was really thoughtful it's just as much as adding a couple more holes to the top of the case to give you another mounting position for it but do the heat sinks that are on my gigabyte motherboard there's really just about no clearance between the radiator and the motherboard they're almost right up against each other if I didn't have that second position I would not have been able to install in this configuration and I would have either had to go with a thinner radiator or thinner fans but I can at least confirm that this motherboard fits in this case this radiator the third will take water 2.0 fits in this case with this motherboard but your mileage may vary don't assume this is gonna fit with every motherboard cause it's gonna depend on the heatsink sit around the motherboard itself and what kind of clearance you have at the top of that motherboard as opposed to whatever radio radiator you're using so I might recommend it a thinner radiator for this case such as H 100 as opposed to this one that I use here or just make sure that your motherboard doesn't have too much going on up at the top edge of it one other thing I wanted to point out is that they did do the thoughtful addition of adding a couple 2.5 inch SSD mounting points on the back of the motherboard tray I did not end up using those the reason was because I felt too too locked in if I was going to use those mounting points because pretty much if you mount a mother you might ask to stay at the back and screw it in then put your motherboard in you have to remove your motherboard to remove that SSD and since I tend to swap drives around it just wasn't going to make sense for me so I skipped that I just mounted it up in the front for now and I have a bunch other drives I'm probably going to end up dropping in here also if you guys noticed I guess some of the rest of the hardware in here I got the Intermatic supply max in there I also got an Asus GTX 670 video card which you can see there looks really nice through the side panel window with the heat pipes on it and I guess that's pretty much all I have to say I would appreciate it if they maybe took those 2.5 inch drive point and dragged mount points behind the motherboard tray just did the little pop-out with some some mounting points there's that way you can mount it from this rather than through the back of the motherboard tray that might solve that problem allow you to still have those handy mounting points back there and because I think we're really going for those if you use those and just use the lower drive cage here you can remove that middle one and get the extra airflow but yeah that's just my only thought really my only quibble about this case that I could I could seriously come up with so yeah pretty much verified all my original thoughts excellent case I'm going to give it a 9 out of 10 for my overall rating but that is gonna do it for this video this has been my review of the fractal define our 4-bit to our computer case with the side panel window and Paul you've been watching Paul's hardware we'll see you all in the next video you