Fractal Design Define R5 still viable for a new build?

[Vayra86]

On a point of detail, the fans on the R5 are fitted from the front of the case into a metal tray, using long bolts. On the R5 I worked on, the stock 140mm fans had been retained and I noticed that the bolts were only just long enough. The stock fans are 25mm wide, the Arctic P14 PWM fans are 27mm wide. May not seem much but if you do go with the R5 longer bolts may be needed.

See graphic below


View attachment 338654

Cant you secure the fans from the other end like in the R4?!

 

[pressing on]

Cant you secure the fans from the other end like in the R4?!

Don't know about the R4. The R5 bolts are only threaded at the ends and screw into the retaining tray. The thread is UNC 6-32 and I would have thought than longer versions would not be too difficult to find, if needed.

 

[#22]

There's a 5 piece value pack of the Arctic P14 PWM PST which I can get for nearly dirt cheap. As for the CPU cooler I've often looked at larger ones than the one I have, but I usually get deterred by the sheer weight of these things. Maybe I'm just overthinking things.

I'm not a fan of dirt cheap fans. That's always low durability combined with high manufacturing tolerance leading to acoustic problems. However cheap this value pack is, it's more than less likely to be money wasted. With cooler I assume that you mean cooler bending motherboard. Nowadays boards are stiffer due to tendency of having more layers than in the past and plenty of stiffening stuff like plastic covers and radiators. I personally used 1200g cooler on oldsql thin four-layers board. Even one without helping built-in I/O cover. I even lifted this computer every week when tidying up room, but was doing it carefully. Four years of such thing and board was as straight as new

 

[QuietBob]

My Define R4 used to house a Phenom II X4 with an HD7970, both oc'd to the brink. That setup was pulling close to 500 W in games. The case had only a single stock intake and exhaust fan, but kept the CPU under 60 and the GPU under 80 degrees even in the summer.

I did remove the door and the middle drive cage, though. The R4 currently houses my secondary AM4 rig, with another intake fan and no cage.

 

[azrael]

First of all, I want to again thank you all for your comments and inputs. It's all very much appreciated and it all gives food for thought.

On a point of detail, the fans on the R5 are fitted from the front of the case into a metal tray, using long bolts. On the R5 I worked on, the stock 140mm fans had been retained and I noticed that the bolts were only just long enough. The stock fans are 25mm wide, the Arctic P14 PWM fans are 27mm wide. May not seem much but if you do go with the R5 longer bolts may be needed.

See graphic below


View attachment 338654

How exactly are the 140 mm front fans fastened? On that picture it looks like it's from the side? Good point about the extra 2 mm depth of the Arctic P14 PWM PST! Can you remember how long the thread on those mounting screws was? Just a ball park figure. I was wondering if there's enough thread then maybe you wouldn't have to screw them in completely. Unless of course, they're just long enough to screw in for those standard 25 mm fans.

I'm not a fan of dirt cheap fans. That's always low durability combined with high manufacturing tolerance leading to acoustic problems. However cheap this value pack is, it's more than less likely to be money wasted. With cooler I assume that you mean cooler bending motherboard. Nowadays boards are stiffer due to tendency of having more layers than in the past and plenty of stiffening stuff like plastic covers and radiators. I personally used 1200g cooler on oldsql thin four-layers board. Even one without helping built-in I/O cover. I even lifted this computer every week when tidying up room, but was doing it carefully. Four years of such thing and board was as straight as new

While the fans are cheap, especially when buying 5 of the in a pack, they're by no means bad fans. The Arctic P14 PWM (PST) shows up quite often when people ask about the best 140 mm case fans. Especially when it comes to static pressure. Of course, you can always pay triple or quadruple for Noctua or get some be Quiet! SilentWings, which, while quieter, don't provide as good airflow.

With regard to the CPU cooler I've always been afraid it may come loose and drop through the case. Granted, it's not long it can fall, but it could still potentially damage the GPU and other hardware. Never been quite as nervous about the motherboard bending, though, on account of the backplate. I might be off there, though.

For what it's worth I've been having a look at the ThermalRight Peerless Assassin SE. Not happy about the 960 g, but if it can be mounted securely it might be something to try out.

My Define R4 used to house a Phenom II X4 with an HD7970, both oc'd to the brink. That setup was pulling close to 500 W in games. The case had only a single stock intake and exhaust fan, but kept the CPU under 60 and the GPU under 80 degrees even in the summer.

I did remove the door and the middle drive cage, though. The R4 currently houses my secondary AM4 rig, with another intake fan and no cage.

Thank you a lot for your first-hand knowledge. I remember the Phenom to run quite hot (at least according to reviews ) and the HD7970 wasn't exactly running cool either, so those may be quite good pointers for me.

Im running my 7900XT + 8700K combo in the R4. Its fine but you will be missing usb C. Also, I wouldnt advise pushing more than 450-500W continuous system power on air in it. You wont be able to control gpu temps well beyond that wattage.

4080 should be fine tho


Agreed but if you are going there get a cheaper and not silent case with better airflow to begin with. Kinda defeats the purpose of the Define if you open up all the noise mitigation

Also a big thanks for sharing your experience. I did get a new 850W PSU (FSP Hydro Ti Pro), just because I was quite certain my old Seasonic 560W wouldn't do the trick, but I don't expect the system to go much beyond 500W, except perhaps for a short burst. I certainly do not plan to overclock. Never found it worthwhile.

As for USB-C, yes, that's irksome, but if push comes to shove I could always get a 5.25" adapter. For what it's worth, what I really hate about "modern cases", and this goes for the R5 as well, is the fact that all "front panel I/O" is topmounted. Buttons are one thing, but the USB ports are open to dust. Really a bad move. If manufacturers don't want to "mar the front" they could put them on the side of the case.

 

[#22]

The thing with Arctic P fans is, they are very good on performance charts, but from user experience standpoint there're so many complaints in type of what I said - just read critical opinions. People just want to believe that Arctic gives you the same as few times more expensive conterparts.

About cooler, definitely don't go with one with plastic backplate, because such happen to break. If I'm not wrong, Thermalright's SE coolers come with such. SE editions are in general about cutting corners quality-wise, so imo not a good deal. Especially given that how little you can save on something like CPU cooler combined with how long it may serve.

 

[pressing on]

How exactly are the 140 mm front fans fastened? On that picture it looks like it's from the side? Good point about the extra 2 mm depth of the Arctic P14 PWM PST! Can you remember how long the thread on those mounting screws was? Just a ball park figure. I was wondering if there's enough thread then maybe you wouldn't have to screw them in completely. Unless of course, they're just long enough to screw in for those standard 25 mm fans.

The TechPowerUp review of the Fractal Define R5 shows how the front fans are mounted. The graphic below is an extract from that page, the fans mount from the front with four bolts. As stock, the R5 was supplied with one fan already installed at the front. The bolts screw into threaded fixing holes, I have highlighted the position of the bottom two. Fractal do supply enough additional bolts to fix another fan at the front. At the time it was common practice for the rear exhaust fan to be relocated to the front, allowing a replacement exhaust fan of your choice.

The reason for the front mounting is that as stock the drive cages are mounted behind the front fans. Back in 2014 it was thought a good idea to have front fans blowing over the spinning hard drives of the time. It does restrict air flow into the case, as the picture shows. The R5 manual is still available online, could be worth looking at that as it does show the options for moving the drive cages including having none behind the front fans at all.

 

[azrael]

The thing with Arctic P fans is, they are very good on performance charts, but from user experience standpoint there're so many complaints in type of what I said - just read critical opinions. People just want to believe that Arctic gives you the same as few times more expensive conterparts.

About cooler, definitely don't go with one with plastic backplate, because such happen to break. If I'm not wrong, Thermalright's SE coolers come with such. SE editions are in general about cutting corners quality-wise, so imo not a good deal. Especially given that how little you can save on something like CPU cooler combined with how long it may serve.

Need to look into those critical opinions on the P14 you mention. Right now I've only seen complaints that they may exhibit a low hum when running very slowly. And one guy complaining about blades breaking on his P14 PWM Slim, but I'm not after a slim version.

As for the Peerless Assassin 120 SE, it seems you reuse the backplate on the motherboard for AMD, which is definitely metal on my motherboard. The backplates for Intel also seem to be made of metal.

 

[freeagent]

SE is the same cooler, just not as fancy with the name plate, and could possibly be shorter. As is the case with my PS120SE vs PS120 EVO.

 

[Dorek]

Rtx 4080 fits in my R5 fine and dunno about all them cooling vents and such but seems to work fine.

 

[Vayra86]

The TechPowerUp review of the Fractal Define R5 shows how the front fans are mounted. The graphic below is an extract from that page, the fans mount from the front with four bolts. As stock, the R5 was supplied with one fan already installed at the front. The bolts screw into threaded fixing holes, I have highlighted the position of the bottom two. Fractal do supply enough additional bolts to fix another fan at the front. At the time it was common practice for the rear exhaust fan to be relocated to the front, allowing a replacement exhaust fan of your choice.

The reason for the front mounting is that as stock the drive cages are mounted behind the front fans. Back in 2014 it was thought a good idea to have front fans blowing over the spinning hard drives of the time. It does restrict air flow into the case, as the picture shows. The R5 manual is still available online, could be worth looking at that as it does show the options for moving the drive cages including having none behind the front fans at all.


View attachment 338767

Yeah exactly what I was thinking, you can simply access the fan and insert the screws on the backside of it if you (can) remove the cage. Then you can use a short screw (any screw) just fine. That's how I did it on the R4 anyway.

Btw about fans, the stock fractal fans that come with the case are pretty good. I never found any advantages in replacements; either from BeQuiet, noname brands, etc. Its whatever territory, you just want something that moves air and isn't a jet engine, which the stock fans do well.

 

[#22]

Need to look into those critical opinions on the P14 you mention. Right now I've only seen complaints that they may exhibit a low hum when running very slowly. And one guy complaining about blades breaking on his P14 PWM Slim, but I'm not after a slim version.

As for the Peerless Assassin 120 SE, it seems you reuse the backplate on the motherboard for AMD, which is definitely metal on my motherboard. The backplates for Intel also seem to be made of metal.

I explained why I'm not a fan of cheap fans and opinions you found are exactly that, but there's also something in general which applies to coolers too - progress on both markets is almost non-existing, so it's just buying once and having no reason to upgrade. It measures with efficiency, so performance/noise graphs. To be exact, ten years old highend fan/cooler is beaten by ~5C by todays highend counterpart. Who cares about ~5C on components with operating temperatures up to 100C? Only temperature paranoids who always find temperatures too high. Normal people will sacrifice these ~5 degrees and be happy with their gear for even longer. But for this to happen you need quality which cheap fans lack. Potentially thanks to that replacing them may end up more expensive in the long run. In Poland we say, poor people can't afford saving (in the meaning of cutting corners).

With backplate, my bad I completely didn't think about your CPU choice and just said what crossed my mind and fitted our mobo-disaster discussion Intel backplates are in fact plastic.

SE is the same cooler, just not as fancy with the name plate, and could possibly be shorter. As is the case with my PS120SE vs PS120 EVO.

SE also differs with not having fan rubber corners, so potential acoustic downside. Looking at specs fans are also named differently, but show no difference in parameters - maybe they differ with these corners only, but hard to say. The question is also equipment coolers come with, but I let to check such details ones interested.

 

[Dr_b_]

I recently bought an ASUS ProArt RTX 4080 when there was a "fire sale" of sorts because of the new Super models. While at it I also got a new PSU. Now I'm thinking of getting a Define R5 while you can still buy it (only the "vanilla" one seems available, would've loved getting the blackout version).

I'm specifically targeting the R5 since I find it to be the epitome of the Define series. Extremely modular, bottom dust filter accessible from the front, 5,25" drive bays etc.

IF I get the R5 I'm planning to remove the provided fans for three Arctic P14 PWM ones (two in the front, one in the back) and remove the middle drive bay.

I know the emphasis of the R5 is on silence so airflow won't be as good as with a dedicated airflow case, but am I completely off the reservation here?

Been looking at other more recent cases but none of those really grab me. Also, I'm not quite convinced of the "high airflow cases give you just as much silence as silent cases" argument.

Got a 4080S in a Define R6, which is somewhat similar, no problems with cooling, the drive bays have obviously been removed to accommodate the card. Also, de-rivetted the power supply shroud and removed it completely for more room, but this isn't necessary to fit the GPU, easier access to the PSU that way

 

[Pasi123]

I've had my X58 system in a Define R5 for the last 7 years, other than the airflow I prefer it over my new Meshify 2.

 

[azrael]

I explained why I'm not a fan of cheap fans and opinions you found are exactly that, but there's also something in general which applies to coolers too - progress on both markets is almost non-existing, so it's just buying once and having no reason to upgrade. It measures with efficiency, so performance/noise graphs. To be exact, ten years old highend fan/cooler is beaten by ~5C by todays highend counterpart. Who cares about ~5C on components with operating temperatures up to 100C? Only temperature paranoids who always find temperatures too high. Normal people will sacrifice these ~5 degrees and be happy with their gear for even longer. But for this to happen you need quality which cheap fans lack. Potentially thanks to that replacing them may end up more expensive in the long run. In Poland we say, poor people can't afford saving (in the meaning of cutting corners).

With backplate, my bad I completely didn't think about your CPU choice and just said what crossed my mind and fitted our mobo-disaster discussion Intel backplates are in fact plastic.



SE also differs with not having fan rubber corners, so potential acoustic downside. Looking at specs fans are also named differently, but show no difference in parameters - maybe they differ with these corners only, but hard to say. The question is also equipment coolers come with, but I let to check such details ones interested.

I don't just buy cheap for cheap's sake. I, like probably the vast majority, try to find what I want and then get it as cheaply as possible. So, I first found lots of recommendations for the P14 PWM and then, to my pleasant surprise, found I could get it quite cheaply.

Did a little more research on the Peerless Assassin 120 SE and ended up putting an order in. It was also cheap.

Got a 4080S in a Define R6, which is somewhat similar, no problems with cooling, the drive bays have obviously been removed to accommodate the card. Also, de-rivetted the power supply shroud and removed it completely for more room, but this isn't necessary to fit the GPU, easier access to the PSU that way

I've had my X58 system in a Define R5 for the last 7 years, other than the airflow I prefer it over my new Meshify 2.

A big thanks to both of you for sharing your experience! Deriveting the PSU shroud on the R5 won't be necessary since it doesn't have one, but I definitely know where you're coming from. As for the drive bays, I will only remove the middle 5-bay one. This should provide as much airflow as possible to the GPU, of course considering the solid front door and only the side vents providing air. I still hope it's enough. My Corsair Obsidian 550D is very quiet at idle/low workloads and it has even worse airflow than the R5. Of course, I only have a GTX 1080 in it instead of an RTX 4080.

 

[#22]

I don't just buy cheap for cheap's sake. I, like probably the vast majority, try to find what I want and then get it as cheaply as possible. So, I first found lots of recommendations for the P14 PWM and then, to my pleasant surprise, found I could get it quite cheaply.

Did a little more research on the Peerless Assassin 120 SE and ended up putting an order in. It was also cheap.

And that's why I explained you why "as cheaply as possible" approach is something I don't like and especially not fitting anybody putting emphasis on silence Aren't you? In general cutting corners demands knowledge of what you save on or pay premium for to make conscious decision, but first to cut corners are ones not having such knowledge. Cheap things come with compromises and don't serve long when good things are not compromised and have quality to last. That means that good things will serve you for longer and all this time in better way. That's why I find paying premium for good things better deal.

Another example with PE120SE. If I remember well, guy from Hardware Canucks complained about fans of this cooler in his review of some other TR cooler, if I recall, Phantom Spirit. Remember what I told you in my first post? About cheap gear tending to have acoustic problems. Two products you're interested in and two times I'm right

Buy what you want, but in the end of the day you came here needing help. Or wanting to hear that your choices are awesome and feel bad with opposite.

 

[azrael]

And that's why I explained you why "as cheaply as possible" approach is something I don't like and especially not fitting anybody putting emphasis on silence Aren't you? In general cutting corners demands knowledge of what you save on or pay premium for to make conscious decision, but first to cut corners are ones not having such knowledge. Cheap things come with compromises and don't serve long when good things are not compromised and have quality to last. That means that good things will serve you for longer and all this time in better way. That's why I find paying premium for good things better deal.

Another example with PE120SE. If I remember well, guy from Hardware Canucks complained about fans of this cooler in his review of some other TR cooler, if I recall, Phantom Spirit. Remember what I told you in my first post? About cheap gear tending to have acoustic problems. Two products you're interested in and two times I'm right

Buy what you want, but in the end of the day you came here needing help. Or wanting to hear that your choices are awesome and feel bad with opposite.

You still don't get it. I buy what I *want* to buy, but I try to do it as cheaply as possible. And you're not really "right two times". Hardware Canucks actually retracted their statement on the PA120 SE, because they got a faulty model (always a risk). You may watch their video on the Phantom Spirit for that. If that is what you're referring to you got it wrong.

As for the Arctic P14, I may look at a different version (P14 PWM PST Co gets even better reviews) or something different altogether.

By the way, I've built PCs since the mid-nineties, so I'm not a babe in the woods when it comes to these things. That doesn't stop me from seeking input from other people.

 

[#22]

You still don't get it. I buy what I *want* to buy, but I try to do it as cheaply as possible. And you're not really "right two times". Hardware Canucks actually retracted their statement on the PA120 SE, because they got a faulty model (always a risk). You may watch their video on the Phantom Spirit for that. If that is what you're referring to you got it wrong.

As for the Arctic P14, I may look at a different version (P14 PWM PST Co gets even better reviews) or something different altogether.

By the way, I've built PCs since the mid-nineties, so I'm not a babe in the woods when it comes to these things. That doesn't stop me from seeking input from other people.

No, the one who still don't get it here is you, but I get an impression that you just don't want to. From the start I explain you that going budget gear tends to be bad in terms of acoustics, so what you focus on. Tends to be bad due to low quality and high manufacturing tolerance. Isn't it Hardware Canucks getting faulty unit or it going bad due to reviewer first not noticing it, they mentioning people complaining and the same with Arctic fans creating hums?

You can build pcs even since the 60's, but it doesn't give you knowledge about components - expecting good acoustics from budget cooling solutions just confirms that. Here you aim two things going opposite directions