Assembly

Placing the mainboard within the Define R2 is done with the use of the included spacers and black screws. During the process I noticed that the mainboard plate had a bit of play. Turns out one of the three rivets holding it in place has been obliterated somehow. I searched the entire case and I was not able to find any parts of it, thus this must have happened during the manufacturing process. While the case frame itself is held in place by larger rivets, the plate is secured with smaller once which seem of bad quality. I actually dug up some rivets of different sizes and all of them were larger in comparison to the ones used and all of them would easily fit in the hole of the missing one. This means that larger ones could have been used instead, without having to redesign anything on the frame itself.


Peparing the hard drives for installation is an easy task. Just secure the unit with four special screws in the frame and then slide it into place. The drives sit on rubber rings so you should not have any problems with vibrations. Sliding the filled tray back into until it snaps into place concludes the installation process. We have seen the system in various other cases and it is an excellent one.


Putting the optical drive into place requires quite a bit of force until it slides into place far enough. It seems very tight enough so you won't need to use any screws, but this could just be our sample. There are no measures against vibration in this area of the Define R2.


The power supply itself is installed with the traditional means of screws. A thin layer of foam reduces the chance of any vibration passing from the power supply to the case itself. There is plenty of space for a standard power supply, but if you happen to use a larger one, you will be forced to remove the bottom mounted fan frame.


Once everything is installed, I used a single velcro strip and the features of the chassis itself to route and group the cables. I have not used a single zip tie and the result is very good. Fractal Design has done a great job within the Define R2 to route and hide cables.

Finished Looks

Once everything was put back together and turned on, the first notable thing is the good encapsulation of the sound generated by the internal components. The two included fans are very quiet and can be turned down even more with the included controller.


None of the fans have an LEDs so any lighting you see is from the CPU fan used. Everything is easily accessible and as you can see the fan controller has been placed in the very last slot.