Fractal Design Define R4 review. Not impressed.

[MPX309]

Your mom has a better pc than most people here

[fringie]

@

 The front audio conenctor loves to fall out and It happened so often now I have taped it. Same goes for the fan controller. Cabelmanagment was pretty good. Lots of zip ties included. My first reaction was: Holy shit this is heavy. My second reaction was holy balls this is huge. It's not space efficent at all. Way to big for what you can do. 

 

Have you checked they are screwed in? I had to remove mines and they were screwed in for sure.

[Articuno76]

I got mine today and I have to agree, I'm not impressed. If anything I have pangs of buyers' remorse. Bear with me because this is going to be a bit of a cross-comparison between the Silent Base 800 (another popular quiet PC case I owned) and the Fractal Define R4.

 

For context: I owned the cheapest, nastiest no-name case you could imagine with zero cable management, 1 poxy 140mm no-name front fan, cheap metal that bent easily and one-use PCi covers. I upgraded to a Silent Base 800 as I was pursuing a quiet PC build (I had a Be Quiet PSU which enamoured me to the brand so I went with a case of the same brand). The case turned out to have numerous deficiencies and was too big, being a Full Tower (my fault for not double checking).

 

Cable Management: The Silent Base doesn't have cable management. Oh it has cable routing holes and stiff gromits that are difficult to thread cables through ensuring it has "cable management", but in name only. The severe lack of room behind the motherboard tray makes keeping things flat annoying and often it's hard to tell if you're struggling to get the side panel on because of clearance issues, or simply because of the finnicky slide-on mechanism (I only realised the latter was an issue when I put the case back together without a PC in it and experienced the same trouble!).

 

The Fractal R4 Define fares considerably better with more holes in better places and softer gromit material. Though as with the Silent Base I did run into an issue when I exerted too much pressure on a gromit as I tried to thread a cable through. The result was the gromit material came off. This material is harder to reseat on the Fractal as it has a thinner membrane.

 

On a positive note the Fractal not has only decent space behind the motherboard tray, but more (and softer) gromits than the Silent Base and numerous cable tie points on the back of the motherboard where the Silent Base has none. The Fractal also has an awesome closing mechanism for the side-panel that smushes the wires down flat against the motherboard tray as it closes, making it easy to close and allowing you some leeway with poor cable management. In regards to cable management this is a no-brainer: The Fractal takes it.

 

Long Graphics Card Support: Although both the Silent Base and Fractal have removable drive cages the Silent Base's is locked in such a way that it's difficult to figure out what you're suppposed to be pulling or pressing on to get it out. In the end I left the unoccupied mid-drive cage in as long graphics cards can fit in even with it in. The Fractal on the other hand only requires you remove a couple thumbscrews. Although it should be noted one of these thumbscrews was extremely tight, needing to be untightened by some pliers before a Phillips could undo it. The Fractal can house long graphics cards with or without the middle HDD cage installed, but it wins here for having an easier to intuit mechanism.

 

SSD Mounts: This is a case of two losers really: Both mounts are in slightly inconvenient places, with the Silent Base 800's actually being flat out impossible for many standard SATA cables to even reach. But the Fractal has issues of its own, like needing to undo the motherboard to unmount an SSD. Really? I guess the winner here comes down to which poison you'd rather drink: the inconvenience of longer cables/extenders or the inconvenience of having to unseat the motherboard to swap out the SSD. My recommendation for both is to mount the SSD's in the regular HDD trays.

 

Optical Drive Mounting: The Silent Base has tool-less mounting for optical drives but the clamp strength of the tool-less lock-in leaves much to be desired. It's perfectly possible to push drives into the case simply by exerting pressure on the drive from the outside. The Fractal doesn't have this issue... but then it's not tool-less either. Personally, I'd rather put up with the inconvenience of tools if it means have a secure locking mechanism that actually works.

 

Motherboard Installation: The Silent Base takes this one for two reasons. 1) It has loads of space inside... as you'd expect from a Full Tower and 2) it has the placeholder and motherboard stand-offs pre-installed.

 

Cooling: Fractal wins this one even though the temp readings on both cases with stock fans were pretty much identical. So why does the Fractal win? Well the Silent Base 800 had two front 140mm and a rear 140mm installed to the Fractal's 1 x 140mm in the front and 1 x 140mm in the back with one 140mm fan slot unoccupied at the front. Slap a fan in there and I'd imagine it outperforms the Silent Base.

 

Sound Profile: This is a bit messy as in my experience the Fractal is quieter but then the test conditions aren't fair as the Fractal comes with a fan controller and the Silent Base doesn't. So yeah, the Fractal is quieter out of the box. The rear fan in the Silent Base comes with an inline fan resistor which makes up a bit for the lack of a fan controller, but I'd imagine the Silent Base would win ever so slightly in sound if all the fans were dampened. If you have a load of good fans/fan controller ready to stick into a machine then I'd wager the Silent Base would win this one.

 

Conclusion: So my verdict?? Well, both are dissapointing, failing to beat the temps and sound profile of a case that honestly is basically junk or, as I am beginning to suspect, surprisingly good for what it was. IMO if you aren't after the benefits that come specifically with a Full Tower (ignore graphics card length as both are competent, with the Fractal arguably winning) then this is an easy choice: Go with the Fractal as it's the more mobile/lighter of the two, has a built in fan controller, actual cable management and although it's inconvenient in some ways over the Silent Base (SSD/optimal drive mounting) it's still more practical. Oh and the Fractal R4 Define is, last I checked, cheaper than the Silent Base as well.

 

I'm not super happy with the Fractal. But it looks sharp, is highly functional and has a strong, flexible approach to drive management as it employs both removable and rotatable drive cage. And unlike the Silent Base it looks great under my desk... but that's mostly because the Silent Base couldn't actually fit under it

 

I hope this helps anyone out there who's weighing up their choices between the two. For my part I'm disillusioned with so called "silent" cases. Not because they are horrendously noisy, but because the non-silent options out there are, in practice, just as quiet (or even quieter) than their counterparts.

[marioo1182]

Not sure about you, but I will continue to buy from Fractal Design. Their cases offer extreme quality; one that cannot even be matched by the NZXT case you mentioned.

[SLOWION]

I upgraded to a Silent Base 800 as I was pursuing a quiet PC build (I had a Be Quiet PSU which enamoured me to the brand so I went with a case of the same brand). The case turned out to have numerous deficiencies and was too big, being a Full Tower (my fault for not double checking).

I experienced pretty much none of the issues you mentioned with my Silent Base 800 ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[Rovert19]

I have the Arc Midi r2 and I too find that the fans that it comes with are very underwhelming. Even at 7v I find it to be too loud. There is also this annoying ticking sound that comes from the fans. I will most likely change out the fans for some Noctuas, BeQuiet, or Noiseblockers.

 

With that said, Fractal's customer service is top notch. My front audio connectors broke and they promptly sent me a replacement free of charge.

[96accord]

I've had my Fractal Design Define R4 case for well over two years now and no issues here. Love it!

 

Would recommend!!

[GregButcher]

I have my define r4 just next to me, i have to say im pretty pleased. Honestly i was expecting more from the soundproofing, but then again, i didnt have any reference point of how silent should or shouldnt it be. the case is built pretty solid as you said and i really like the sleek design. As far as i can tell the case got its big popularity with having good build quality and a lot of features for a very good price, compared to the competition.