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So today I'm going to be having a look at a new product and it's new in the

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sense that it's not even released in North America yet. This is the Fractal

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Design Define R2 computer case. This is a Swedenbased company. Okay. And this is

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their first case or well their first three because it comes in three

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different colors. So let's have a look at what makes this case unique. First of

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all, it has a stylish front panel with noise insulated door. So the first thing

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you'll notice about it is it has a very very sleek design. There's really

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nothing to it. It's very clean looking. Okay. Okay, so it has a unique module

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vent feature that allows you to choose between optimal silence or optimal air flow. So, we'll show you that in a

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minute. Effective noiseabsorbing panels mounted on the side and top. 10 drive

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bays, including eight internal 3 and 1/2 in bays and two external 5 and 1/4 in

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bays. I love to see this because how many times have you seen a computer that

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actually has nine 5 and 1/4 in devices in it? And yet, that seems to be the

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trend with so many cases these days. I'm glad to see a focus on more hard drives

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since that's what people are actually adding to their computers. Sturdy

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overall case quality. Two front 120 millimeter fans with one included. Two

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top 120 or 140 mm fans and those are optional. One rear 120 mm fan included.

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One side 120 mm or 140 mm fan optional.

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A bottom 120 or 140 mm fan optional. And a bottom intake hole for the power

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supply. So, you can see that despite the fact that they market it as a silent

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case, you can actually load it up with a great deal of fans and uh still get good

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cooling performance out of it. Now, you should notice that this is Wow, this is

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just taped like crazy. I really wish I'd gone and gotten a knife before I started

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this, but what are you going to do? Um, this has actually made its way here as a

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as a sample all the way from Sweden. So you can see that the job they do packing

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it and the box that they use is actually good enough to survive a a ground

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shipment first across Europe and then across Canada. It actually landed in

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Toronto. So and then it made its way all the way here to me in Vancouver. Oh

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yeah. Here are the three colors. So the one that we have here is black pearl and

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it's also available in titanium gray and silver arrow. Oh, and then we've

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actually got some pictures over here. So, I'll let you enjoy those pictures

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while I continue to work away at this tape with my screwdriver cuz the

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magnetic tip keeps coming out when I try to jab it through the tape. And this is

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not not working out as well for me as I would have perhaps hoped. There we go. I

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finally have the box open. So, the first thing we find inside is a user's manual

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for the Define R2 ATX case. They give you a little bit of information. So, the

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product is guaranteed for one year. Little bit about the concept of Fractal

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Design. Designed and engineered in Sweden. Excellent. They give you an

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overall list of the features. Okay, cool. Let's get this baby open. Now,

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what I've heard about this case from the uh couple of North American reviews that

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we've seen so far is that it smells bad when you first open it. And that's a

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result of the noise dampening material that they use in the side panels and the

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top. So, apparently the smell goes away after about a week. So, it's one of

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those things where yeah, that's a sacrifice you have to make. So, it comes

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packed in

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as long as you're using a good quality box. I guess it's about an inch of foam

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and it's a good quality foam, so you're not going to run into issues where it'll

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crack in shipment. Like you can see, it's the flexible type. So, those thin

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foams where it uses the hard foam and it can crack, you can find that those cases

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can end up arriving damaged. But this one looks like it would be just fine.

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And I mean, it did make its way here from Sweden. So, if that doesn't vouch

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for it, then I don't know what does. So, here we have it. The Fractal Design R2

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case. Peel off the front. Okay. So, why don't

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we start with the outside of this guy? So, uh up at the top here, we've got the

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power button, which glows blue when it's on. Then we've got the front headphones

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and mic, two USB ports and one E SATA port. And then we can open up the front.

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Okay, that's kind of nice. So in the front we first we have the sound

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deadening foam. And you can see that the way that the uh Oh, actually I don't

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know how the front fans get access to air flow. I think there are Oh, there's

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ventilation here. Oh, this is kind of smart. So the ventilation all comes out

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the side of the front panel. Okay. And

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that is how the fans which sit behind here actually get access to air flow.

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And you can see that these have filters on them. And you undo the screws here.

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And then you can pull out the fans that way. That's kind of nice. So then you've

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got one 5 and 1/4 in and one 5 and 1/4 in with a 3 and 1/2 in external adapter.

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So you could potentially do like your Blu-ray drive and your media card

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reader. Something like that would be sort of the recommended configuration

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for a case like this. Front door has a magnet, so it actually shuts in place.

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Just like that. Overall quality of the front door is good. You don't see any

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warping or anything like that. All right. So, why don't we keep moving

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around? This side of the case is very plain, very clean. You can see there's a

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little bit of residue on it from the packing. So, that should come off in due

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time. Around at the back, we've got a couple of holes for water cooling. I

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mean, most people don't really use these, but what are you going to do? We have one 120 mm fan. And it's the little

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touches like this that I like to see. We've got white PCI back plates. Okay,

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so it looks kind of sharp at the back. Little bit more ventilation space. And

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then there's a case for your bottom mounted or there's a case there's a spot for your bottom mounted power supply. So

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let's take off the side panel and see what we find on the inside.

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Okay, side panel is officially off. Wow, that's heavy. Oh, okay. Yeah, there is

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our sound dampening material right there. So, it's got kind of a sticky,

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grippy feel to it. Okay. And this part comes away for you to mount a 140 mm fan

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on the side if you're not quite as concerned about noise and you're more

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concerned about cooling. So, the inside of the case, you can see it features a

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lot of sort of up-to-date features. For example, you've got the cutaway hole for

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the CPU cooler. So, that means that you can install a new CPU cooler without

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taking out the motherboard. That's a great feature. I love to see it. You've

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got an overall white and black color scheme. So, you can see the fans are

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white and black. The PCI back plates are white and black. The included fans are

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sleeved. It's not a great quality sleing, but it's functional, and it looks a lot better than seeing bare fan

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wires. Okay. Up in the top, aha, they've

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got their their uh sound dampening material, which you can remove and mount

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120 mm fans or 140 mm fans. That's very

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cool. I'm guessing that's their module vent feature, which allows you to either

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turn things into a vent or turn them into something that doesn't allow sound

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to escape. This is something I want to see more of. All of the front panel

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connectors are black already because most people are going to want them

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black. When's the last time you saw like a a red sleeved power supply, for

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example. So, if you want it to match the rest of your case, that's a great way to

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make sure that it happens. All right, other things to note. Uh, first of all,

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the entire interior of the case is painted. This is something that I want

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to see more of, especially on cases in this price range. You've got these cool

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rubber grommets that we've seen on a couple cases. I've seen it on the NZ XT

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Hades. Um, obviously it debuted on the Corsair Obsidian 800D, but it makes

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cable management just way, way more convenient. Okay, so let's have a look

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down here. Bottom mounted power supply with the vent holes. So that means you

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can turn it this way so that the fan is on the bottom and it'll draw fresh air

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from the bottom of the case. And then again, you can put a 120 or 140

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millimeter fan here. Okay. So, there's your three and a half

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inch adapter there. Okay. All the accessories come in a little box right

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here. Oh, you can see. Oh, look at that. One of our 3 and 1/2 in hard drive sleds

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actually came dislodged in shipping. So, why don't we have a quick look here on

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camera even to see if that actually damaged the case. So, we've damaged our

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paint job a little bit, but it's nothing too significant. And when we go to slide

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it back in, oh, it's just fine. Okay. Well, that's I'm really glad to see

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that. I would have hated for that to be damaged. So, let's have a look at what we've got included here for accessories.

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A lot of screws. Tons and tons of screws. So, you've got longer screws

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there for the hard drives. You've got your motherboard standoffs, the standard brass kind. You've got screws for

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optical drives. And you've got screws for the motherboard. Awesome. Oh, this

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is nice. Oh, this is really nice. Cool. Check this out. Okay, so they've

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actually included a fan controller. It's

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a white PCI bracket, powder coated white, just to match the rest of the

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white ones at the back. All right. And then you can plug in uh looks like

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three fans. Oh, that's that's terrific. So, it's actually got a splitter that

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allows you to simultaneously use this knob to control three of the fans in

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your case. And then it's just got a little power adapter just like that. That is a very that's little touches

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like that that really set something apart from the from the competition. All

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right. So, here is our 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

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eight hard drive sleds. And I actually didn't give you a closer look at these.

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These are powder coated white. And you can see that they've got rubber grommets

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to isolate the hard drive against noise. All right. So, overall, I'd say we've

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had a pretty good look at the Fractal Designs R2. Thank you for checking it

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out with me and uh thank you for checking out my video blog.