WEBVTT 00:00:07.759 --> 00:00:15.120 Welcome to my unboxing and first look at the Fractal Design Define R4 computer 00:00:12.000 --> 00:00:18.640 case. As you can see, this case has a 00:00:15.120 --> 00:00:21.199 very ugly box. But I'm going to hope 00:00:18.640 --> 00:00:27.920 that this is more of a story of the beauty within than a story of the beauty 00:00:24.800 --> 00:00:30.320 without. And see the funny thing is that 00:00:27.920 --> 00:00:35.040 the whole Oh, for crying out loud. Give me a sec, guys. Sorry about that, guys. 00:00:32.880 --> 00:00:39.680 Had to fix the uh the TV there. So, you can see we have a Fractal Design logo on 00:00:37.680 --> 00:00:47.200 the TV behind me, which is of course appropriate for a Fractal Design case 00:00:42.160 --> 00:00:49.440 unboxing. Very appropriate indeed. 00:00:47.200 --> 00:00:53.760 There we go. All right. So, what is I mean, what do they say about themselves 00:00:51.200 --> 00:00:57.520 on the So, they've done away with the silver case color. So, it's available in 00:00:55.520 --> 00:01:04.159 black, white, and titanium. Supports ATX, microATX or miniITX cases, uh, 00:01:01.920 --> 00:01:08.400 motherboards. It's minimalistic, elegant, and that's something we've come 00:01:06.000 --> 00:01:12.159 to expect from the define series. Patent pending modu is something we've come to 00:01:10.240 --> 00:01:17.840 expect. So, basically, what is this? This is an evolutionary change, not a 00:01:14.720 --> 00:01:21.560 revolutionary change. Fractal is going 00:01:17.840 --> 00:01:21.560 for h 00:01:21.680 --> 00:01:29.439 just the define R3 plus I guess. So they've 00:01:27.200 --> 00:01:32.960 updated the internals in a big way, but I'm not expecting the outside of the 00:01:31.200 --> 00:01:38.400 case to really look very different at all. Packing material wise, it's I'd 00:01:35.439 --> 00:01:42.640 prefer to see a soft foam, but more and more we're seeing manufacturers go with 00:01:40.320 --> 00:01:48.640 hard foam because they do present a bit of a better value. 00:01:44.880 --> 00:01:50.560 um on the manufacturing side. So, well, 00:01:48.640 --> 00:01:56.000 they're going with them. Included is a user's manual. Define our four computer 00:01:52.960 --> 00:01:59.040 case users manual. Very good stuff. As 00:01:56.000 --> 00:02:03.360 well as a plastic cover. So, from the 00:01:59.040 --> 00:02:06.000 outside, sort of any immediate 00:02:03.360 --> 00:02:12.080 similarities that you might notice between the Define R4 and the Define R3 00:02:09.039 --> 00:02:14.720 are obviously not present. you know, 00:02:12.080 --> 00:02:19.680 this doesn't look anything like a Define R3, which clearly didn't look anything 00:02:17.680 --> 00:02:26.879 like a Define R2. And of course, I'm being very um sort of very very ironic 00:02:24.000 --> 00:02:32.080 here. Um so, it looks pretty much like a Define R3 from the outside. For front 00:02:29.599 --> 00:02:36.800 IO, we've got our power indicator. We've got our microphone, headphone, and reset 00:02:34.879 --> 00:02:40.000 button. That's not a headphone button, that's a jack, but that's a button. 00:02:38.400 --> 00:02:44.480 Power button. Did I mention that before? with cool little concentric circle 00:02:41.840 --> 00:02:51.120 finish on it. USB 3 super speed ports. Two USB 2 not super speed ports. Two 00:02:47.760 --> 00:02:52.720 front panel 5 and a/4 in bays. Sound 00:02:51.120 --> 00:02:58.160 dampening material inside the front panel here. This is actually very 00:02:54.319 --> 00:03:00.000 important for sound uh sound dampening. 00:02:58.160 --> 00:03:03.920 H. Oh, cool. Built-in fan controller. 12vt, 7 volt, 5vt. Awesome. Those are 00:03:02.319 --> 00:03:08.080 the only things you really need. Any fans that'll go all the way down to 5V, 00:03:05.920 --> 00:03:12.080 fantastic. the uh hydraulic bearing fans that are included should do it. There's 00:03:09.920 --> 00:03:15.599 a 140 in the back and a 140 in the front. They've updated this a little 00:03:13.599 --> 00:03:21.440 bit. So, that's kind of interesting. So, now instead of being on a swinging door, 00:03:18.400 --> 00:03:23.519 this is actually this actually swings 00:03:21.440 --> 00:03:29.120 down, does it? Or Hold on. I think it's uh H. There we go. Oh, no. Give me a 00:03:26.159 --> 00:03:32.000 sec, guys. Okay. So, yeah, we got had a bit of a clearance issue there, but I 00:03:30.640 --> 00:03:37.040 just kind of tucked this in. So, there's a removable fan filter right here, which 00:03:34.400 --> 00:03:41.280 sort of comes out somehow. Um, 00:03:38.640 --> 00:03:46.319 sure. Like that. That's probably not how you do it. Dual 140 or 120 mm fans. 00:03:44.560 --> 00:03:52.159 These are their R2 fans with the hydraulic bearings that I mentioned 00:03:47.680 --> 00:03:54.319 before that are included. And uh, so I 00:03:52.159 --> 00:03:58.239 talked about the filter already. Talked about the ah, yes. So, there's a grill 00:03:56.239 --> 00:04:01.280 here. And then they also have access to air through the vents that are on the 00:03:59.920 --> 00:04:08.080 side. So, you can go and have a look at that vent while I figure out how to get this filter back in place. I'm really 00:04:06.640 --> 00:04:13.599 sure this isn't how I'm supposed to do it, but I'm just kind of like bending it 00:04:10.400 --> 00:04:16.079 in. So, if you do it my way, then sort 00:04:13.599 --> 00:04:20.400 of you're doing it wrong, but uh I'm trying to film an unboxing here and not, 00:04:17.840 --> 00:04:24.160 you know, paint the Mona Lisa. So, maybe I don't do things the most elegant way. 00:04:22.079 --> 00:04:28.240 I'm very, very sorry. Moduvent. This is a cool technology. The first time I saw 00:04:25.919 --> 00:04:31.759 Moduvent was with the Define R2. And basically, see these? These are fan 00:04:29.840 --> 00:04:35.120 holes, but there's like nothing that goes through them because there are 00:04:33.520 --> 00:04:38.320 actual pieces of sound dampening material that are screwed in. You can 00:04:36.639 --> 00:04:43.919 take these screws out. You can put a couple of 140 mm fans up there and it is 00:04:41.600 --> 00:04:49.120 off to the races. On the side, you've got another modu vent. So, this one 00:04:45.440 --> 00:04:51.520 supports either a 120 or 140 mm fan 00:04:49.120 --> 00:04:55.840 directly over where your graphics cards would be if you had graphics cards in 00:04:53.199 --> 00:05:00.800 your system. Uh, in the back you see a 120 or 140 millimeter fan mount mount, 00:04:58.479 --> 00:05:04.000 more just general venting holes. Seven PCI slots with one auxiliary one that 00:05:02.639 --> 00:05:07.520 you could use for like a fan controller or something like that. Bottom mounted 00:05:05.840 --> 00:05:13.039 power supply with sound dampening material. The Defined series is all 00:05:09.919 --> 00:05:14.720 about quiet computing. So, let's go 00:05:13.039 --> 00:05:18.960 ahead and get it opened up and I'll be right back. 00:05:17.120 --> 00:05:23.039 Now, Define R3 is a little on the heavy side for its size. So when you open it 00:05:20.880 --> 00:05:27.360 up, you realize it's because they spent money on the sound dampening material. 00:05:25.280 --> 00:05:31.360 So the side panels are phenomenally heavy because they have this thick dense 00:05:29.520 --> 00:05:34.960 material here that helps to deaden the noise that gets made inside your case. 00:05:33.360 --> 00:05:38.720 So that combined with the sound deadening material that's built into the 00:05:36.560 --> 00:05:42.080 front panel means that any sound usually gets kind of projected out the back or 00:05:40.240 --> 00:05:46.400 out those vents on the side and you're not as likely to hear it. They have 00:05:44.080 --> 00:05:51.199 seriously upgraded the cable management room in the Define R4 compared to the 00:05:48.400 --> 00:05:57.600 Define R3. There is enough room that you can easily route a 24 pin cable back 00:05:53.919 --> 00:06:00.479 here. Lots of cable management um 00:05:57.600 --> 00:06:04.000 anchors so you won't have any difficulty routing things wherever you need them to 00:06:02.000 --> 00:06:10.400 go outside of the holes here. They've also put in a larger than usual bottom 00:06:07.919 --> 00:06:13.199 power supply cable grommet. And what that means is that all the cables that 00:06:12.000 --> 00:06:17.840 need to come up here will actually be able to fit. I've seen cases that have ones that are only about this size. So, 00:06:16.400 --> 00:06:23.520 while you've got lots of room to cable manage up here, there's not enough room to actually bring the cables up to the 00:06:21.280 --> 00:06:27.039 top of the case. The included fans have very nice Wow, very high quality sleing 00:06:25.520 --> 00:06:31.360 on them. You can't even see the color of the wires at all. This has colored wires 00:06:29.280 --> 00:06:35.360 inside it, guys. You can see up here, but this looks 00:06:33.440 --> 00:06:41.120 that's some of the tightest mesh I've seen from anything but like Murder Mod. 00:06:37.840 --> 00:06:42.240 It's fantastic. Okay. And I think that 00:06:41.120 --> 00:06:46.560 pretty much does it for the back side. Your CPU cutout is here where you would 00:06:44.319 --> 00:06:51.199 expect to find it on the other side of the CPU part of the motherboard tray. 00:06:49.440 --> 00:06:55.360 And let's go ahead and open up this side. So here you can see the modu. So 00:06:53.199 --> 00:06:59.120 this has like a sound dampening foam hoo-ha thing going on. You just go ahead 00:06:57.039 --> 00:07:04.319 and remove that and throw in a fan if you feel the desire. Very heavy as well 00:07:02.639 --> 00:07:08.560 just due to the uh to the sound dampening material. They have seriously 00:07:06.319 --> 00:07:14.639 upgraded the internals of the Define series as well. So, we still have room 00:07:11.840 --> 00:07:20.479 for eight hard drives. See that? 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8. However, they've given the 00:07:17.840 --> 00:07:24.160 option to completely remove five of them if you don't want to mount a ton of 00:07:22.000 --> 00:07:29.840 drives and you want to create more room in your case for cooling and air flow. 00:07:26.960 --> 00:07:34.000 See that? Now, those front 140 mm fans have lots of room to blow air from the 00:07:31.520 --> 00:07:37.840 vents here into the inside of the case. And you've got room for much longer 00:07:36.319 --> 00:07:42.319 graphics cards. So you could install a graphics card that's like I mean come 00:07:39.680 --> 00:07:48.080 on. It would be an entire Linus forearm and almost a Linus hand in length by the 00:07:45.680 --> 00:07:51.520 time it actually touched this fan which seems to be on some kind of a Oh, there 00:07:50.240 --> 00:07:55.599 we go. That's clipped in a little bit better now. Oh, that explains it. So it 00:07:54.240 --> 00:08:02.800 looks like this came a little bit loose in shipping. You know what? Let's go ahead and do some Linus Tech Tips 00:07:59.759 --> 00:08:06.400 investigation of uh of what's going on 00:08:02.800 --> 00:08:08.319 with that uh that front mechanism thing 00:08:06.400 --> 00:08:13.440 that's uh that's been causing problems for me. Couldn't get the front closed. 00:08:11.280 --> 00:08:19.039 Okay. So, we'll just pull this off. And you can see that we get access to all of 00:08:15.520 --> 00:08:20.720 the pieces here. So, this whole thing 00:08:19.039 --> 00:08:25.039 comes out. Look at that. So, you just clip the fans in here. You can remove 00:08:22.960 --> 00:08:28.720 the fan filter much more easily now that I've done it sort of the way that you're 00:08:26.639 --> 00:08:33.039 supposed to. Then you take this whole mechanism, put it back inside here, run 00:08:31.680 --> 00:08:37.680 your cables around the back where there is tons of room here. Come around the other side. This is fantastic. So 00:08:36.080 --> 00:08:43.440 there's tons of room for cable management back here. Oh, you can't reach, can you? We're plugged in, guys. 00:08:41.279 --> 00:08:47.760 Tons of room for cable management here. And then you just go and take the whole 00:08:45.120 --> 00:08:52.800 thing and clip it right into place like that. So now it 00:08:51.040 --> 00:08:58.640 isn't going anywhere and we're not going to have any more trouble with it. 00:08:55.920 --> 00:09:02.720 Awesome. Ah, another thing they've upgraded about the interior, check this 00:09:00.320 --> 00:09:07.360 out, guys, is that you can not only take this out and do this, but you can take 00:09:04.640 --> 00:09:11.839 it out and do this. Haha. So you can rotate it. That gives you more air flow 00:09:10.320 --> 00:09:14.720 through here if you haven't filled it up with hard drives or even if you have in 00:09:13.360 --> 00:09:18.800 all likelihood cuz a lot of people complain about this style. But in order 00:09:17.200 --> 00:09:22.480 to get enough strength once you fill this up with hard drives, you have to 00:09:20.320 --> 00:09:26.399 have enough reinforcement material here. But you can go ahead and put it in that 00:09:23.920 --> 00:09:30.720 way in order to reorient the drive cages however you see fit. Now the bottom one. 00:09:29.040 --> 00:09:38.080 Yep. You can remove that one as well, which is very, very cool. So there's that bottom mounted 120 or 140 mm, which 00:09:35.279 --> 00:09:42.399 has one long fan filter that can be taken out from the back. There we go. So 00:09:40.000 --> 00:09:45.839 that covers both this fan and the bottom of the power supply. You can see the 00:09:44.240 --> 00:09:50.800 cable management more clearly from here. You can also see the uh module vents 00:09:48.880 --> 00:09:54.399 that are in the top of the case. So, what have they upgraded? Removable 00:09:52.800 --> 00:09:59.040 cages. Both this one and this one. Although this one doesn't look like you 00:09:56.000 --> 00:10:00.240 can reorient it. No, I kind of doubt it. 00:09:59.040 --> 00:10:06.000 Although I could be wrong. I hope I'm not wrong. Ah, SSD mounts. Is that are 00:10:04.080 --> 00:10:11.279 is that an SSD mount on the bottom? I don't know. I don't know what this holes 00:10:07.200 --> 00:10:12.560 for. Maybe you can reorient it. 00:10:11.279 --> 00:10:17.440 Whatever. Someone will look it up and they'll make it the top comment and someone will thumbs it up and then Linus 00:10:16.079 --> 00:10:21.600 will look stupid but he doesn't feel that bad about it. So don't worry guys, 00:10:19.200 --> 00:10:25.920 go ahead, thumbs it up, make it the top comment and we'll know if you can rotate 00:10:23.760 --> 00:10:28.959 that or not. Can rotate this one. Two five and a quarters. All right. Right. 00:10:27.440 --> 00:10:33.680 What have they upgraded? So the rotating cages, the removable cages, the uh 00:10:31.680 --> 00:10:38.480 actually much better design for the front fans and filters. The integrated 00:10:36.160 --> 00:10:42.480 fan controller. So there's a Molex connector right here. And then you've 00:10:40.399 --> 00:10:47.120 got a number looks like three. The number three, four, I don't know, a 00:10:44.959 --> 00:10:51.040 number reset switch. Uh you've got a number of uh fans that can be plugged 00:10:49.440 --> 00:10:56.399 into that in order to control most of the fans in your case, which is very, 00:10:53.360 --> 00:10:58.720 very cool. You've also got USB 3 00:10:56.399 --> 00:11:03.760 natively, USB 2, front audio. These are all nicely black cables that'll go into 00:11:01.680 --> 00:11:09.360 your motherboard and look really sleek. Uh so they've added 00:11:06.240 --> 00:11:11.519 uh right 140 mm fan support at the back. 00:11:09.360 --> 00:11:15.519 I mean, yeah. So, evolutionary changes, little steps. Is this a better case than 00:11:13.440 --> 00:11:21.120 the Define R3? Absolutely. Was the Define R3 already a kick butt case? 00:11:19.360 --> 00:11:26.480 Absolutely. 100% kickbutt in spite of the lack of 00:11:23.680 --> 00:11:32.399 motherboard tray. That's a cheap shot, but uh cable management as well as some 00:11:30.640 --> 00:11:36.959 rubber grommets for Oh, cool. They include rubber grommets for the fans. That's outstanding. Look at that. lots 00:11:34.720 --> 00:11:40.079 of isolating ergonomics and all of the screws that you need to assemble your 00:11:38.320 --> 00:11:44.240 case. Thank you for checking out my unboxing and first look at the Define R4 00:11:42.000 --> 00:11:47.839 from Fractal Design. Honestly, Defree is one of my favorite 00:11:46.079 --> 00:11:50.560 cases, so this only makes it better. Don't forget to subscribe to Linus Tech 00:11:49.120 --> 00:11:55.360 Tips for unboxings, reviews, and other computer videos. And just in case you didn't already know, it includes rubber 00:11:54.000 --> 00:11:59.440 isolating mounts for your three and a half in drives. And all of these sleds 00:11:57.040 --> 00:12:03.680 are fully 2 and 1/2 in drive compatible. Again, don't forget to subscribe. It's 00:12:00.880 --> 00:12:03.680 really important.