Fractal has continued to be one of the PC industry’s fast rising manufacturers focusing immensely on enclosures and power supplies. What stood out most about the Define R4 were the use of Bitumen sound dampening materials on both side panels and the front door. This is great for anyone with a need to quiet down their system. While the Define R4 enclosure is intended for regular end user purposes, the Define XL R2 has a larger (XL) role in supporting larger systems and a larger number of components as well.
I gave the Fractal Design Define XL R2 a shot at supporting a new high end Z87 gaming system as well as a housing a dual socket Xeon ASUS supported system. High end gaming systems often use high performance components which means louder video cards. Servers tend to require more seriously, loud CPU coolers and fans. Either way, I think you’ll be interested in the Define XL R2 and our results.
Features and Specifications
The Define XL R2 and Define R4 share very similar design and fabrication. The XL R2 comes in Black Pearl which essentially has a jet black brushed textured door and a Titanium Grey textured bezel door like the one shown above. Here’s the quick feature list broken down for easy consumption.
- Bitumen and dense noise reducing materials
- ModuVent design (foam covered fan caps) – 3 included (Side panel and two top)
- Removable HDD cages – move bottom cage inward to support front dual 140mm radiator
- Space for single/dual 120 or 140mm radiator up top
- 3-speed fan control integrated in to the front panel – supports 3 fans
- Includes three Silent Series R2 chassis cooling fans (front, bottom, back IO)
- Tooless, removable front fan enclosure – easy maintenance
- Supports the largest power supplies available
- Supports the largest graphics card available
- Wire management – 1″ space behind motherboard tray
Overall, there are a lot of standard features that make the Fractal Define XL R2 competitive with a range of cases in a similar price range. And as eluded to earlier, the Define XL R2 really does share a lot of similarities with its smaller Define R4 brother. We continue to see a lot of great tool free features as well as increased support for larger power supplies and graphics cards and a generous 1 inch gutter behind the motherboard tray for easy cable management.
Moving on, the Define XL R2 supports a range of motherboard s including mini-ITX, Micro-ATX, ATX, E-ATX (extended), and XL-ATX (extra large) motherboards. And also has additional space for the following components.
- 4 – 5.25″ Optical/ROM bays
- 8 – 3.5″ HDD trays – compatible with SSDs
- 9 expansion slots (white PCI covers)
- 7 – total fan positions (2 front, 1 side, 1 rear, 2 top, and 1 bottom)
- Fan filters in front and bottom
- Rubber grommets support and silence the PSU
- Rubber grommets on all cable route holes
- Rubber grommets on HDD trays
- Roughly 36 pound (16.4kg) chassis
- 120/140mm top fans, bottom 120mm fan, rear 120/140mm fan, 120/140mm front fans
- 2 – USB 2.0 and 2 – USB 3.0 front panel ports, Audio in/out, power, and reset
As you can see, one of the things that makes the Define XL R2 an XL is its support for large XL-ATX motherboards. Although there are few current boards that use this form factor, what it will give builders with smaller boards is a lot more room in which to work in. There are also many features that make it quite ready and willing to take on the installation of a custom water cooling system as well.
Pricing for the Fractal Design Define XL R2 starts at $129.99 US/CA from the usual online retailers but can be as low as $99.99 US.
What’s In The Box?
The bundle is somewhat basic but is always easy to figure out when assembling a system. The accessories box labels what is in each baggy. With the exception of the brass motherboard standoffs, all of the screws are black which blends with the chassis.
Special HDD screws work specifically with the trays. And, one-time use zip ties are there if you want to bundle up wiring. If you aren’t familiar with common computer installation, the manual will walk you through each step nicely.
Let’s have a closer look at the case…
A Closer Look at the Define XL R2
As you can see, the brushed finish and Titanium Grey bezel door actually presents a visible attractive contrast against the jet black chassis. In lighted situations, the door seems to blend right in to the rest of the case. The rest of the chassis is evenly painted black without any visible raw edges or missed corners.
The front door is padded with sound dampening material. Basically, the door cuts down on any noise that can escape through the front of the chassis like most conventional enclosures. The bezel 5.25″ louvers easily clip in and out of place. They’re vented and freely allow air to pass through since the chassis doesn’t have any blocking plates inside.
Removing the front dual 120/140mm fan cage involves pressing two points that click open allowing a swivel door. The cage is fastened by a single tab that pulls down and outward. Adding or replacing fans is as easy as sliding them out. Users will have to attach the two fans to your motherboard or fan bay to power them. You could connect them to the 3-speed front switch but the included fans aren’t all long enough to reach the mounted controller. You’ll need to purchase some extensions at additional cost.
A Look Inside the Define XL R2
After removing the Bitumen lined side panels, you can see the internal chassis is very similar to the Define R4 enclosure. It’s jet black inside for the most part except for a few white painted PCI covers and fans. The PSU area has two 3/4 inch tall rubber standoffs for putting some air space between the PSU and chassis for better airflow. The rubber padding on the chassis cuts way down on vibrations too. A bottom mounted filter helps keep cut down on dust. A single 120mm bottom fan is installed in the middle. Still, there’s enough room for a massive power supply of any length or size.
White HDD trays fill the two removable cages. Rubber grommets pad the HDD from the tray to cut down on vibrations as well. Special standoff screws are bundled with the accessories as well as screws for any SSDs. Thumb screws fasten the HDD cages in place. Unfortunately, the 5.25″ bays aren’t tool-less, however, black screws are included to fasten any DVD ROM drives. The top is pretty uneventful other than the two Moduvent fan caps.
Finally, the back of the enclosure gives a better view of the wire management spacing as well as the huge cut out in the motherboard tray. That tray is so large, users can even install dual CPU motherboards. There’s a lot of space behind the tray for tons of wires. Other than some zip ties, there aren’t any Velcro straps or a lot of places to tie off wiring. Straps and more hooks would help manage larger systems better.
That said, let’s take a look at the three test systems and testing methods.
Test Systems Configuration
To ensure the system receives a good real world build and work out, we used three different test systems. System one is a stock AMD cooled ASUS build mainly focusing on CPU, chipset, and video card temperatures. The components are an AMD X4 965 (1.4V) Quad Core, ASUS M4A89GTD PRO motherboard, 8GB Corsair Dominator DDR3, NVIDIA GTX 8800 Ultra video card, and Antec 850 Watt Signature PSU. If the air flow is poor, the temps and air coolers tend to spin consistently at higher RPMs.
The second system is a high end GIGABYTE Sniper 5 gaming system with all the bells and whistles. I purposely assembled this build because it should be so silent that the only sound should be coming from the headset. The main heat producing components are an Intel Core i7-4770K Haswell processor, GIGABYTE Sniper 5 G1 Killer motherboard, an Kingston HyperX Beast DDR3 memory kit, GIGABYTE GTX 770 OC 2GB video card, and a Rosewill Tachyon Platinum 1000 Watt PSU.
And, finally, a dual Xeon E7-4830 build with standard coolers was built, which commonly get noisy, especially in rack mounts due to poor air flow. I only had a few hours to monitor temps and record noise from the admin system versus a 4U rack chassis. The goal was to determine if the Define XL R2 is a viable enclosure replacement in helping to eliminate noise.
Let’s see how the installation went next.
Quality Control and Installation Notes
Installing the systems was pretty normal. Motherboard tray cut outs make it very easy to get to the CPU coolers. With dual CPU coolers, I had to remove the board to ensure proper connections. Some of the standard all in one liquid cooling systems like the Thermaltake Water 2.0 Extreme, Corsair H90 and H110, and NZXT Kraken X40 and X60 all mount to the rear or top fan holes. Unfortunately, none of them are long enough to mount in front. The front is reserved for custom cooling systems.
Hard drive and SSD installation is a breeze. Adding an optical drive requires screws, or in this case, thumb screws. Running wires is easy but can get jumbled up in back. Fortunately, you can’t see them. I added my own Velcro straps from Home Depot to manage things a little more easily.
Some users mentioned that the panel paint chips off the panel edges specifically near the corners. A better paint process would resolve this issue. One concern for system integrators is that the HDD cage with its round spacers is too weak for shipping, or moving because thumbscrews fasten to a brass fitting above and below which have broken off before. If you plan on filling the cages and trays with heavy 1 to 2TB drives, I recommend you use thumbscrews on the sides. Finally, the front panel USB ports are a bit loose.
Acoustics
The Define XL R2 is designed to help absorb and control sound from filling the room. I let all three systems sit idle and at full load running benchmarks for hour intervals measuring audio and monitoring temperatures. The Silent Series R2 fans are rated for and do create about 15dB noise at full speed. Average noise was calculated below with the case closed and open for comparison.
All of the systems were quieter for two big reasons. The sound dampening really cuts down on the noise. Also, the enclosure’s fan placement create a good wind tunnel which forces cool air to hit the components thereby decreasing fan cooler speeds. In fact, the GIGABYTE Sniper 5 build was superbly quiet and darn near almost undetectable. As for the stock AMD system and server, both were 15-18dB quieter thanks to the wind tunnel and dampening. Yes, the admin server was no longer offensive to the ears. How does air flow effect the systems’ temps? Let’s have a look.
Thermal Management
Unfortunately, the fans can’t all reach the front 3-speed controller. Thus, the fans were connected to the motherboard and set to their rated 1200RPM which is basically max. They’re basically moving about 40CFM (cubic feet of air per minute).
After recording the load temps, it’s evident the wind tunnel made all the difference. Max fan speeds do well by default. While low and high fan speeds aren’t shown, there was almost no discernible difference. I also tried adding a top back and front 120mm fan but only the rear fan port set to low speed works best. If top fan is too fast, the cool air won’t hit the back components very well.
Final Thoughts
The Define XL R2 is a very good enclosure for managing noise and even system temps. While the Bitumen, insulated fan ports, and front door cut down on noise, managing temps inside any enclosure is all about air flow inside the enclosure. By design, the enclosure’s fan placement creates a nice wind tunnel. With all that cool air flowing across the CPU and GPU, the corresponding components stay cooler, thus fan speeds stay lower. End users can easily create a superbly quiet system. And, if you just so happen to have a pro system screaming at you inside the office, it’ll benefit with a transplant to the Define XL R2.
A few small things could be polished up. It wouldn’t hurt to include only 140mm fans and Velcro straps would show Fractal is just as serious about wire management. A couple 3pin extension cables will give users full use of the 3-speed fan control. USB ports can use some tightening up as they seemed a bit loose. Even replacing the hard drive mounts and plastic guides will ensure better durability in the long run. At the same time, these suggestions won’t keep users from getting their system up and running more quietly than ever.
As it stands, Fractal Design continues offering very innovative, creative designs with solid features that benefit the end user. The Define XL R2 Titanium Grey and Black Pearl can both be found starting at $129.99 US but you can always find a lower price. If you’re tired of noisy fans or your enclosure’s tin-can hum, the Fractal Design Define XL R2 will please your ears.
Pros
- Spacious, high quality chassis
- Removable HDD trays and cages
- Front and bottom fan filters
- Very quiet fans
- Bitumen, sound dampening materials
- Front 3-speed fan control switch
Cons
- Fans can’t all reach the fan controller
- Loose front USB ports
- Velcro straps would be nice
- HDD cages could be improved
Overall Rating: 8.5 / 10.0
Help Us Improve Our Reviews With a Comment Below!