It would seem to me that Fractal Design is a better choice over this half-baked attempt at modularity. Even the Define R4 allows both a front radiator + HDD cages at the same time, and the R5 has even more quality of life improvements.
What is actually happening in the market of PC Cases, is Swedish Fractal Design taking the PC entusiast world by storm.
The Fractal Design S & R5 have been reviewed by every single major You Tube PC Enthusiast reviewer, including Jayz Two Cents, Linus Tech Tips, Paul's Hardware as well as the British Kit Guru.Net, and have received dithyrambic praise by ever single reviewer.
From what I see of this case, it offers nothing to the PC enthusiast that Fractal Design S doesn't have and there are even several features that are missing.
All in all, I am quite disappointed. I am a Cooler Master fan btw, having owned a Cooler Master Cosmos RC-1000 case. It is very disappointing to see Cooler Master fail to study the Fractal Design S and produce a similar case.
In my humble opinion, there isn't any reason for an enthusiast to buy anything other than a Fractal Design S or R5 at this stage. Personally, I was forced to buy a Corsair Graphite 780T to replace my former Cooler Master COSMOS RC-1000, but this only because Fractal Design cases are sold out everywhere here in Greece. Generally, I dislike Corsair and tend to avoid them as a company that sells over-priced medium to low-quality hardware.
"The Fractal Design S & R5 have been reviewed by every single major You Tube PC Enthusiast reviewer, including Jayz Two Cents, Linus Tech Tips, Paul's Hardware as well as the British Kit Guru.Net, and have received dithyrambic praise by ever single reviewer."
Some or all of them do advertising for Fractal Design. They're also YouTube reviewers, high on production value (in some cases) while light on critical details. Not always, sometimes they give the specific reasons for why they feel something could use improvement, but all in all, those YouTube reviewers you mentioned are fluff.
While it is true that some of them do advertising in the form of spots inserted into their videos or product presentation, I wouldn't call any of these reviews as fluff. In addition, it is somewhat condescending & baseless to assume that every viewer of the said channels cannot discern said reviewers heavily and disingenuously pushing a specific product.
It is no coincidence that every single reviewer is of the same opinion regarding Fractal Design cases.
As a final note, Kit Guru. Net (Brits) have been specifically excluded by AMD in their latest GPU presentation due to their refusal to compromise on delivering impartial reviews, so you are misinformed in addition to being wrong.
I would and did. They are light on details and anytime you accept advertising and free products from the company you're reviewing, it's 100% suspect that you're able to provide an unbiased viewpoint. Those guys have to make a living, I don't fault them for that. But many, many videos they put out start out strong and ride off with a whimper. Almost as if they said what they needed to say before getting to the final bits of advertising (some of which consume 20-30% of the total runtime of said videos. I don't take them seriously. They do provide a service but, for the most part, it's all just entertainment. They are entertaining. When I want to make an informed decision I read Ars and Anand and pcper, HardOCP, bit-tech, etc.
p.s. you could just as well be a shill for Fractal Design. There's no way for anyone to know.
As far as Kit Guru, one example. If they (AMD) have limited supply, and believe Kit Guru or anyone else may be shilling for Nvidia or anyone else, that's their call to supply or not supply them with free review hardware. If Kit Guru wanted to or did purchase retail product for review, that's their prerogative.
As far as being wrong and uninformed, that's your opinion. You're generalizing based on me disagreeing with you, and I don't care if you agree with me or not.
My opinion is those YouTube channels are providing a service, an entertaining one, but they are too short and do not provide enough "meat" for me to make an informed decision. Almost never do that do that, and if they are pushing Fractal Design products AT THE BEGINNING of their video, I'm going to judge them based on what they are...paid endorsers.
Kitguru? You mean the same site who just copied their PSU testing equipment from another website and are claiming to be doing tests impossible to be done? The same site that continuously posts odd ripple and single digit numbers with a 12bit usb oscilloscope with a maximum resolution of 10mv that can show only even numbers? Those who are making new posts based on what they overheard from company members sitting next their table at a cafe?
Please. Everyone who knows a thing or two about computers and electronics knows that this site is a sham. They have done so many amateurish mistakes betraying most of their reviews and articles are fake that it is obvious they are not even at a level allowing them to cheat properly.
Their Node 304 is fantastic. I was able to move all 6 of my 3.5" drives from my previous midtower case into that little box, plus a pair of 2.5" SSDs I wedged on the floor. Granted, you'd have to remove a pair of 3.5" drives if you wanted to throw in a PCIe card, but the fact you have that ability in something so small is fantastic in my opinion.
You don't even need to wedge the SSDs on the floor. You can attach them to the two outer 3.5" mounts (so in between the case door and the drive mount).
Node 304 is pretty large at 19.5L. It can accommodate large video cards and a 14cm double tower cooler.
Node 202 (new) is a failed design. Absolutely terrible cooling performance for what it can pack.
For ITX, Silverstone, hands down. RVZ01/FTZ01: 14L, can pack some high power parts and still remain cool. RVZ02/ML08: 12L, slimmer version of the above, but still allows for high power parts. SG13: 11.5L, very difficult to top this case.
So using your logic, the only car anybody in the world should be buying is a Honda Accord (Which has been on Car and Driver's 10 best list 29 times). Do you want every car company in the world to only make copies of the Accord?
Both are designed to meet consumer needs while increasing revenue. It's a lot like buying parts of a video game, a little at a time until your total cost is far greater than just a game.
Isn't that the point of reading multiple reviews before making a purchase? Of course after purchase anyone and everyone is entitled to their opinion, but what's the point of stating the obvious?
The custom water cooling mods are getting more popular these days, which would justify putting a windows on it. Personally I'm happy with just having a padded metal lid, like on my Silencio 352, for the silence and also not having to see the cable mess I aways leave in my PC. :D
From where I'm sitting their "modular" approach looks a bit like they're just selling you a case that doesn't come with all the parts. I'm pretty sure my Fall Sky Lake build is still going into a Fractal Design Define R5 (or perhaps a Define Mini if they ever get around to updating it... and if anyone ever releases a micro ATX board that isn't riddled with useless SATA Express ports).
I'm sure the designers/engineers know very well what countersinking is, so well they also know countersinking into such thin sheet metal is not a good method. Even at a large 130* countersink there would be very little surface contact between the sheet and fastener.
The openings are made for screws with countersunk heads and the thin sheet metal, even with fans attached, has no weight that would cause problems with such screws, even if the contact surface is small.
Besides, the thin sheet sits on the metallic frame and gravity does not go up.
I have to agree with the reviewer, and here are some reasons why. You can expand a case in any direction with optional components, except the rear panel with the motherboard connections. The top can not only have a radiator, but also padded external drive bays, Flash drive USB ports, additional buttons, fans controls, lighting controls, and such. The front can have a metal frame that screws to the existing frame to extend the case with new drive bays, radiator options, a closing door, thicker sound insulation and filtration. The bottom could have an additional power supply for high-power rigs and more drive bays. And the side panels could come with different window shapes and embedded lighting options, sleeves for the motherboard manual, hangars for headphones, or art-deco. This would all be designed to bolt onto a standard core frame size, so your core can be swapped for different configurations as well.
Sounds good, but I have not made any CAD drawings to check any sizes or clearances to see if any of this would actually fit together in any aesthetically pleasing way. But I do desire a case with good sound absorption and air-filtration, water cooling, and hot-swap hard drive bays.
If I were to spend $110.00 on a case I would want it to have what I feel is important to me, and not have to consider buying accessories to upgrade. Either it has it or it doesn't. It's that simple.
All PC cases lack of something very important to me - dust filter. I'm talking about real air filter, the one you have in your car, not some foam. Foam air filters can't block fine dust which in about a year will build up a nasty layer of dust on everything, especially on the fans and CPU heatsink. I had to modify my Antec case with 3 fans sucking air in from the front, behind a modified washable car air filter, and 3 blowing air out on top, side and back. It's been almost 2 years and no dust. No more worries of system overheats and annual cleanup caused by dust buildup on my OCed system. Yay ;-)
Not sure....what exactly is the reason for handles on top of a case this size? Is it just for the coolness design factor? Haven't seen a LAN party in years, but I doubt people are lugging around cases like this much, any more.
While it might have some nice features, for me, at least, the price point is too high, for what it's offering.
I don't get the modularity of this case; many other cases in a similar size offer all these options as standard, this just seems like a flimsy effort to remove features and sell them to you as "modular components", which is only going to result in greater expense and reduced build quality, as an add-on bracket is never going to be as good as a fixed one built into the case.
I'd much rather companies were looking at things they can remove to make the cases smaller or less cluttered, and designing the case around that, e.g- with custom airflow partitions, better cable management etc., rather than taking a complete case, ripping out a load of brackets and then trying to sell them back to me; sure the basic case may be less cluttered, but it won't be cheaper, and it won't be as good as a case designed around not having those brackets available at all.
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Terry Suave - Thursday, August 27, 2015 - link
It would seem to me that Fractal Design is a better choice over this half-baked attempt at modularity. Even the Define R4 allows both a front radiator + HDD cages at the same time, and the R5 has even more quality of life improvements.Achaios - Thursday, August 27, 2015 - link
I have to agree with Terry Suave.What is actually happening in the market of PC Cases, is Swedish Fractal Design taking the PC entusiast world by storm.
The Fractal Design S & R5 have been reviewed by every single major You Tube PC Enthusiast reviewer, including Jayz Two Cents, Linus Tech Tips, Paul's Hardware as well as the British Kit Guru.Net, and have received dithyrambic praise by ever single reviewer.
From what I see of this case, it offers nothing to the PC enthusiast that Fractal Design S doesn't have and there are even several features that are missing.
All in all, I am quite disappointed. I am a Cooler Master fan btw, having owned a Cooler Master Cosmos RC-1000 case. It is very disappointing to see Cooler Master fail to study the Fractal Design S and produce a similar case.
In my humble opinion, there isn't any reason for an enthusiast to buy anything other than a Fractal Design S or R5 at this stage. Personally, I was forced to buy a Corsair Graphite 780T to replace my former Cooler Master COSMOS RC-1000, but this only because Fractal Design cases are sold out everywhere here in Greece. Generally, I dislike Corsair and tend to avoid them as a company that sells over-priced medium to low-quality hardware.
usernametaken76 - Thursday, August 27, 2015 - link
"The Fractal Design S & R5 have been reviewed by every single major You Tube PC Enthusiast reviewer, including Jayz Two Cents, Linus Tech Tips, Paul's Hardware as well as the British Kit Guru.Net, and have received dithyrambic praise by ever single reviewer."Some or all of them do advertising for Fractal Design. They're also YouTube reviewers, high on production value (in some cases) while light on critical details. Not always, sometimes they give the specific reasons for why they feel something could use improvement, but all in all, those YouTube reviewers you mentioned are fluff.
Achaios - Thursday, August 27, 2015 - link
While it is true that some of them do advertising in the form of spots inserted into their videos or product presentation, I wouldn't call any of these reviews as fluff. In addition, it is somewhat condescending & baseless to assume that every viewer of the said channels cannot discern said reviewers heavily and disingenuously pushing a specific product.It is no coincidence that every single reviewer is of the same opinion regarding Fractal Design cases.
As a final note, Kit Guru. Net (Brits) have been specifically excluded by AMD in their latest GPU presentation due to their refusal to compromise on delivering impartial reviews, so you are misinformed in addition to being wrong.
usernametaken76 - Thursday, August 27, 2015 - link
I would and did. They are light on details and anytime you accept advertising and free products from the company you're reviewing, it's 100% suspect that you're able to provide an unbiased viewpoint. Those guys have to make a living, I don't fault them for that. But many, many videos they put out start out strong and ride off with a whimper. Almost as if they said what they needed to say before getting to the final bits of advertising (some of which consume 20-30% of the total runtime of said videos. I don't take them seriously. They do provide a service but, for the most part, it's all just entertainment. They are entertaining. When I want to make an informed decision I read Ars and Anand and pcper, HardOCP, bit-tech, etc.usernametaken76 - Thursday, August 27, 2015 - link
p.s. you could just as well be a shill for Fractal Design. There's no way for anyone to know.As far as Kit Guru, one example. If they (AMD) have limited supply, and believe Kit Guru or anyone else may be shilling for Nvidia or anyone else, that's their call to supply or not supply them with free review hardware. If Kit Guru wanted to or did purchase retail product for review, that's their prerogative.
As far as being wrong and uninformed, that's your opinion. You're generalizing based on me disagreeing with you, and I don't care if you agree with me or not.
My opinion is those YouTube channels are providing a service, an entertaining one, but they are too short and do not provide enough "meat" for me to make an informed decision. Almost never do that do that, and if they are pushing Fractal Design products AT THE BEGINNING of their video, I'm going to judge them based on what they are...paid endorsers.
Isambard - Thursday, August 27, 2015 - link
Kitguru? You mean the same site who just copied their PSU testing equipment from another website and are claiming to be doing tests impossible to be done? The same site that continuously posts odd ripple and single digit numbers with a 12bit usb oscilloscope with a maximum resolution of 10mv that can show only even numbers? Those who are making new posts based on what they overheard from company members sitting next their table at a cafe?Please. Everyone who knows a thing or two about computers and electronics knows that this site is a sham. They have done so many amateurish mistakes betraying most of their reviews and articles are fake that it is obvious they are not even at a level allowing them to cheat properly.
Samus - Friday, August 28, 2015 - link
O SNAPJonnyDough - Tuesday, September 22, 2015 - link
*snaps 7 fingers on both handsromrunning - Thursday, August 27, 2015 - link
Achaios: "In my humble opinion, there isn't any reason for an enthusiast to buy anything other than a Fractal Design S or R5 at this stage."So what if I wanted a small, mini-ITX case? I guess I wouldn't be buying a Fractal Design S or R5. ;)
(I could, however, buy one of Fractal Design's Node series.)
Smudgeous - Thursday, August 27, 2015 - link
Their Node 304 is fantastic. I was able to move all 6 of my 3.5" drives from my previous midtower case into that little box, plus a pair of 2.5" SSDs I wedged on the floor. Granted, you'd have to remove a pair of 3.5" drives if you wanted to throw in a PCIe card, but the fact you have that ability in something so small is fantastic in my opinion.shadvich - Thursday, August 27, 2015 - link
You don't even need to wedge the SSDs on the floor. You can attach them to the two outer 3.5" mounts (so in between the case door and the drive mount).meacupla - Thursday, August 27, 2015 - link
Node 304 is pretty large at 19.5L. It can accommodate large video cards and a 14cm double tower cooler.Node 202 (new) is a failed design. Absolutely terrible cooling performance for what it can pack.
For ITX, Silverstone, hands down.
RVZ01/FTZ01: 14L, can pack some high power parts and still remain cool.
RVZ02/ML08: 12L, slimmer version of the above, but still allows for high power parts.
SG13: 11.5L, very difficult to top this case.
romrunning - Friday, August 28, 2015 - link
Agree on Silverstone - I love my little SUGO SG05!umaxtu - Monday, August 31, 2015 - link
So using your logic, the only car anybody in the world should be buying is a Honda Accord (Which has been on Car and Driver's 10 best list 29 times). Do you want every car company in the world to only make copies of the Accord?JonnyDough - Tuesday, September 22, 2015 - link
Both are designed to meet consumer needs while increasing revenue. It's a lot like buying parts of a video game, a little at a time until your total cost is far greater than just a game.vothr - Thursday, August 27, 2015 - link
I'm not sure what to think about this computer case. I would have to build a computer with it before I could give a proper opinion.usernametaken76 - Thursday, August 27, 2015 - link
Isn't that the point of reading multiple reviews before making a purchase? Of course after purchase anyone and everyone is entitled to their opinion, but what's the point of stating the obvious?jabber - Thursday, August 27, 2015 - link
I so love dusty perspex windows. How very last decade.theduckofdeath - Saturday, September 12, 2015 - link
The custom water cooling mods are getting more popular these days, which would justify putting a windows on it. Personally I'm happy with just having a padded metal lid, like on my Silencio 352, for the silence and also not having to see the cable mess I aways leave in my PC. :Dwinterlord - Thursday, August 27, 2015 - link
how much does it weigh?BrokenCrayons - Thursday, August 27, 2015 - link
From the second page of the review - "It also tipped our scale at 10.4 kg, making it a fairly heavy case for the size."nmm - Thursday, August 27, 2015 - link
From where I'm sitting their "modular" approach looks a bit like they're just selling you a case that doesn't come with all the parts. I'm pretty sure my Fall Sky Lake build is still going into a Fractal Design Define R5 (or perhaps a Define Mini if they ever get around to updating it... and if anyone ever releases a micro ATX board that isn't riddled with useless SATA Express ports).freeskier93 - Thursday, August 27, 2015 - link
I'm sure the designers/engineers know very well what countersinking is, so well they also know countersinking into such thin sheet metal is not a good method. Even at a large 130* countersink there would be very little surface contact between the sheet and fastener.E.Fyll - Thursday, August 27, 2015 - link
The openings are made for screws with countersunk heads and the thin sheet metal, even with fans attached, has no weight that would cause problems with such screws, even if the contact surface is small.Besides, the thin sheet sits on the metallic frame and gravity does not go up.
freeskier93 - Thursday, August 27, 2015 - link
Taking a closer look at the pictures it looks they are dimpled, which would be the better method, so it is odd they used a big cheese head screw.'nar - Thursday, August 27, 2015 - link
I have to agree with the reviewer, and here are some reasons why. You can expand a case in any direction with optional components, except the rear panel with the motherboard connections. The top can not only have a radiator, but also padded external drive bays, Flash drive USB ports, additional buttons, fans controls, lighting controls, and such. The front can have a metal frame that screws to the existing frame to extend the case with new drive bays, radiator options, a closing door, thicker sound insulation and filtration. The bottom could have an additional power supply for high-power rigs and more drive bays. And the side panels could come with different window shapes and embedded lighting options, sleeves for the motherboard manual, hangars for headphones, or art-deco. This would all be designed to bolt onto a standard core frame size, so your core can be swapped for different configurations as well.Sounds good, but I have not made any CAD drawings to check any sizes or clearances to see if any of this would actually fit together in any aesthetically pleasing way. But I do desire a case with good sound absorption and air-filtration, water cooling, and hot-swap hard drive bays.
Taurus229 - Thursday, August 27, 2015 - link
If I were to spend $110.00 on a case I would want it to have what I feel is important to me, and not have to consider buying accessories to upgrade. Either it has it or it doesn't. It's that simple.sonny73n - Friday, August 28, 2015 - link
All PC cases lack of something very important to me - dust filter. I'm talking about real air filter, the one you have in your car, not some foam. Foam air filters can't block fine dust which in about a year will build up a nasty layer of dust on everything, especially on the fans and CPU heatsink. I had to modify my Antec case with 3 fans sucking air in from the front, behind a modified washable car air filter, and 3 blowing air out on top, side and back. It's been almost 2 years and no dust. No more worries of system overheats and annual cleanup caused by dust buildup on my OCed system. Yay ;-)marvdmartian - Friday, August 28, 2015 - link
Not sure....what exactly is the reason for handles on top of a case this size? Is it just for the coolness design factor? Haven't seen a LAN party in years, but I doubt people are lugging around cases like this much, any more.While it might have some nice features, for me, at least, the price point is too high, for what it's offering.
Haravikk - Tuesday, September 1, 2015 - link
I don't get the modularity of this case; many other cases in a similar size offer all these options as standard, this just seems like a flimsy effort to remove features and sell them to you as "modular components", which is only going to result in greater expense and reduced build quality, as an add-on bracket is never going to be as good as a fixed one built into the case.I'd much rather companies were looking at things they can remove to make the cases smaller or less cluttered, and designing the case around that, e.g- with custom airflow partitions, better cable management etc., rather than taking a complete case, ripping out a load of brackets and then trying to sell them back to me; sure the basic case may be less cluttered, but it won't be cheaper, and it won't be as good as a case designed around not having those brackets available at all.
Fiernaq - Tuesday, September 1, 2015 - link
No mention of CaseLabs? Modular is what they do.