My point is, we use FD cases on many of our builds here, including my own personal computers. Granted, my ears are 68 years old and I worked next to a military flight line for 24+ years, but my ears are very sensitive to fan noise. I hate fan noise. I mean I really hate fan noise. And I note FD cases, including the R6, are excellent at suppressing noise. I certainly can't complain about my cases and we have never had a complaint from any client about their FD case fans making too much noise either. For AiOs with fixed connections, this is likely to be extremely difficult, if not impossible, due to the limited height. In addition, the recess for the power supply unit is considerably narrower than 140 millimetres, which is why a 120 millimetre wide radiator without connections, which must also be fitted with fans beforehand, can pass through without much fiddling at most. To ensure that the cables for the power supply have enough space, the radiator must also be pushed all the way to the front. Only then can it be connected to the water circuit through the recess. It may then collide with another radiator on the front. In the open design, i.e. without the drive cage, a 120 mm or 140 mm radiator at the bottom of the front panel or better a compensation tank as part of a custom water cooling system fit stress-free in the open design. Comprehensive Conversion Campaign There’s no wasted space on the interior of the R6. Motherboard installation can be a little cramped without removing the hard drive cages, but there’s still a generously-sized grommeted cutout above the motherboard for the CPU power connector, typically a weak point for compact cases. GN’s Steve may think rubber grommets are a waste of money, but Fractal’s have a clever zig-zag pattern that allows small cables to be routed subtly. Cable management is decent, but there’s so much space inside the PSU shroud that it’s hardly worth worrying about.

We never bothered to review Fractal’s popular Define R5--by the time we got a chance, it was already old news. Since the R5’s release, we’ve reviewed both the Define C (and Meshify C) and given them very high marks. Now, the R5’s successor is here, ready for 2017 with a full PSU shroud and a tempered glass side panel. There are no LEDs, though, so we must all mourn. Of the cases we’ve tested, be quiet!’s Pure Base 600 is the closest competitor. With the tops sealed and fans at max RPM, the cases are equal in noise levels and GPU cooling, but the Define C has superior CPU cooling. This could change with different fan configurations or liquid cooling, but judging purely by the numbers, Fractal has the advantage. The R6 is well-positioned in price between be quiet!’s budget Pure Base and high-end Dark Base lines, and the tempered glass version is a bit more than the Silent Base 800. The 800 doesn’t have a TG version, though, so for now the Define R6 has little competition in its specific niche. We tested using our new Skylake case test bench, detailed in the table below. This particular configuration is brand new with the launch of the 570X & 270R. Results on this test platform cannot be compared to previous case benchmark results, as the platform has completely changed.One advertised feature of the R6 is the optional “open layout.” The conversion isn’t anything as dramatic as invertible cases like the Dark Base 900, but it’s also a little beyond just removing the hard drive cages. After the 5.25” bay and 3.5” HDD bays are removed, the metal plate used to hide the HDDs can be moved inwards to extend the motherboard tray, like the eATX plate included with the Bitfenix Shogun. This is mostly an aesthetic change, but it does remove some airflow obstructions and allow more clearance for radiators. Liquid cooling support is pretty good for a mid-tower (see the spec chart), and there’s even a space for a fill port under the top cover.

Replacing the AiO with a CPU tower cooler and attaching two more Corsair fans to the lid made hardly any changes. It should be noted that these observations were made during the heat wave of the last few days – a test of endurance, so to speak. We tried the AiO at the front and a vertical airflow with two fans at the bottom and two at the lid. In the end we came to the conclusion that a horizontal airflow with the AiO on the lid is the most effective structure. In my situation, the ambient noise almost always is what I hear - not any fan noise from my case. If I am really tasking my computer and the FD fans ramp up in speed, typically by that time my CPU, PSU and GPU fans have ramped up speeds and sound levels too - not to mention Led Zeppelin is a few dBs higher too! OK, mourning over. This Fractal Define R6 review looks at build quality, thermal and acoustic performance, and cable management features. This enclosure is one of the few to impress us in the last few months, given the prevalence of cases like the Bitfenix Enso, and we found the R6’s build quality to be even better than the already-liked Define/Meshify C. The Define 7 has an USB Type-C port on the front panel while to get this on the Define R6 you have to either specifically buy the "Define R6 UBS-C version" or buy an upgrade kit from Fractal.If you instead plan on using the top for ventilation, then I prefer the look of the Define R6 since the Define 7 has a strange (horrible for me) dust filter/vent mesh combination.