The front is made of brushed aluminium throughout, except for a small recess at the top in the middle, which releases the lower part of the white LED of the Power Button. The front is a door that opens to reveal a blind-like screen with the first of a total of three dust filters. The screen can be removed with a handle on the top. Behind it are two of the three pre-installed fans. Fractal Design has opted for 140mm fans that draw in air through side inlets that are located in the frame around the front door. Alternatively, three 120 fans can be installed here. The fans can also be replaced with correspondingly large radiators. The frame itself is made of plastic. The hinges of the internally insulated door can be placed on the right or left side. All you have to do is remove the screws of the hinges on the door and reposition them. Easily Accessible I/O panel According to the instructions, the 5.25-inch slot must be omitted in the open layout. Nevertheless, we managed to install a Blu-Ray player without any problems, even with a subsequent 280mm radiator on the upper side, even though the optics aren’t flawless anymore, because the DVD drive is then visible through the transparent side panel. PWM Fan Hub with Many Slots 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.

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.

Apple cancelled this, now what?

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. 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 As usual, we’re starting with only temperatures for the Define R6 in different configurations, then we’ll look at comparative data with other cases. If you believe your FD fans are making too much noise, try using the R6's fan controller to reduce rotation speeds. Watch your temps to make sure they don't increase too much. I recommend you also verify any fan noise you are hearing is really coming from the case fans, and not the CPU fan, GPU fan(s), or the PSU fan. You could easily replace your case fans only to find out the fan noise was really coming from the PSU or something else. And if using water cooling, note pumps can make a lot of noise in comparison. With that established, it has got to be said that, as a general rule - there are exceptions, of course - but as a general rule and with all else being equal, quieter fans are the result if them running at a slower RPM. But slowing down the rotation speed of any fan, while making it quieter also reduces the amount of air that fan moves.

To be sure, the FD fans included in FD cases are definitely high "quality" fans. That is, they are well designed, well made, and use quality precision (thus quiet) bearings. However, rendering on the GPU, average GPU dT was 29.2. Relative to other cases, it fared better than it did in Firestrike, but still not enough to compete with the two be quiet! Cases. It did cool better than the Meshify C and Define C, though, and it beat the Enso by 3 degrees. This teaches us that the Define R6 primarily starts struggling with GPU thermals when both the CPU and GPU are under load, as it doesn’t have enough pathways for hot air to escape the enclosure. Fractal R6 Noise LevelsLoad testing is conducted using Prime95 LFFTs and Kombustor “FurMark” stress testing simultaneously. Testing is completely automated using in-house scripting, and executes with perfect accuracy on every run. For extra tests, we removed the front panel (not just the door), mounted the GPU vertically, opened the top ModuVent, and reconfigured to the “Open Layout.” Removing the front panel has become one of our regular tests, as it provides an absolute best case scenario for airflow that other results can be compared against. Fractal Define R6 Thermals - CPU Torture (Case Study)