Fractal Designs R4 Review

The replacement for the ever popular R3 has finally been released. But will the R4 be as good in our eyes as its older brother?


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Tissues at the ready lol

Two months after I buy the R3...$£%*&!!!

and to think tomorrow i was going to purchase a R3, haven't heard a release date yet so think i may have to wait

Nice but could be better

They have basically taken the Midi, slapped a door on it and added some noise dampening material but removed the best feature of the Midi - THE FAN HOLE LOCATIONS.

If they had placed them offset like the Midi then you could fit a H100 and other rads and I would have bought one.

Yeren said:

and to think tomorrow i was going to purchase a R3, haven't heard a release date yet so think i may have to wait

Click to expand...

Same here, i too was about to purchase a r3, i think I'll wait for a white r4

My views after watching Toms review:

Silence - Buy the R4
Gaming - Buy the Arc Midi

I really think if they made the R4 slightly higher and fan mounts to accommodate a 240 radiator or a H100 they'd have nailed it.

I also find it a bit weird just weeks after announcing an optional window panel for the R3 they then release the R4... and its obvious from the review that the window panel for the R3 won't fit on the R4

What really baffles me is though... Fractal Design have no intention of releasing a window panel for the Arc Midi, which is basically designed for gaming yet they released a window panel for the R3 which is designed for silence. That doesn't make sense to me.

Noice

im kind of a Fractal Design fanboy. and this was a good case, but not the cutting edge case it
could have been. with R3 sales, i'm sure it was a high demand case, as when the shelves
were thining, customers were fearing discontinuation. i'd thought Fractal would have turned
the volume up on features a bit more. Fractal taughts a host of features (fan control,
upgraded 140mm fans [R2], wider, SSD mounts on mobo tray and front filter bay enhancement.

MEAH... at best. the R3 was a great case and this follows the mold, but not making forward
progress in design. doesn't make me wanna buy the R4, today.

to buy the R4.5 or R5 i'd want it to be taller (500mm+), water cooling compatible,
4 USB 3.0 (with 2.0 pigtails) and convertible opti bay to use that area for HDD inline with
the other cages and fix that friggin' door to open WIDER or hinge at the bottom or reversable!
just let me access the fan area easier. make the front fan cartrige less clumbsy and more
adaptable than the clip-on fan clips (that break) use fan attachment bosses (brass
preferably) for more fan selection (140mm fan market is not as selectable as the 120mm
are at this time). just make thin metal brackets to attach to the back of mobo to secure
the SSD drives, they dont weigh any amount of mass to worry about ripping away from
the tray (optional placement). and please, please stop making the public cry for a
windowed-side panel. state it on release that a panel will be available, PERIOD! instead
of waiting for public opinion to scream for it (the XL got one...).
get it close to this and my dollars will be your dollars Fractal Design. till then i'll stay with
my Arc Midi (R4 without a door).

Update on rad compatibility

This was just posted on another forum by a member:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mqLxS38SCVA&feature=player_embedded

VulgarDisplay88 said:

This was just posted on another forum by a member:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mqLxS38SCVA&feature=player_embedded

Click to expand...

Quite like how she said 'this was not picked up on by people' as if people always think: 'oooh, I wonder if the bottom screw holes of the hard drive cage are exactly the same size as a 120mm fan...'

Not exactly gunna guess it unless you're explicitly told are you. Surely that's an even worse design though as they're trying to show off watercooling support with a 'slim 240mm' radiator. I'm guessing by the hinged door thats the max you can have with or without the hard drive cage there

And also in the comments of the video link posted above, it was said by Fractal that there are 15mm spacings at the top fan mounts.

But I wonder now if the H100 tubes are long enough to reach from that front mount.

H100 wont fit the front.......

or you install a giant radiator and dump the hard drives... Even though this case is so great, it's just not good enough after the R3.. Hope the R5 will nail it

They need to get rid of the hard drive cages. Pillars like in the LL PC-90 or a "shelf" like in the Mac Pro take up less space and have better airflow. Of course, engineers/nerds tend to be closet authoritarians :lol: and think "different" is "wrong," so these silly hard drive cages persist...

jamdox said:

They need to get rid of the hard drive cages. Pillars like in the LL PC-90 or a "shelf" like in the Mac Pro take up less space and have better airflow. Of course, engineers/nerds tend to be closet authoritarians and think "different" is "wrong," so these silly hard drive cages persist...

Click to expand...

as soon as they rid the world of hard drives, i think that can be accomplished. but
till then the cages are gunna be around. windowed versions will be kinda bland.

airdeano

I know what would make the case better.

Simple. SSD mounts that you do not have to screw in before you install the motherboard.
Love the location but hate the mounts on the back of the CPU tray. Some kind of easy to use mounts would vastly improve the case.
Now if you can put in 120x2 or 140x2 rad in the front, SSDs and maybe a bay mounted pump reservoir you could do a water cooled case.
I think this would case as is would be good for.
Home server.
Air cooled gaming rig.
HTPC.
An a high end office PC
Audio workstation.
And if you put say an i7 or Xeon with a Quadro or FirePro card and you would have a good workstation for CAD, Video, or 3d work.

For SSD mounting, I'd just use my Silverstone SSD bracket, saves me from removing the motherboard if SSD needs to be taken out

What is the maximum depth of a 'slim radiator' that will fit in the front mount?