 The first Define series case from Fractal Design that I checked out, the Define R2, Was that four years ago? Man time flies. Anyway, it delivered what was at the time a great mix of features for the price and built-in noise dampening, which is a really solid value add. But the computer industry moves so fast that to keep up with their competition, Define's R3 and R4 both came very quickly. Speaking of coming quickly, by the way, look forward to our Dragon Age awakening video card showdown, which is coming very soon. Make sure you subscribe so you don't miss it. But unlike its predecessors, the Define R5 has actually been in development for over two years. So what the heck have they been doing all this time? The Cooler Master Neptune 240M features an exclusive pump design and their new Silencio fans to provide impressive near-silent performance. The Cooler Master Neptune 240M features an exclusive pump design and their new Silencio fans to provide impressive near-silent performance. Click now to learn more. Well, one thing Fractal finally figured out is packing material. Experienced companies all eventually realized that the cost of RMAs and the bad customer experiences that come with them is just not worth it. Yes, it's hard foam, but it's thicker and much stronger than what you'll find protecting many other cases in this price range. Thumbs up. Onto the chassis itself, the outside really is Define through and through. I mean, heck, I bet if you lined up R's 1 to 5 in a taste test, only a Fractal product designer could probably actually pick them all correctly. But that doesn't mean that they haven't changed anything. On the top, we get the usual front audio, a recessed reset switch, a fancy looking power button, two USB 2 and two USB 3.0 ports, and oh, what's this then? A new tool-less top mod event system that allows you to have 0, 1, 2, or 3 top 120mm or 140mm fan mounts. From the back, while building, I didn't really like the way they handled the curved corners on the plastic pieces, but looking at it from the front, the way that you'll normally see a computer case, it's much less noticeable. And aside from the outlines of the pieces you've left in place, the transition actually looks pretty darn good, probably because Fractal did a great job of matching the plastic and metal finishes, at least on the black and titanium models, I can't speak for the white one. One compromise up here though that I don't really feel strongly about either way, but feel compelled to point out, is the asymmetrical fan mounts. It doesn't look as clean to have them off to one side like that, but the benefit is that it gives the motherboard a lot more room for cooling up at the top. On the front is one of my favorite finishes, faux brushed aluminum. Normally, I prefer real materials to fake ones, but the brushed plastic looks pretty much just like the real thing, is much easier to clean, and in this case, keeps light reflections down, making the effect of the brushness very subtle. Like this, and also the much easier breathing side vents that will keep the two front 120mm or 140mm fans supplied with fresh air. The rest of the front, I have kind of mixed feelings about. The bitumen noise dampening inside the door is good, the 3-fan controller is good, and the much better and easier to remove front fan filter are all great additions, but while the idea of reversing the door opening direction is good, the mechanism on our unit only closes if we kind of swing it shut rather than closing it nicely, and I'm not a fan of non-standard shaped 5.25 inch bay covers, because if you actually install an optical drive, it looks a little out of place on it, just like it does on Corsair's 900D. The R5's bottom has more good stuff though, this front accessible fan filter slides in and out nice and easy, and protects your insides from unwanted junk, and while there's not much to say about the side panels, the new left mod event looks cleaner than the old style that exposed the grill when it wasn't in use, IMO, and the right panel now uses captive thumb screws with the left opting for normal ones, a seemingly strange decision, until you realize that you'll never use them thanks to the new latching mechanism. Around the back there's not much of note, you've got your bottom mounted power supply, seven expansion slots, and 120 or 140 millimeter fan mounting slots up at the top, riveting. Let's talk about the inside, shall we? Speaking of rivets, the inside of the Define R5 is Fractal's most modular yet, with screws to hold in the bottom and top hard drive cages, captive ones by the way, and even the optical cage at the top. This opens up a ton of different mounting options for the up to eight 3.5 inch or 2.5 inch drive mounts, including rotating the top five 90 degrees, pulling them out entirely, shifting the bottom three left and bringing the five down, hanging eight or five from the top with the optical cage removed, or even just removing all of them entirely for more cooling space. And which is great, because for a silent case, there are a lot of spots to mount fans and radiators. In the front, with all those aforementioned drive cages removed, you can put up to a triple 120, but a dual 140 looks like kind of the sweet spot, with room for a 120, 140, or dual 120 in the bottom, albeit not necessarily at the same time as the front rad or a very long power supply, up to a triple 120 or 140 in the top, as long as the total thickness of the fans and rad doesn't exceed 55 millimeters. Oh, and for good measure, you can throw a single 120 or 140 into the back. The rest of the insides from this side are pretty standard fare. The motherboard trays only remarkable characteristics, other than the, you know, usual big CPU cutout and well-positioned cable management holes, where how surprisingly solid it is, even with all the front bays that it anchors to removed. And also, the way that the motherboard area sits slightly recessed, something that may cause clearance issues with those slightly wider than ATX enthusiast boards, if their right angle connectors on that edge are in awkward locations. Onto the build process, the inclusion of a post in the center motherboard standoff is awesome, and keeps the MOBO in place while you screw it in the rest of them, but the rest of the standoffs were pretty lame to install, actually. Fractal used to include a metal standoff installation tool, and now it's plastic or nylon or something, which prevents it from sticking to my magnetic screwdriver and makes it harder to wrench it in tight enough. But there's more positive stuff to make up for this oversight. The SSD mounts on the back of the motherboard are better than the older screw through the MOBO tray system I've seen Fractal use, and as far as cable management is concerned, the Define R4 was cruising for a good to very good ranking, with ample zip tie loops, lots of room in the right areas behind the motherboard tray to route cables, and included Velcro straps, and then I noticed a couple things I haven't personally seen before. Cable management loops up the right panel side of the front. Awesome! And two different positions for 3.5 inch drive mounting on the metal rails, the standard position and one that brings them closer to the left side panel for more room behind them. Finally, the first Define that can not only hold eight drives, but also has enough room for all the required cables. Brilliant! A huge improvement over the R2 that I'm using for my home server right now. Which I guess is pretty much the conclusion for this video, isn't it? What's the Define R5? Well, it's an improvement over previous Defines in every way. It's unlikely to compel R4 or even R3 owners to upgrade, but at a hundred bucks in change for a non-windowed one like this, or ten more dollars for a windowed version, it's a worthy member of the product family and a recommended buy from me. Thanks for watching, guys. Like this video if you liked it, dislike it if you disliked it, leave a comment if your feelings are more complicated than this, check out the support us link if you like our videos and what we do. You can give us a monthly contribution, you can buy a cool t-shirt like this one, or you can some other thing, right? Change your Amazon bookmark to one with our affiliate code. So whenever you buy new computer cases or whatever else, we get a small kickback. That kind of stuff helps us out a lot. Thanks again for watching and as always, don't forget to subscribe.