 This video is brought to you by the Intel Core i5 4670K unlocked processor. Add an Intel 520 series SSD to your Haswell system for unbelievable overall performance. The Fractal Design Define XL is so large that I had to- no, I'm just kidding. Actually, I raised my table a little bit. We're gonna lower that. Welcome to my unboxing and first look at the Define XL R2. This case from Fractal Design is pretty much, as B-roll put it before we started, is this kind of like the Define R4 but bigger? And I said yes. Yes indeed. It is an XL version of their Define series case that has that same Scandinavian clean lines look to it. B-roll is indicating to me that the microphone's over here. Thank you for that. Has that same Scandinavian clean lines look to it but in a larger enclosure. So this case only supports four 5.25 inch bays and eight 3.5 inch or 2.5 inch bays. So in terms of sort of mere mortal expansion, the kind of thing most normal people would do with their systems, it doesn't really seem to offer that much over the Define R4. However- and there goes the chandelier. See, it is actually quite big. There we go. However, when you get into some of the more exotic things you might want to do with your system, like liquid cooling for example, that is where the XR XL really shines. So we've got a very hard foam here, not my personal favorite, however it does compensate by at least being quite thick. So hopefully your case won't undergo more than one significant impact on its way to you, particularly if you have a system built and loaded into it. So there we go, we're done with the packing material there. It comes with a plastic sleeve over top that is, of course, and this is very important folks, recyclable. Okay, got that recycling logo on there on my side. You couldn't see it before, but don't worry too much about that. Alright, the case itself. So for the sake of getting sort of an idea of the scale of this case, go ahead and take a step back. This is what it looks like next to a hulking 6'4 figure of masculine unbelieveableness- no actually I'm 5'6, so that should give you a better idea of how big the case actually is. So we're gonna go ahead and peel off the front. It is available in black or titanium gray in terms of the door. It's pretty much what you'll expect if you've ever seen a Define Series case before. So there is noise dampening foam on the inside of the front door here that helps some of the noise that would otherwise escape from the front be harnessed and used for good rather than evil. We've also got toollessly removable 5-1⁄4 inch bay covers. Hopefully I can- there you go, the thing about toolless 5-1⁄4 inch bay covers is that you have to not be a tool in order to remove them and put them back in correctly. So if you guys aren't able to do it, don't feel too bad, but you're a tool. So- no, just kidding. At the front we've got two 140mm cooling fan spots with built-in filters that you can go ahead and do that with. Okay, you also have the option to mount 120mm fans here using the optional holes, but you can see that the toolless mechanism that uses clips right here to mount the fan is only available with 140mm fans. The case itself includes their new R2 Series fans which have better bearings than the older fans. They spin at 1000 RPM, which is in line with the cool and quiet but mostly silent, mostly quiet theme of this particular case. You can also see that there are mounting options right here for 140 or 120mm things from the inside as well. More on that. Look at this, I'm using the word tool, I'm using the word moron. I'm not trying to say anything about, you know, the case. Don't worry. Good case. Fractal Design makes good stuff, I like it. All right, up at the top of the case, whoa, two USB 2.0 ports, two USB 3.0 ports, a power button, a reset button, a headphone jack, and a microphone jack. Also on the top of the case, we have two modu vents. So these are for 140mm fan slots as well, and you can either leave them in for optimal silence or you can take them out for better cooling. Also for cooling are these vents on the front, so down both sides of the front of the case, there is airflow access for that front fan because if it was up to the door, nothing would be getting through. No window on this particular case, but we do find another modu vent. Ah, there we go. With a 120 or 140mm fan mounting option available to it, but it's screwed into the 140mm fan mounts. And finally, let's move around to the back, where we've got another 140 or 120mm fan mount, I.O. as well as nine PCI slots, so you can fit your XLATX motherboard in there and your firstborn child and a muffin and probably some like cigarettes if you're trying to hide them from your family. Not that I condone smoking, it's terrible for your computer, never mind your lungs. I mean it's bad for your computer! That should be all the reason you need to stop. That tar gets into your heat sinks and your fans and gums them up and makes it so they don't work very well, and heaven forbid you smoke and you have pets, because then you're going to have tar and hair in your heat sinks, and let me tell you, heat sinks don't work very well when they are full of tar and hair. Speaking of things that are full of tar and hair, actually these are not full of tar and hair, but they are high density noise dampening pieces that go on both the left and right side panel of this case. They increase the weight of the case significantly, but they also make it more resistant to noise passing through it, so I consider that a good thing. Especially given that it's a silence optimized case, which I think I've mentioned at least a couple times now. Here's the other one, so you can see that moduvent has a slightly different kind of foam on it, it's a bit of a lower density foam, so it has some, you can press it in a little bit there, but it's thicker to compensate, because we all know, what did I say when I did my unboxing of the 900D? It's not about the length, it's about the girth. There you go. All right, inside the case we find five, four five and a quarter inch bays rather, and no tool-less mechanisms on them, that's kind of an interesting one. Those have been standard for a while, personally I don't care. The last time I mounted something in a five and a quarter inch bay it was a gerbil, and I wasn't planning to use it for anything useful, because what can a gerbil do that's useful? Nothing. Let's go ahead and take off these. This is what I was alluding to on the inside, so you can go ahead and remove these thumb screws, and that allows you to achieve something very interesting, which I am buying time before I get to. Let's see if I can take this off, there we go. All right, so you can reposition the drive cages, so you can open this up to get more airflow access for your graphics cards. So that front 140 millimeter fan you can see is right there, and that will allow it to blow directly on your graphics cards. This also gives you access to the, aha yes, those mounting points there. So the Define XLR2 supports a 240 or 280 millimeter radiator in the front, a 240 or 280 millimeter radiator up here in the top. It also supports a 120 or 140 millimeter radiator in the back, and a 140 millimeter radiator in the bottom of the case without much difficulty whatsoever, so it is extremely flexible in that regard. Radiator support on this case is extensive. It supports a 2x120 millimeter radiator in the front, a 2x120 or 2x140 if you're using a slim radiator in the top. It supports a single 120 or 140 millimeter radiator in the back, although I'd say a 140 might be a little bit tight, but you might be able to kind of figure it out in there, and a single 120 in the bottom. However, it should be noted that in the bottom here, I'd say 140 because I meant 120, in the bottom here you might have a little bit of difficulty with that if you decide to reposition the front hard drive cage. So this hard drive cage, let's go ahead and close that, can move in about this much, giving you the ability to install thicker radiators up there, no problem, but that will obviously interfere with this fan, and then this hard drive cage, which I showed you before, can either be installed the way that it was out of the box, or check this out, it can be installed this way, giving you a good compromise between airflow and, well basically airflow, but you sacrifice aesthetics a little bit because instead of the hard drives plugging in in the back of the case back here, there we go, they plug in from the inside of the case where you would be able to see them if you had a window on the chassis, but we don't, so not too worried about that. Also on the back of the case, we find lots of other things, we've got a large CPU cutout, as well as cable management holes for your 8-pin, your, you know, I don't know, other pin, your 24-pin, your 6-pin, your 8-pin, your other more different 8-pin, your front connectors, so these are all black cables, which is nice to see, there's your front USB, there's your front HD audio, there's your front USB 2, as well as your power and reset, all things that you will most assuredly need. The case does have built-in fan control that I missed when I was at the front here because I totally forgot, 12 volt, 7 volt, and 5 volt are available with three different positions on the switch, and these can be plugged into three separate fans, conveniently the case includes three fans, boom, mind blown, so you plug that in using this guy right here, so there's Molex power for that as well as the four 3-pin connectors for the fans themselves. I think that is pretty much gonna wrap it up for the Define XL R2, thank you for checking out my unboxing, let me know what you think. Would you prefer the compact functionality of the Define R4, which is significantly smaller than this guy, or do you prefer the largeness and the flexibility to add more advanced cooling options to the case, or a longer motherboard, or more graphics cards, and would you go with something like the Define XL instead? Don't forget to subscribe to Linus Tech Tips, don't forget to like the video, it helps me out a whole lot, and just trying to think, ask them to comment, ask them to subscribe, ask them to like, I could use a new hat while we're at it, if that's not too much work. you