Installation went flawless. The numerous cutouts are well dimensioned and the big clearance between the motherboard tray and side panel provide more then enough room to tuck away them dreadful cables.

Since we only used 2 HDDS and one SSD in our test setup we were able to remove the top HDD bay, thus allowing the end user to install humongous large graphic cards up to 430mm length, plus maximizes the airflow of the front fan. If needed the HDD bays can also be rotated at a 90° angle.

Hardly any case I know had got two cutouts above the motherboard area, a clever idea as it allowed direct routing of the CORSAIR Hydro 80i fan cables.

An appropriate cutout also positioned directly above the PSU for easy routing of the front panel AUDIO and USB cables.

Cable management is aided by the 26mm clearance between the motherboard tray and the side panel. Time for the temperature results:

We tested the included fan at 12V and 7V. Just to spot if there was any difference during the temperature tests. Sound wise reducing the volts makes hardly no difference. This is one of the reasons the 5V setting was not tested. Secondly we feared the case might starve for airflow ( the R2 140mm fan spins +/- at 350rpm at 5V).

Between the 7 and 12V setting we spot two to three degrees C difference, mostly under Load conditions. When comparing these results with e.g the Cooler Master Silencio 550, we notice both enclosures achieve similar results. With a small advantage for the Fractal Define R4 when running the fans at 12V ( +/- 985rpm according the fan readout in AIDA64), take note that the R4 is slightly larger in volume, but most credit goes out to the decent 140mm fans.

Noise wise this is one of the quietest cases that have been tested by myself. The included Fractal R2 fans are dead silent in operation, even when running full blast. The noise generated by the HDDs is nicely reduced by the included foam damping materials of the Define R4.