You see where the grommets are, the tray is indented to open up more space for the cables. On top of that you have enough space in the back to mount and plug an SSD, so you have enough space for everything. Unless you are completely careless though, but if you take a little bit of time - it will be more than enough.
The act of hiding cables is quite easy due to the large amount of space. I have a non modular psu with round cables and I can fix everything.
I just read up one thing about the Corsair 540 that I dislike quite a lot actually, I don't appreciate how they've cut a corner here and there, apparently the side panels are flimsy, and the PSU has no dust filter(s). I mean it's nothing huge, but considering it isn't exactly the cheapest case around, I would've expected at least all the dust filters you could ever need.
That's totally fair, they do make things a little over price for the quality you're getting IMO.
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also, i would probably avoid cases with just mesh running down the length of the case, on the side of the top if you're looking for something remotely quiet. I have the Lian Li PCv33 and while i love the case, the one thing it is not, is quiet. Despite replacing all the fans with noctua ones. Pretty sure this is the long mesh openning running down almost the entire length of the side of the case. The Corsair 540 and something similar on the top of the case i think.
Well, I have Fractal Arc Midi R2. Not silence optimized, but having 11 fans in it on extremely low speed (5v) makes the case virtually silent. There is always the noise, that the air makes while moving through the mesh, but if the gpu is in a reasonable usage and the fans don't spin up more than 60% I cam play without even noticing the noise. And idle - I don't hear it. Literally. It's silent.
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It's quite odd, my current case is actually quite noisy, considering on idle, I'm running chrome and some other small program at the very most, and it's still a bit noisy, I mean it's noisy even if I've only got the desktop running. You get my point, my case is actually awful for noise level(s), however I have a friend that bought a cheap one off of Amazon, branded as silent, and to be fair, it is all but silent and the temps don't get too high. But you still get what you pay for, the build quality is a joke, cheap and nasty materials, horrid plastics, etc. Apparently due to how horrid the materials were and the design is, it was a nightmare for my friend to install his hardware into his case.
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My point was mainly, that the system silence is based on the components more that the case. If I push my GPU to run its fans at 70% oh, I will hear it... But I am quite happy to keep it under 70C and work on low speeds. My cheap CPU don't quite need the cooling, but I have put Noctua D14 on it and the fans are barely spinning.
Having the 5 x 140mm case fans on 5V makes quite adequate airflow in the case, and everything is cool, therefore the fans don't even ramp up.
If I have noisy components, that case with those fans will not save me. Noisy cpu cooler and gpu fans are noisy no matter what. Then a silence optimized case is a good choice.
My point is, if you have fairly silent components, just get some extra fans and set everything at low rpm...
That is one of the things I like about the define r5. Fractal didnt really cut corners with that case. Only thing I dont like about it is the fact that it doesnt fit anything more than atx.
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Yeah, I know that, I was just stating that my case is loud regardless, I would imagine that in a silent case my components would be rather quiet tbh. I never hear any of the fans spin up to let's say 60% or anything, I mean I rarely do, like when I run a game that's making the most of my graphics card, but other than that, never.
That's very true, my other friend has an incredibly noisy CPU fan, when that spins up, it's actually quite impressive as to how loud it actually is, we like to make a joke of it in all honesty.
If anything, for my next upgrade, I'm gonna look to get super efficient components, like one of those PSU's that have the "0 RPM Mode" features, I would imagine that a feature like that with a silent case would be beautiful.
Yeah, I've got to give it to them, I've never heard anyone say "Oh, look at this case from Fractal, they've really cut corners here, god some of these parts are pretty flimsy", I can honestly say that I've only ever heard good things about their products.
I would personally say the only part of the case I wish was better quality is the side panel. Wish the metal was a tad bit thicker. I also have the windowed version so that is the reason why.
The fans included are nice, there are two too. I really think quality wise they built it well. Some people just dont like the simplistic design
Personally, I love minimalist/simplistic designs. That's why I personally hate some cases with LED's. No thank you.
Yeah, some people dont at all. They like the "gamer" and aggressive looks. I completely recommend the define r5. Its a great case and it is not that expensive. Or the define s for that matter, depending on the drive support you want.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but the Define S is a bit too small to keep all of the drive bays in, whilst having a full length graphics card. Personally, I want 2x5.25" drive bays and about 5x3.5" {OR : 3x3.5" & 2x2.5"}. In total, let's just say about 7 drive bays in total, including the optical drive bays. That's one thing that I found attractive about the Corsair 540, it has 2x5.25" drive bays, 2x3.5" drive bays (wouldn't mind only having 2, 3 would just be a preference) and plenty of 2.5" drive bays.
That and I REALLY like the dual chamber design, I can imagine that would make cable management STUPIDLY easy.
The define s is the same size, but the layout drive wise is quite different.
Define s:
Define r5:
Define s has the drives on the back. 2 2.5 in drives. 3 3.5 in bays for the define s.
Tons for the define r5. But the define s is more open to water cooling.
How many drives do you have?
Define r5 has no 5 in drive bays as well.
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Sigh....... I love the idea of the Define S, because it's just what I need, EXCEPT for the fact that it doesn't have any optical drive slots... Hmm, I GUESS I could always just use external options, but aren't the external options a lot slower? - I wouldn't actually know, I've never used them, but I do know that there's not a huge difference between USB 3.0 speeds and some SATA connection speeds.
I have a decent solution. Give me a minute.
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Sure thing! But like I said, isn't USB 3.0 like 5 Gb/s or something like that? - I know it's not slow to say the least.
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