Fractal Design Define R4 Full-Tower PC Chassis Review

Starting at the front of the chassis we can see that it features an really smooth and glossy front panel, its clean, smart and most importantly of all, it looks simply fantastic, I’m only onto the first part of the review and I already love the styling here.

Behind the front panel, things look a lot less stylish, but what it lacks in style it makes up for in functionality, with the two optical bays featuring quick release covers, a large ventilated panel runs down the rest of the chassis from there. The inside of the door panel comes pre-lined with heavy duty sound proofing too, which should help keep noise to a minimum.

The top of the front panel comes fitted with all the usual features, such as headset and microphone sockets, reset and power buttons, 2 x USB 3.0 and 2 x USB 2.0.

Front the left side of the chassis we can see that it features a high quality lightly textured matt black finish, with room for either a 120mm or 140mm fan, which out of the box comes covered up from inside the chassis with a removable panel that is lined with sound proofing materials. On the right hand side we have a full column of ventilation slots to provide air intake to the chassis front fans, essential given that the actual front panel is a closed door lined with thick sound proof padding.

The back of the chassis is just as well styled as the front panel, featuring a great high contrast mix of brilliant white and matt black components. Starting at the top we have a row of ventilation holes to allow for excess heat to escape the top of the chassis, below which you can see a pre-installed 140mm fan, 7+1 expansion slot covers which are made from really thick cut metal and painted with a really high quality gloss paint and finally we have a bottom mounted PSU slot.

The back panel of the chassis is fairly featureless, but again still comes finish in the same high quality paint as the rest of the panels and features another column of air vents for the front panel.

Flipping the chassis on its side you can see that it comes fitted with four heavy duty rubber covered feet, these help absorb a lot of vibrations from the chassis and help reduce case noise. There is also a large removable air filter that provides ventilation for an additional 120mm or 140mm fan and support for inverted mounting of the power supply.