Fractal Design Define R5 vs R5 transparent sound levels

[William Norberg]

hi, should i gt the transparent sidepanel or the normal one? Will sound levels be a lot higher with the transparent one? is it worth the extra price? does it look good?

 

[Anonymouselite5]

Well yes the window looks good if you want to see your PC parts.

However sound levels will be higher as the cases sound dampening will be broken around the window. However once again if you want a truly silent build you'll turn all your fans down and even with a window you won't hear your system anyway.

So from my opinion yes the window is worth it, I like windows. If you want true silence your PC will be silent even with the side door off anyway.
However a normal sidepanel may let your system have a little noise and dampen it a little with the door.

-good luck

 

[synphul]

Sound deadening can help muffle minor sounds but so long as you're running quality fans and using a fan controller of some sort there's no reason a windowed case can't be quiet. Those who claim windowed cases to be loud probably have low quality fans or everything turned to max. I can't speak for the r5 specifically but I doubt it's that much different than any other windowed case. My enthoo pro is a pretty open air design, open vents all along the bottom, front and top with a large side window. Currently running 7 fans in total, a 200mm intake, 140mm exhaust, 2x 140mm as top exhaust, 2 fans on my cpu air cooler and the gpu fan on my hd 7850 (not the quietest card ever). Yes, if all fans are cranked to full speed it can get a little noisy but using a fan speed controller I get plenty of airflow with the fans turned down to the point they're barely audible. The loudest being the gpu fan during gaming when it ramps up and not an issue since the game volume typically overpowers it even without 'blaring' the sound.

 

[William Norberg]

Thanks for all of your responses guys. I will consider buying some better fans (white color led) and connecting them to the in-case fan controller. Cheers!

 

[Anonymouselite5]

Thanks for all of your responses guys. I will consider buying some better fans (white color led) and connecting them to the in-case fan controller. Cheers!

Try the Corsair AF and SP series fans, the quiet edition ones. At full load they're loud but use your fan controller and they're whisper quiet and very high quality. Possibly near Noctua just they look better. Also they do come with a white LED variant.
However they are expensive.

-good luck

 

[synphul]

It depends on what size and variation of fan you're looking for and whether or not it matters to you. For front intake fans pushing air past drive cages, fans with better static pressure perform better. If the fans are unobstructed like top exhaust, rear exhaust, side intake etc then airflow style work a bit better. Corsair's fans are all a bit different, the led versions all use sleeve bearings which are more budget versions (not usually the best for horizontal mount, aka top fans). The non led sp series I believe are hydraulic bearing as well as the af140's. The 120mm corsair prices aren't too bad and you can usually find twin packs but once you get into the 140mm sizes noctua has redux pwm fans for the same or a little less.

Redux are similar to standard noctua fans except they're 2 tone gray, use sso1 instead of the sso2 bearings (very little difference) and come with just the fan and 4 screws, no low noise power adapter cables or anything. Same 6yr warranty though. You're not going to get led's with noctua fans which may be a deal breaker but they're better quality in my opinion. The tonal difference is a bit nicer on the noctua which again is probably personal preference.