A Closer Look - Inside

The insides of the XPG Defender Pro are painted white as well, and just like the rest of the frame, the shroud is made out of steel. It comes with two openings for cable management and a single square, grommet-equipped opening for routing your GPU power cables through, which should prove especially handy if you plan to install the graphics card vertically.


On the rear, you will find two rows of black grommet-covered openings, which is great as the XPG Defender Pro is advertised as an E-ATX chassis, and it looks as though this holds true without having to sacrifice any cable-management possibilities. Interestingly enough, the two 2.5" mounting possibilities underneath the large opening for the CPU cooler are very simple. To install a drive, there are four latches, with one side coming with hooks and the other requiring screws. While this certainly works, it is quite the deviation from what we have seen with all but the cheapest enclosures, which has it stand out with the XPG Defender Pro.


Taking a closer look at the front, there is a cage for two 3.5" drives with individual, white trays. So XPG once again goes the extra mile for white plastic parts where a user won't see them. In the top, the fans, grommets, and window frame come with a black housing. These three elements will be the same color even with the black variant. That said, XPG should have really included a third fan at the front to complete the look out of the box. On the definitive upside, the included units are retail-grade XPG Vento 120 units, so buying more matching fans is easily done.


In the rear, the PSU bay is simple and functional. Above the shroud, the expansion-slot covers are held in place by black thumb screws for ease of access. In the very top is the third aforementioned XPG Vento 120 ARGB fan.


Taking a quick look at the ceiling, you can clearly see the space you have to work with when installing fans or AIO into this part of the chassis.


All the functional cables within the XPG Defender Pro are sleeved black, and the ARGB controller is universal, so you may easily expand the lighting with the plethora of off-the-shelf lighting components. As XPG does not use a PCB to centralize it all like many other brands, though, there is quite the cable mess you have to deal with.