A Closer Look - Inside

The interior of the XPG Defender has a traditional layout, which looks simple yet functional, with the shroud made out of steel as well. 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 installing the graphics card vertically.


On the rear, you will find two rows of black grommet-covered openings, which is great as the XPG Defender is advertised as an E-ATX chassis, and it looks as though this holds true without sacrificing any cable-management possibilities. The two 2.5" mounting possibilities underneath the large opening for the CPU cooler are essentially four bent-out lips and thus quite simple. To install a drive, there are four latches, with one side coming with hooks and the other requiring screws. This certainly works, but other cases of this price segment offer individual plates or rubber-ringed screw-mounting systems. Due to the lower price tag, this doesn't sting as much as with the more expensive Defender Pro.


Taking a closer look at the front, there is a cage for two 3.5" drives with individual trays. You may move the tray if your PSU requires more room. The area above that is reserved for air or liquid cooling. XPG has two 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 that third XPG Vento 120 fan. All these fans come with pass-through 3-pin cables, so you may daisy chain them all and plug them into a single header on your motherboard.


Taking a quick look at the ceiling, you can clearly see the space you have to work with when installing fans or an AIO into this part of the chassis. XPG also placed a cover on the I/O ports, which not only makes for a cleaner look, but ensures the entire vented area is free of obstacles when using it for fans or an AIO.


All the functional cables within the XPG Defender are sleeved black. They are of good length, so you should have no issues reaching the far corners of your motherboard.