Fractal Design Defi ne S Has liquid cooling support in spades

We know what you’re thinking. Yet another Fractal Design Defi ne mid-tower case looking just like all the others. Well, before you nod off, the Defi ne S has a few tricks up its sleeve. From the outside, it may look like its siblings, but on the inside, Fractal has designed the internal layout with liquid-cooling support in mind. For a start, there are no conventional drive cages; instead, there’s three drive trays housed on the rear of the backplate. Each tray supports either 3.5-inch or 2.5-inch drives, while there’s also two dedicated 2.5-inch trays to the rear of the motherboard tray. Where the drive cages would normally be found, there’s a big, empty space. At least until you look closer. The backplate has been drilled for mounting a liquid-cooling reservoir (mounts are included) and the base can support many different types and sizes of pump units. As for radiators, the Defi ne S can support the odd one or four, and it features Fractal’s ModuVent covers on the top panel. All of the covers can be removed to allow fans to be fi tted. Unfortunately, there are only two USB 3.0 ports in the I/O bay and there’s no integrated fan controller. A nice design touch is the small hole at the bottom of the motherboard backplate, close to where the audio header is situated — it means the front audio cable runs neatly behind the backplate, along with all the other cabling. Luckily, despite the lower price tag, the Fractal Design attention to detail and superb build quality remain as high as ever.