ADATA is still new to the PC case market, but the company hit the ground running with its first efforts, the XPG Battlecruiser and the XPG Invader. Better known for its SSDs and memory modules, ADATA is now expanding its XPG enthusiast line with two new big chassis designs: the XPG Defender Pro, and the XPG Starker. We’ll focus here on the former case, with a second review coming later to look over the Starker. The XPG Defender Pro ($99.99) features a tempered-glass panel, along with copious RGB LED illumination and excellent airflow. It’s a workable, attractive case, especially if you have an oversize motherboard to install, but a few quirks knock it down our consideration list, especially as good as the XPG Invader is for less money.
The Design: All About the Air
The front of the XPG Defender Pro is covered in crisscross lines that form cutout squares up and down the front panel. These squares enable air to pass easily into the case, and a pair of pre-installed ADATA XPG Vento 120 ARGB fans help to power the flow, while also adding some colorful, individually programmable LEDs.
The top of the case is also heavily perforated, for additional airflow. Magnetic screen filters are situated in both the front and top of the case to help prevent dust and larger debris from getting inside.
There isn’t much to say about the panel on the right side of the XPG Defender Pro: It’s a simple sheet of SPCC steel. The left panel is constructed out of 3mm-thick tempered glass, and this panel does warrant some discussion, as it has a bit of a design problem.
The panel looks perfectly fine, but it is among the most difficult side panels that I have ever removed from a PC case. I was almost driven to using a pry bar to remove it, but ultimately I was able to wrench it off by pulling it with both hands as hard as I could while my spouse helped hold the case still. Given that the panel is mainly glass, that was alarming.
The side panel was subsequently easier to remove after the initial tug-of-war session, but it’s still more of a task than most other side panels. Even on close examination, I’m not entirely sure why it holds so fast. It’s made to simply slide backward an inch and then lift off, like most cases. But this panel just likes to stick in place.
The back of the case is also heavily perforated. On this face is a third Vento 120 ARGB fan that comes pre-installed. You’ll note that there is room to add up to three 120mm fans at the top of the case, but not a 360mm radiator. The spec sheet claims that the top panel supports up to 280mm radiators, and for kicks, when I attempted to mount a 360mm radiator at the top of this case, it indeed didn’t quite fit, due to a metal shroud that protects the internal components of the front I/O panel. I switched to a 240mm water cooler instead, and that mounted without issue. You can put a 360mm radiator down the front, however. You’ll just want to make sure the water lines can reach that far, if it’s an AIO cooler design.
ADATA opted to place the front I/O panel on this case’s top panel. It consists of a power button, two USB 3.0 Type-A ports, a combo microphone and headphone jack, and a button to control any connected RGB LEDs. It does the job, though the panel itself looks a little bland.
The Build Experience
The motherboard mounting tray inside of the XPG Defender Pro is flat clear across the case, which makes getting boards installed relatively easy. It takes mainstream and enthusiast motherboards up to Extended ATX (E-ATX) in size. An ordinary ATX board will be no problem and have good clearance. Some cases add a notch in the tray to make cable routing easier, but I find this to just get in the way most of the time. Due to the lack of any such obstructions, exceedingly large motherboards can be installed, even server motherboards using the EEB form factor.
Naturally, with so much room, this makes fitting in a standard ATX or even an E-ATX board quite easy. For cable management, you don’t get a single big channel to direct cables through, but instead a number of holes set around the motherboard tray. Some of these are sheathed with rubber to help hide cables behind the motherboard tray from view, giving your system interior a cleaner, more finished look.
The power supply (PSU) mounting location in this case is set in the bottom rear corner, just like on most modern chassis. For some reason, though, ADATA opted to not use a detachable PSU mounting bracket on the XPG Defender Pro, which is a feature that both of the company’s last two cases I reviewed had. As a result, mounting a power supply into the XPG Defender Pro isn’t quite as easy as it was on either of those cases, but it’s not a particularly painful experience, either. You’ll just have to guide the PSU cables more gingerly as you twist in that first PSU screw.
You get room to mount up to four storage devices. Two of the mounting locations are set in a hard drive cage at the bottom of the case. These brackets are the best location to add storage devices in this particular chassis, in part because the two mounting brackets here don’t require tools to work with. Drives simply press-fit into the bracket, and the whole works then slides into place. These brackets can accept a 2.5-inch or a 3.5-inch drive each.
The other two mounting locations accept only 2.5-inch drives, and these are best used last, once you have filled the other two. ADATA tried to reduce the work of mounting drives here by placing metal plugs on one side of the mounts. These slide into the screw holes on the side of your hard drive or SSD. And that means you just need to use two screws to mount a drive instead of four. Sounds good in theory, but…
…now for the bad news. As you can see in the images above and below, these mounts are permanently attached to the motherboard tray and cannot be removed. And that makes for some awkward screwdriver work.
Whenever you go to screw a drive into (or unscrew one from) these locations, your screwdriver is going to be rubbing against the motherboard tray. The tray itself then gets in your way of turning the screwdriver and makes adding drives here simply harder than it needs to be.
Mind you, with a petite screwdriver, it’s easier. And it’s still possible to do what you must with your screwdriver going at the screw from an angle. But it’s a design stumble, given that this isn’t ADATA’s first case rodeo.
Your graphics card, meanwhile, can be mounted in the case in either a vertical or a horizontal configuration. That said, you will need third-party mounting gear and a riser cable to mount a card standing up, usually a $50-or-so accessory investment. PC cases in this around-$100 price range never include that vertical-GPU hardware in the box, but just know that going in.
The Verdict: Defense Needs a Price Cut
Overall, ADATA’s XPG Defender Pro feels like slight miscue compared with the company’s first two case efforts. The lack of a removable PSU mounting bracket means this case simply omits a feature that these earlier cases possessed. The permanently attached brackets for two of the case’s 2.5-inch drive mounts are also problematic, and something that the other two XPG cases didn’t suffer from.
Though it’s aesthetically pleasing, with a look very much its own, the Defender Pro doesn’t really stand out from the crowd on the value front. If you like the feature set but are indifferent to the look, you might stay in the ADATA stable. The company’s XPG Invader is priced $10 lower in list price than this case. And that leads to a simple conclusion: If you like its look, get that case instead of this one. It’s better and less expensive.
