Conclusion

The Fractal Design Define S is a mid-tower PC case designed for those who are looking for a silent rig, which is offering plenty of space even for high-end hardware as well as custom liquid cooling. Fractal Design decided to use the classic design of the Define series but without the front door and they removed the 5.25" slots as well. The materials and build quality are on very good level, which is something we certainly expected from Fractal Design, although we would have liked to see the use of higher quality plastic the case of the front panel.

On the insde there is quite a lot of space available. If you fit an ATX motherboard you can easily install a radiator in the front using a push/pull configuration. Apart from that all drives bays have been move to the backside of the motherboard tray, which means you won't have to sacrifice any of them if you install custom watercooling gear. Since silence is also a the key point of this case, Fractal Design also added a sound-absorbing material on each side panel. Testing the case as delivered with one 140mm fan in the front and one in the back, we found temperatures to be on a reasonable level, while the noise level was very low.

The amount of features available with the Define S are very interesting and we appreciate the good amount of solutions for water cooling setups; inside this case you can put the pump and the res without thinking too much about the space and the management of the component inside. When you have to built a custom loop you have always to figure out if there will be enough space for radiator, for fans and for every kind of support, inside this Define you have only to push inside all the components. In other words, you don't have to think about how to fix the res or if you need some extra supports because inside the bundle there are already few useful supports and on bottom of the chassis there are pre-drilled holes for your needs. We understand that the design is a important aspect specially on this kind of case but since this model is born for watercooling setups we think that a 5.25" slots could be useful for fan controller.

The Define S from Fractal Design is a PC case which we can definitely recommend. If you are looking for a mid-tower PC case with pre-installed acoustic insulation material as well as silent fans and on top of that it's fully compatible with custom watercooling gear, this is a great choice. With this case it is really easy to build a high-end rig. The Fractal Design Define S is available on Geizhals for 79.99 Euro excluding shipping costs and it is also available with side window for 99.90 euro. The Fractal Design Define S earns 4.5 out of 5 stars.

Page 1 - Introduction	Page 5 - Installation
Page 2 - Preview	Page 6 - Ventilation options
Page 3 - Features	Page 7 - Temperatures
Page 4 - Product overview	Page 8 - Conclusion