Gadgetory

what is up everybody Jays two cents here and we waited a few years for fractal design to update the very famous define R for two now what we know is the define r5 but it only took a few months beyond that to take it to the next step and debut the define s the octane gaming gear combo from coolermaster features seven backlighting colors turbo mode a vago 3050 optical sensor along with four levels of dpi adjustment now you can po noobs without boning your wallet click the link in the description to learn more the defiance series is extremely popular with Bose both noise optimization and the r5 giving just astounding support for water-cooling so how could they have possibly improved upon that design well they've given us the Defiant s which I am going to just dub as define sexy because it takes everything we love about the r5 then cut some of it down but gives us more improvements for people who are looking for both airflow optimization as well as water cooling so this thing is kind of a jack of two different trades air flow and water cooling as you can see it is not a very big case at all but don't let size fool you guys that should be a piece of life advice now really this thing shares a lot of similarities from the r5 so why don't we focus right now on what's actually different with the defined s we'll start with the front and some really squeaky rubber feet on my desk it has the very same faux brushed finish that the r5 has it's not real metal but that's kind of nice considering the fact that it's going to be a lot more scratch resistant as the metal is not a scratch resistant but there is no door and because there's no door that means there's no optical drives in here so as you can see the front is all about wide open air flow it has got massive vents along both sides of the case allowing air to come in through the sides and don't let that fool you it is also filtered if you just pull from I'm going to pull from the top because that's easier from where I am right now this thing just pops right off and then you have a magnetic front filter magnets are nice to see because they are just so much easier to get on and off and there's nothing to worry about breaking no tabs or anything but that reveals the very first difference compared to the r5 is that we do have triple 140 millimeter fan support on the front so you can have three 140 s on here or three 120 s obviously including the same size of radiators that are available to be installed on the front now let's go ahead and move around to the inside of the case where again we have captive thumb screws keeping us from losing or dropping those stupid screws behind the desk if you ever go to change them but as you can see the panel is just one big giant window rather than having really heavy sound dampening material on there and it's a very rigid side panel so it's going to give some structural integrity you know as you start taking the case apart it does have a little bit of flex to it not a lot but because there's no harddrive cages in here in the front anywhere it's going to have a little bit more flex to it once the side panels are off but don't fret when it's put together that's obviously not going to be an issue now you're going to see all these lines right here in the front you might be thinking what the heck are all those lines for well they actually have all of these different lines here to give you support for reservoir mounting very few cases on the market actually have pre thought-out locations for installing reservoirs and fractal design is now amongst the ranks of those case manufacturers that are thinking about water coolers and giving them options not only do they give you a place to mount your reservoir you also have a place to mount your pump down here in the bottom of the case and it's going to fit all your standard pump mounts like your D 5 the Swift textile D 5 or it just has the plastic housing or your Lange D DC or really there's universal holes there where it can slide you can get creative and if you needed to you could even drill holes in the bottom if you wanted to to mount your pump so dedicated rez mounts with pump mount right below it which is ideal for water cooling you want the res above the pump and they make it easy for you and that is an absolute fantastic thing massive cutout here on the motherboard tray giving you easy access to air cooler backplate retention brackets some water blocks have backplate retention bracket so it gives you easy access to that and we do support all the way up to ATX size motherboards now we can't go to e ATX or anything bigger than ATX because they did stick with this kind of a recessed design where the grommets here more about a 45 degree angle so you can't go with wide motherboards unless you start getting creative and modding so out of the box support is ATX now when it comes to air coolers it does support cooler towers that are as high as 180 millimeters so you are going to be able to fit you know your favorite coolers in there like you're not to us and your tunics and things like that moving onto the top of the case we have the same module vent covers on here to keep dust and sound out that you can remove them modular that's why they're called Maju dense as you need them and if I can find the tab on this one without having to look in there guess I'm not going to be able to because Jays a dork so once you remove all three of these you do have access to the top screw mounts or screw holes for installing either a 120 a 140 a 240 a 283 60 or a 420 millimeter radiator on the top and of course they keep the same design which they're known for which is offset on the longer radiator so you don't have impact on your motherboard or your vrm coolers on the motherboard which means you can use thick radiators now in terms of radiator support on the top anything that is a 140 millimeter base radiator that's your 140 or 280 and your 420 is going to have a maximum thickness compatibility of 55 millimeters including the fan so that means you're going to have to stick with 30 mil rads if you're using 25 millimeter fans because you have to Center mount those and you're going to have some impact on your motherboard and stuff so they've already predetermined the measurements that will fit in this thing now moving on to the back of the case here you have the same thumb captive screws or captive thumb screws this is one of the heavy panels I almost gouge and cut my jugular which probably made some of you happy has the same dense material on here that's going to help with some sound dampening but it's probably going to be very minimal considering the fact that nothing else in here is really sound dampened it's probably a saint's panel to use on our 5s which are already manufactured that's just an assumption anyway undoubtably by this point some people have already asked themselves well where the heck do you mount your storage well that's one of the reasons why you have this kind of an offset design on the motherboard wall because you have three spot for three rear mounted three and a half inch mechanical drives or you can install SSDs or two and a half inch mechanical drives on the back as well so they use the same sled design that they've been using in the past only they've now incorporated it to fit three-and-a-half millimeter drives or three and a half inch drives three now philometor drives would be amazing wouldn't it three and a half inch drives on the back as well so SSDs support you have two of those trays that they're well known for right here that you can use to mount your SSDs so you can have theoretically support for up to five drives in this case which is still pretty impressive consuming not a lot of people are looking at adding multiple drives or massive amounts of drives they're looking at higher capacity drives and only need a few spots so that's perfect it gets everything on to the back here you do still have ventilation holes on the front so you are going to be able to have some cooling for your hard drives and you can still fit up to five drives on there now last but not least the cables on here are all black which is nice to see huge rubber grommet to massive grommets on the side right here giving you plenty of cable management options which is always sometimes what's really lackluster on some cases not so much these days but in the past cable management was a real bitch and then you had one up here on the top so let's go ahead and throw some components in this thing and kind of see how well it looks once you start filling it up and let's see if it makes the cut when it comes to being an optimized water cooling case from fractal design transition well I'm pleased to report that I threw some components in here and as is as much of a pleasure to build in as it looks right now it's a mid tower but yet it doesn't feel like a mid tower because it's so freakin roomy I mean you could put so much junk in this trunk the badonkadonk on this is real so I've got a full-size ATX motherboard in there the asrock fatality 970 a with an 83 50 there's no block on there yet I've got two gtx 980 s water-cooled in here a 250 millimeter radiate a rad from EK water blocks i've got an alpha cooled EDC with custom top pump mounted in the bottom and I've got a 240 rad in the front and a 360 on the top now I'm pretty sure I could have fit a 360 in the front as well with the 360 on the top and found a way to make them both fit without any sort of interference in fact the manual shows that you can do it it's a very close fit once the fans are on there but it does fit you might have to turn the fittings around on the bottom or something but I mean it's not optimal but it's you could do it unfortunately I only have one 360 millimeter fan or a radiator or whatever yeah I have a 360 millimetre 30ml on the top and a 30ml 240 on the front so I'm pretty convinced I could have fit both but what you could also do if you wanted to get really creative is you could slide the 240 all the way down and have a regular fan on the top so you have a nice cool air enter as well as maybe some warmed up air coming through the radiator and just lots of flexibility the bottom line here is this is a mid tower case that just feels so much bigger I mean you could fit so many components in this thing and nothing feels like it's competing for space unfortunately in the r5 because it was more silence optimized and more airflow oriented even though they added better radiator support to it than they are for had it still felt like a lot of things were competing for space if you had mechanical drives they had to go in the front there was no on the back they could go even with one cage in there then you're limited to the front you're limited to where pumps can go it just got really tight and that became really apparent when I built in the r5 and did a water cooling ptg loop for Paul's hardware when I helped him out it really felt like things were competing for space and elbow room but that is not the case in the define s I mean everything has just got tons and tons of room now I've got sitting right here a fire pro W 9000 x2 basically this is what turned into the 7990 same length also as the 295x2 and I just wanted to show that even with the reservoir mounted this thing would have still fit it might be kind of hard to see from that angle but this thing would have still fit and cleared the reservoir so you could fit a 295x2 a super-long graphics card they say up to 480 millimeters technically if you weren't water cooling I guess you can go with the world's longest graphics card and fill it smack the front of the case because there's no drive gauges there but in any case it does have so much freaking room in there and it that is going to make it easier for newer builders to do water cooling loops because they're not going to have to really do a lot of brainstorming on how things are going to work or where they're going to fit or where they're going to go because fractal design has already done that for you that's a trend I'm really liking to see when it comes to case design now in the future is water cooling it's kind of making a comeback where it's starting to become much more mainstream more people are doing it than ever and case manufacturers are finally starting to accommodate that and it really doesn't cost them any more to do that in fact this case probably cost less because there's less stuff in there so this is my new favorite case from fractal design quite honestly I love the look of the r5 but I'm a water cooler through and through and down to my bone this case right here does it for me in my opinion there's very little that you could come up with on this case that would make it better the only thing I could think of when I sat here looking at this one was putting the components together that would have made this any better whatsoever would be if they had thought about putting some sort of a small grommet right here next to the pump so that you could put the pump wires through and not have to run it all the way over to the big grommet which would show that's the only thing I could think of and in fact that would be an easy mod if someone would took a drill in a Unibet and went to Home Depot and bought a grommet you could run it right through there and solve that problem quite easily so there you go guys you guys been asking me for ever to do the fractal design define s-video I actually had this case since it before it launched but I got really behind on projects and stuff so this too a lot longer to get done than it should have but I hope it was worth the wait man it's unfortunate that this isn't going to stay together right now because these parts are slated for another project but man I do think I'm going to find something to put in here in water cool even if it just sits on display because I think this case nails it when it comes to mid towers I do not personally feel that there's a better more water cooling friendly mid tower out there for both beginner and advanced builders I know people are going to disagree with that but this is my opinion that's how I feel about it fractal design define s in my kit my opinion it doesn't get much better all right guys thanks for watching follow on social media Twitter and all that sort of stuff you guys want to ask any questions and as always thanks for watching you