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As we have seen with almost all Lian Li cases we've looked at in the past, the front of the case consists of a single piece of aluminium which is broken only by the selection of front panel connections and the optical drive bezel. This drive bezel lets you install any optical drive into the system without detracting from the aesthetic appeal of the case.
We find all the front panel connections along the bottom edge of the front of the case. Lian Li have covered all bases, including three USB3.0 ports, an eSATA port, microphone and headphone jacks and an SD card reader. These are accompanied on the right by the power and reset buttons. Despite USB3.0 being present on quite a few motherboards at the moment, there aren't many out there that support more than two ports. So Lian Li include an adapter which lets you plug two of these into an internal USB2.0 header.
There are two 120mm fan vents on either side of the case although only those on the right side are populated by any fans. At first it appears as if you could mount two further fans in the left hand side but there is actually only room for one. This is because the second vent on the left side simply acts as extra ventilation for the power supply. For those who want to boost airflow further, there is an additional 120mm fan vent in the roof of the case directly above the CPU socket.
Moving round to the rear of the case, we can see how Lian Li have compromised in some areas to maintain a compact form for the case. There is only a small rear exhaust vent which isn't populated by a fan – and as far as we can see there isn't any easy way of attaching a fan to it. On the far right of the back panel there is a large cutout for a full-size ATX power supply which is a great feature for a HTPC. Along the top edge of the back there are two thumbscrews which secure the top panel in place.
I love Lian Li products, but I continually ask myself ‘are they really worth the premium’?
Sure the aluminum quality is fantastic, but I dont think they radically try new ideas and their premium prices are simply staggering at times.
We bought this in black for our living room and my husband built the system up over a weekend. we are very happy with it, it looks very nice in the living room
Caseking.de ship these to UK if anyone wants the silver one. you pay less too, even with shipping.
I am in the process of building a media center and have three cases shortlisted. this would have been one of them but I think its too expensive for what you get.
[A year later…] I am building a media center and I’m am seriously considering buying this one.
However, I read in another review that in order to equip their blu-ray reader (which was 19cm deep) they had to sacrifice the HDD tray behind it. Did you experience this problem? How deep could the optical drive be to still leave room to max out the HDD trays?
Thanx
No dust filters! Are you kidding me? For a “premium” case, this is simply inexcusable. I am looking at replacing my Antec NSK2480 which is about half the price of this case, and one of my main reasons for replacing it is the lack of dust filters. The Fractal Design Node 605 is cheaper and includes dust filters.