Top critical review
3.0 out of 5 starsI finally have a lian li
Reviewed in the United States on August 26, 2020
UPDATE: Downgrading to 3 stars. The glass panel on the side keeps popping off of the metal brackets holding it to the case. I'm going to have to completely disassemble the side panel and try to repair it. Huge annoyance on an otherwise good case.
When people first started modding cases a long long time ago, Lian Li made beautiful cases. At the time I was a broke college student and could never afford higher-priced cases.
Fast forward 20 years, a wife, and two kids and I finally got around to building a new PC and getting a Lian Li case.
My wait was not a disappointment. The case is everything I thought it would be. Well laid out with plenty of room for everything I needed to put in it. The removable filters are easy to get to. I was able to somehow hide all the cables on the back of the machine. The case was very easy to fully disassemble, which made building the PC easy. Did I mention this is my first PC build in over 15 years? My how things have changed, yet stayed the same.
The fans it comes with are nice and quiet. I moved them to the top of the case and added 3 TT 120mm RGB fans on the front and back of the PC for additional airflow.
I use my system for CAD and media editing, so I had a lot of storage to cram in there. My build is as follows:
ASRock X570
Ryzen 7 3700X
32GB RAM
RTX2070
1 - 500G M.2 NVME
1 - 256G SSD
2 - 3.5" 2TB HD's
750Watt modular power supply
The case still has room for a second SSD and a third 3.5" HD.
I used a Dremel to cut a slot in one of the PCI covers so I could run power/signal to some RGB's under the case. I still plan on sleeving a new GPU power cable to make that part of the PC look a little better.
I have three complaints, which is why I gave it 4 stars.
1) If you're using full-sized hard drives in the drive cage on the bottom, then the power and sata cables are a very very tight fight between the back of the hard drives and the back panel on the case. I got them to fit, but the cables are bent at a slightly precarious angle.
2) The mounting brackets on the glass panel are held on with double sided mounting tape. The front bracket on my glass panel came off in shipping. I was able to stick it back on, but after a few weeks I can see where the lower corner of the glass is pulling away from the bracket again. I'm also not sure at what point this happened, but there's a decent scuff on the glass. I thought it was just a smudge and tried to clean it off, but it's still there. I thought I was careful with the glass panel when building the machine, but maybe it slid on the workbench or something.
3) The fan mount for the top of the case, which would also be the radiator mount. The mount is held in by 1 screw near the back of the case and two pins on the front of the case. With the front just being held in by two tabs, it allows the mounting bracket to vibrate against the top of the case when the fans are spinning. I suppose if it had a radiator on it, the weight would be enough to keep it from vibrating, but with just two 120mm fans, mine does. The simple fix was I used a zip tie to pull the mounting bracket tight against the top of the case.
Not really much of a complaint, more of an annoyance, but the PS has to be slid in from the side of the case. The rear panel doesn't remove to slide it in from the back. I found it easier to put all the cables on outside of the case. Then, with the hd cage removed, slide the PS in. Lastly, I slide the HD cage back into the case and screwed it back in.
Once fully built, the machine sitting on my desk is one of the prettiest cases I've ever owned.
