this isnt a floor case, its a small table by your desk case

put it on a table by your desk just high enough for the drives to eject on top of your desk, the top panel is nice and easy to reach and you can easily get to your drives

I totally missed this thing until it was linked from the Thermaltake enclosure news item.

I can see it being useful in my own personal setup, where the computer is on a 5' table and the best place for it would be almost directly behind the monitor. Turn the optical bays 90 degrees and they still face front on my table.

It would have better and easier for cable management if they had turned the motherboard 180 degrees like the LIAN LI PC-A05B.

Not a bad effort, but they need to take a look at how Dell does cable management on their Optiplex and Precision workstations.

I commend Lian Li for their effort and ingenuity.

coolermaster is the poorman's lian li. now if only lian li made car body parts, i could get a fly hood for my el camino.

Well I guess you get what you pay for. Looks solid and inventive, costs too much.

Superb case.... $355? Kiss my a#$?

Quote:
"...the twin 120 mm intake fans and single 120 mm exhaust creating a net positive pressure as long as the PSU fan moves less air than the lower case fan exhausts.

Pressure drives airflow to the upper reaches of the case, right past the hard drives, where it's helped along by the negative pressure created by the single 120 mm exhaust fan in this top thermal zone. Overall, the arrangement makes a lot of sense. Most power supply units ramp up their fan speeds under load, directing more airflow through the lower portion of the case—the only zone containing components likely to require additional cooling."

Some PSU's still have 80mm fans blowing out the back of the case, with the intake vents on the front, instead of a 120mm fan at the bottom. That being said, if you take the power supply out of the equation, you still have 2 - 120mm in front blowing air in, and 2 - 120mm fans on the back blowing air out. This adds up to a static pressure case, overall. Add any PSU, and you actually have a NET negative pressure case, because the top and bottom 'zones' are not fully separated, as air will still move from the bottom to top along the side panels and elsewhere. The effectiveness of the different cooling zones will vary depending on the PSU you choose, or the orientation of a 120mm fan style PSU.

ooooo shiny! What are the noise levels like compared to a P182?

What a rip. It is tall as a full-tower monster and cost as much as a quality high-end full-tower model to boot. It does not have the depth nor 3.5", 5.25" capacity.

The cooling partition is a very expensive gimmick. A decently designed chassis never has any problems with cooling unless you are sloppy with the cabling.

Somebody here loves to play "internet tough guy" a little much too. They love to draw out a stupid mistake on a flashing screen and pretend that is like the end of world. They ridicule their target like no tomorrow and stroke the little virtual ego that they have. It is even more hilarious when they completely missed an insult that was intended for them and move it onto their target. They seemed to believe that they have power over their victims, when some of their victim could not care less. They obviously have way too much time on their hands. They could of course be making up stuff for hilarity's sake. The persistence of the person in question makes that possibility unlikely.

The sad reality is the entire act is most likely a coping mechanism with real-world stress and issues. I would suggest to use more healthy activities to deal with them.

I am done here.

I wish everyone here a good morning and happy hunting. :)

I don't really understand the point of the cooling "partitions" in this case - in the set up tested here (and described as a feature in the text) is that you can have the PSU facing down, exhausting air out of the lower chamber. How is this different from a standard ATX case? Other than adding extra impedence (and therefore speed and noise) to the PSU fan?

The whole point of separate thermal partitions (a la P180) is to ensure that the heat from the main system components (CPU+GPU) don't cause the PSU to intake hot air and ramp it's fan speed up (keeping HDDs cool is another lesser point). All this case seems to do is add extra complexity for no benefit. I know it was pointed out that the PSU can be installed with the fan pointing up, but due to the poor sealing between chambers and the +ve pressure in the lower chamber, that really won't make any difference.

Thermal partitions have been done so well already, you would have though Lian Li would have got it right.

Other than that, interesting idea with the side mounted drives, but not for me. The plastic ODD bezel really looks crappy in contrast with the lovely surface finish of the case too.

i noticed your noise level chart has Lian Li in High/Med/Low order, when all of your other charts put it the other way around. nothing wrong with it.

:)

Seriously, this is the dumbest case ever -- precisely because of the sideways-flung optical drive trays. It is otherwise very well built, but whomever decided that that would be an "innovative!" and "new-age!" idea should be taken behind Lian-Li's headquarters and shot. Or maybe they should kill themselves on a sword, I dunno how they do things over there.

That idea is f***ing retarded.

Not long enough to easily fit long graphics cards, though? Ouch... that sucks. Otherwise with the lower fan setup it'd be perfect, just like my old Chenbro Genie...

A-gaagaaah gaaah. Want.

Yum. Very Yum.
I actually have my PC setup the same way as the last picture, except that my 24" monitor dwarfs the uATX Silverstone TJ-08 instead of the other way around. Side optical drive access would have been nice for me.

The X500 is a sweet case, nice to see that it performs both thermally and acoustically. FWIW, Lian-li has a few other cases (both smaller and larger) with the same side mounting drive bay(s).

I like the top mounted ports. Nothing drives me crazy than having to get on my knees to get at some of the ports on cases.

I don't care for the sideways drive thing, though.

I got a Lian Li PS-60 this month. While building systems for over ten years, I must say it is easily the best case I have ever worked with.

Lian Li is worth the money. The cases quality shines through and proves that they are a premium product.

Nice review, and great pictures of the case to give people a perfect view of how things look empty and fully-populated.

I have to give Lian-Li credit for daring to try something different at least.

For my part, I am tried of these monolithic cases, despite the newer and better-optimized designs.

I bought a Shuttle SP45H7 and moved all of my gear into it (Q9300, 8GB RAM, twin HDD's, Blu-ray drive, 8800GTS 512) and it runs as cool as my old Lian-Li mid-tower did with ample space in it, and it runs quiter too.

I really like this case, but the side mounted externals are a killer for me. I hope they use some of the same designs, especially the thermal design, for some of their other cases. The thermal design is much better than it has been on their previous units.

Certainly, I imagine anyone who has actually used a Lian-Li PC-60 series case can appreciate the unique craftsmanship and design of this classic model, which is sometimes available from Newegg or Directron for less than $100.00. I've never found any other model case, whether Lian-Li or a different brand, with which it was easier to build. Personally, I don't feel that Lian-Li has ever surpassed or improved on that classic design. I wish their decision-makers would produce a SSF case mini-version of the PC-61.

..."Monolith"... Like from 2001:Space Odyssey.

Maybe they should have called it Dave... Or HAL...

Wonderful case, but good god what's the story with the price! No one at Lian Li must have gotten the memo... we're in a recession!

Well, I have a PC-70 full tower that I have used for 5 different rigs and it is still going strong 10 years later. It has outlasted everything else I have ever bought for a computer, and was worth every dollar of the $350 I paid for it. I look at it the same way as buying a good monitor as it is something you will use for multiple computers, might as well get a nice one.

All these fancy cases leave me craving a dull beige case that draws blood from my hands every time I crack it open.

misposted

No, of course it's not worth reading, it's a mispost!

Really good-looking case! The total opposite of that horrible blue thingy from a while ago and a lot more up my alley! But sadly the price is quite out of my range as usual with Lian-Li...

Thats some expensive aluminum....cus thats all you really get. Some might prefer paying half of that for a Coolermaster Cosmos S.