Had my Lian-li PC-76 for 5 years now & still love this thing to death. No other brand comes even close when ur talking about space & modability. Ok it was expensive to buy back then, but I wouldn't trade it for any of them new Antec / Zalman / Coolermaster cases. It is a shame though to read they're producing thinner sheet aluminium cases??? The new series Lian Li (PC-A77B PC-A77-B) still look pretty good to me. Wouldn't buy anything else.
Quote: "I think Lian-Li are just over digging into peoples trust and money for just so so case designs."
I couldn't agree more. While they have quality builds, they're so used to the enthusiast community spending scads of money on their cases, only to mod them up the nines.. I believe Lian Li is the #1 most modded case company in the world? People willing to spend crazy amounts only to cut apart and hacksaw what their case was into something new and different-- I like it, but it's definitely something they've noticed and keep charging for while lowering their own costs.
I don't think they're ugly or anything, but I wouldn't buy a Lian-Li case if I was going to spend a bundle. I mean, sheesh, Silverstone's stuff is just as good for cooling and accessories, and far prettier.
As for Apple aesthetics, a few companies have made Apple-like cases and I don't see how they're that much prettier. Give me a classic and classy straightforward design anyday. Hell, something as simple as an Antec Sonata III is nice enough for any living room assuming you actually take CARE of your living room and dust everything and polish shiny things, like the mirror finish.
I just built a new system using this case (w/ full window). I do like this case and it’s a lot better than most of the junk out there but it does have a few issues.
There is plenty of room for most power supplies up to 200mm. I have a long Corsair HX1000 at 200mm and it fits fine. If you need more length the first drive bay is removable. I took mine out anyway for a little more open space. Unless you are using a diesel generator for a power supply you should not have a problem. The optional PS extension is pretty ugly and you don’t want it.
The whole front of the case is filtered and it is not a dust problem as suggested. The 140 in the bottom has a filter and all the vented 5.25 slot covers have fine mesh that collects dust. They can all be vacuumed or washed.
The isolated bottom chamber has an adequate 140mm fan (not 120) that blows directly on the two drive racks and is exhausted by the 140mm fan on my power supply. Even with six drives they are spaced for good cooling.
The one main fault of the case is no intake fan for the upper chamber. I put in a Kama Bay retrofitted with a ~110CFM 140mm fan internally behind the bay covers. It occupies two exposed and one hidden bays.
I moved from a PC60 and just as a matter of preference I preferred the old style door mounting and mobo tray. I also preferred the old removable front panel with easy access to air filters. You have to remove both doors and the 140mm fan to get to the filter.
The PCI support rail is a good idea poorly implemented with cheap plastic retainers for the cards that bend and flex. I think the real issue is it was designed with shorter PCI cards in mind vs. longer cards like the 8800GTX. The mid section fan mounting slots (on the rail) are too high and miss the NB (easy to remedy with dremel). With some large round or square CPU coolers you may have to remove the support rail altogether. I’m using an Ultra 120 Extreme and it fits just fine. The case fans are just ok… I replaced the 2 x 120’s with higher CFM Scythes. 3x140, 3x120, stock Geforce fan with slot cooler next to it and it’s reasonably quiet for a heavily overclocked system. The case contains noise pretty well and is vibration free. In person it’s a very functional and tasteful tech case and while it’s a little long it’s no taller than the typical mid tower (w/o wheels close to PC60). There’s plenty of room for internal watercooling or anything else. However it’s definitely not a gaudy kiddy toy alien monster or Barbie accessory apple case...
I have for many years liked lian li cases but when running eatx dual xeons they were not a choice in building my pc. My biggest problem with all of these 'nice' cases is that there are always too many 5 1/4" bays who runs that mnay opticals today? at most i run 2 and a 3 1/3 floppy and media card combo.
Next even with the optional hdd bay that is only 9 drives currently i run 11 6 sata raid 5 4 scsi raid 10 and 1 sata backup. So again i am stuck with a server case.
I wish I could post some picturse of my case I run a dual xeon in Intels SC5300 modded to be more of a gamer case so to speak. It is big but it fits a whole lot of hardware. Retail it is like 600+ but ebay has them all of the time for 200 - 250 with 10 hot swap bays.
If lian li and others would get off this design failure they could make some real cases in same size but with many more features.
I would like to see this one fully equipted with a dual xeon rig and all bays stuffed.
Also for note my intel case's cooling is excellent. But the sheer weight is not something to be hauling around without a dolly.
Not that you don't have your reasons, but seriously -- 11 hard drives in a "gamer" system? It seems more like a server that you sometimes use for gaming rather than the other way around. There's nothing wrong with saying you need a server case for what you're doing, but I'm pretty sure the market for such things is trivially small. Besides, Lian Li makes a hard drive cage that allows you to install three hard drives while using two 5.25" bays. Grab two of those and you could end up with 12 hard drives in this particular chassis.
Personally, rather than trying to cram more hard drives into a case, I just upgrade to larger hard drives. 1TB drives start at $135 these days. That's a lot of porn/games/movies/etc. before you even manage to fill up a couple of those let alone six. (SCSI? Bleh... Definitely server material there. I wouldn't even bother with SCSI in a workstation these days.)
I bought a few Lian Li's when the cases weren't so ugly, and they are decent enough cases, but they seem to have gone from plain to plain ugly.
I don't care how good a case is, if it's ugly, it's not going to sell well. Maybe Apple needs to design a new form factor and case, they seem to be the only company that understands that the appearance of a computer is important. People are visual, and no one wants ugly.
What style would you call this one? The perforated black brick?
The reason Apple sucks is exactly because they put too much stock in the appearance. Wouldn't have processors running a few degrees from shutdown if it weren't taboo to put in "ugly" fan ports.
I agree. All of my PCs have had either Antec (yuck) or Lian Li (much better) but they are still crap compared to an Apple case. This goes all the way back to the Power Mac G3 and G4 with the side opening door. The current Mac Pro case is in a completely different ballpark than any PC case made today. Anyone that doesn't believe it should go to an Apple store and ask to open one up. No PC case maker AT ANY PRICE can compare to the build quality of Apple.
Thanks, but I'd just as soon keep my not-as-cool PC cases that I can upgrade whenever and however I see fit. The insides may look nice at first glance, but I think the G5 is every bit as "ugly" as the various Lian Li offerings. Personally, I use my computer for work (and play), not as furniture or an artistic statement. Oh yeah, and I prefer to pay less money for equivalent performance, not more.
And there we have the first problem: Price. Of course for some Apple makes the nicest looking cases in the market but the price tag is anything but cheap. So if someone could offer this kind of case would you pay $399 or more? I've been long time ago in the HQ of Chieftec in Taiwan, they make (at least at that time) the cases for Alienware. I think I remember he told me the buying price of Alienware was around $200. Most cases like that are designed for a specific environment and specific hardware. That's the difference and difficulty for companies designing products for the open PC market.
Second thing is that Apple doesn't have the problem with compatibility. You can stick a billion different components into a PC which makes the difference. We've seen how the market adobts Apple-like concepts like BTX: Not.
I would never comment on design in a review (or blog) since everyone sees it different anyway. For me it's ugly too but I am still using it as a gaming PC and I can roll it around if needed...
I paid more than $400 for cases when $400 was a lot of money. $400 today I would pay in a heartbeat for a nice looking case. The reason is simple, it doesn't wear out. How about people that pay for expensive video cards, that get obsolete quickly? Things like that would make me feel like I wasted money, but something like a case lasts indefinitely.
So, for a case that was quiet, attractive, and well-made, I would pay well over $400 for it. It's a once in a lifetime purchase (well, maybe not if form factors change), and I don't mind spending a lot of money for those. I don't like spending a lot on "once in a year" purchases.
I understand that cases have to work within the limitations of component sizes, and Apple does, and always has, had more flexibility. ATX motherboards are oversized, and are difficult, but micro-ATX and smaller motherboards are not so difficult.
My main point is, the computer industry as a whole still, unbelievably, doesn't understand how important appearance is. Except for Apple.
When I worked for a large jet-engine designer, and we would meet with people from Dell regularly. The computers they sold at that time were very ugly (hasn't really changed, huh?), and I felt silly mentioning to them. However, the representative from Dell said that they got these complaints constantly. Still, it seems lost on them.
Apples never sold too well because of what they were; they have always been overpriced. But, look at their stock price; style does matter, even with electronics.
One more point, many people buy a car based on how it looks. How much time to you spend in front of (as opposed to in) your car, compared to how much time you have to spend looking at your computer? It's probably a lot less.
There are a few attractive cases out there, but Lian Li doesn't make them. Their corporate flower is probably a brick (don't tell them it's not a flower).
I'll never understand why case manufacturers stack HDDs on the side like that and expect a low RPM 120mm fan to do anything significant.
Look at that lower bay after you fill it up with HDDs and a PSU at the back. That's a volcano of heat and that fan isn't going to do anything unless it's high RPM. Pointless design...
I have almost the exact same case (v1000) I have a Raptor 150 10k RPM and a 750g WD as well... Witht eh fan completely off they are barely warm. Maybe some older hard drives had heat issues , but that is long dead history.
I'm also a happy user of a Lian Li case. I bought my black PC-61 back in 2002 and it's still housing my gaming PC.
Recently I upgrade my 7800GT to a 9800GTX+, so I had to remove the removable drivebay because it was directly located after the motherboard and the 9800GTX+ was just to big.
I thought about buying a bigger (specialy deeper) Lian Li case (that's why I keep reading your Lian Li reviews), but I succesfully relocated my drives and it seems the case still has a few years left in it ;-)
I built a system for a friend a couple years ago using a silver PC-61, and he loved it. Something about that case always bothered me though(look wise), So I waited for the PC-G50 to come around before I bought my own Lian Li. 15" Tall, reverse ATX layout, and with an En 34n 4in3 drive bay/120mm expansion it can house 7 HDDs + 1 optical. Only thing I dont like about my case is the 80mm blowhole on the top(would prefer it remained closed, or was a 120mm blowhole). Well, actually, since the case is so compact the PSU sits right above the CPU, sp nothing other than stock HSF is really possible without remoting the PSU to the front of the case(which i have planned).
I actually thought about buying this case myself, but three things stood out for me to personally to not like.
1) like the reviewer said - holes in front of the case can make it hard for controlling dust.
I've got a V1000B+II, and still marvel at it. I didn't think it was too expensive and they've come down even more now with the release of new models. It's just gorgeous, and will be my main housing for years to come. Incomparable to junk from Thermaltake, Antec and Coolermaster. The only other cases I like other than Lian Li's are Silverstones which I recommend for builds I do for other people that don't want a Lian Li.
I have the PC-V2010B and love it. I can't speak highly enough about my case or Lian Li. I only wish I could afford the EX-33H hard drive kit to add to my case.
I also love Lian Li. I bought hundreds of models 1200 and 2000 cases for my clients. Now I am afraid I am going to leave Lian Li..very sad. The reasons in a bottom line is quality.
Much thinner aluminum that easily bends and get hurt. this 1010 model in particular is hamming with full loaded machine like a very big and muscular bee. The HDD holders are not as safe. the building impression is bad.
Its too bad Lian Li has stopped making the quality of the BEST ever cases for workstations - The 1200 II P and 2000 II P
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Vidaluna - Wednesday, September 17, 2008 - link
Had my Lian-li PC-76 for 5 years now & still love this thing to death. No other brand comes even close when ur talking about space & modability. Ok it was expensive to buy back then, but I wouldn't trade it for any of them new Antec / Zalman / Coolermaster cases. It is a shame though to read they're producing thinner sheet aluminium cases??? The new series Lian Li (PC-A77B PC-A77-B) still look pretty good to me. Wouldn't buy anything else.thebeastie - Wednesday, September 17, 2008 - link
I have to say I think these tool-less Lian-Li cases are poor value.All good quality cases from Zalman/CoolerMaster/Antec have easy tool-less 3.5 HD setups with rubber padding everywhere.
I think Lian-Li are just over digging into peoples trust and money for just so so case designs.
Richlet - Wednesday, September 17, 2008 - link
Quote: "I think Lian-Li are just over digging into peoples trust and money for just so so case designs."I couldn't agree more. While they have quality builds, they're so used to the enthusiast community spending scads of money on their cases, only to mod them up the nines.. I believe Lian Li is the #1 most modded case company in the world? People willing to spend crazy amounts only to cut apart and hacksaw what their case was into something new and different-- I like it, but it's definitely something they've noticed and keep charging for while lowering their own costs.
Richlet - Wednesday, September 17, 2008 - link
I don't think they're ugly or anything, but I wouldn't buy a Lian-Li case if I was going to spend a bundle. I mean, sheesh, Silverstone's stuff is just as good for cooling and accessories, and far prettier.As for Apple aesthetics, a few companies have made Apple-like cases and I don't see how they're that much prettier. Give me a classic and classy straightforward design anyday. Hell, something as simple as an Antec Sonata III is nice enough for any living room assuming you actually take CARE of your living room and dust everything and polish shiny things, like the mirror finish.
anartik - Tuesday, September 16, 2008 - link
I just built a new system using this case (w/ full window). I do like this case and it’s a lot better than most of the junk out there but it does have a few issues.There is plenty of room for most power supplies up to 200mm. I have a long Corsair HX1000 at 200mm and it fits fine. If you need more length the first drive bay is removable. I took mine out anyway for a little more open space. Unless you are using a diesel generator for a power supply you should not have a problem. The optional PS extension is pretty ugly and you don’t want it.
The whole front of the case is filtered and it is not a dust problem as suggested. The 140 in the bottom has a filter and all the vented 5.25 slot covers have fine mesh that collects dust. They can all be vacuumed or washed.
The isolated bottom chamber has an adequate 140mm fan (not 120) that blows directly on the two drive racks and is exhausted by the 140mm fan on my power supply. Even with six drives they are spaced for good cooling.
The one main fault of the case is no intake fan for the upper chamber. I put in a Kama Bay retrofitted with a ~110CFM 140mm fan internally behind the bay covers. It occupies two exposed and one hidden bays.
I moved from a PC60 and just as a matter of preference I preferred the old style door mounting and mobo tray. I also preferred the old removable front panel with easy access to air filters. You have to remove both doors and the 140mm fan to get to the filter.
The PCI support rail is a good idea poorly implemented with cheap plastic retainers for the cards that bend and flex. I think the real issue is it was designed with shorter PCI cards in mind vs. longer cards like the 8800GTX. The mid section fan mounting slots (on the rail) are too high and miss the NB (easy to remedy with dremel). With some large round or square CPU coolers you may have to remove the support rail altogether. I’m using an Ultra 120 Extreme and it fits just fine. The case fans are just ok… I replaced the 2 x 120’s with higher CFM Scythes. 3x140, 3x120, stock Geforce fan with slot cooler next to it and it’s reasonably quiet for a heavily overclocked system. The case contains noise pretty well and is vibration free. In person it’s a very functional and tasteful tech case and while it’s a little long it’s no taller than the typical mid tower (w/o wheels close to PC60). There’s plenty of room for internal watercooling or anything else. However it’s definitely not a gaudy kiddy toy alien monster or Barbie accessory apple case...
abnderby - Tuesday, September 16, 2008 - link
I have for many years liked lian li cases but when running eatx dual xeons they were not a choice in building my pc. My biggest problem with all of these 'nice' cases is that there are always too many 5 1/4" bays who runs that mnay opticals today? at most i run 2 and a 3 1/3 floppy and media card combo.Next even with the optional hdd bay that is only 9 drives currently i run 11 6 sata raid 5 4 scsi raid 10 and 1 sata backup. So again i am stuck with a server case.
I wish I could post some picturse of my case I run a dual xeon in Intels SC5300 modded to be more of a gamer case so to speak. It is big but it fits a whole lot of hardware. Retail it is like 600+ but ebay has them all of the time for 200 - 250 with 10 hot swap bays.
If lian li and others would get off this design failure they could make some real cases in same size but with many more features.
I would like to see this one fully equipted with a dual xeon rig and all bays stuffed.
Also for note my intel case's cooling is excellent. But the sheer weight is not something to be hauling around without a dolly.
whatthehey - Tuesday, September 16, 2008 - link
Not that you don't have your reasons, but seriously -- 11 hard drives in a "gamer" system? It seems more like a server that you sometimes use for gaming rather than the other way around. There's nothing wrong with saying you need a server case for what you're doing, but I'm pretty sure the market for such things is trivially small. Besides, Lian Li makes a hard drive cage that allows you to install three hard drives while using two 5.25" bays. Grab two of those and you could end up with 12 hard drives in this particular chassis.Personally, rather than trying to cram more hard drives into a case, I just upgrade to larger hard drives. 1TB drives start at $135 these days. That's a lot of porn/games/movies/etc. before you even manage to fill up a couple of those let alone six. (SCSI? Bleh... Definitely server material there. I wouldn't even bother with SCSI in a workstation these days.)
TA152H - Monday, September 15, 2008 - link
I bought a few Lian Li's when the cases weren't so ugly, and they are decent enough cases, but they seem to have gone from plain to plain ugly.I don't care how good a case is, if it's ugly, it's not going to sell well. Maybe Apple needs to design a new form factor and case, they seem to be the only company that understands that the appearance of a computer is important. People are visual, and no one wants ugly.
What style would you call this one? The perforated black brick?
strikeback03 - Tuesday, September 16, 2008 - link
The reason Apple sucks is exactly because they put too much stock in the appearance. Wouldn't have processors running a few degrees from shutdown if it weren't taboo to put in "ugly" fan ports.TA152H - Wednesday, September 17, 2008 - link
Look at their stock price. They are doing really well for sucking.Are they overpriced, of course. Still, they sell.
headbox - Monday, September 15, 2008 - link
I agree. All of my PCs have had either Antec (yuck) or Lian Li (much better) but they are still crap compared to an Apple case. This goes all the way back to the Power Mac G3 and G4 with the side opening door. The current Mac Pro case is in a completely different ballpark than any PC case made today. Anyone that doesn't believe it should go to an Apple store and ask to open one up. No PC case maker AT ANY PRICE can compare to the build quality of Apple.whatthehey - Monday, September 15, 2008 - link
Can you spell proprietary? I can: A-P-P-L-EThanks, but I'd just as soon keep my not-as-cool PC cases that I can upgrade whenever and however I see fit. The insides may look nice at first glance, but I think the G5 is every bit as "ugly" as the various Lian Li offerings. Personally, I use my computer for work (and play), not as furniture or an artistic statement. Oh yeah, and I prefer to pay less money for equivalent performance, not more.
Christoph Katzer - Tuesday, September 16, 2008 - link
And there we have the first problem: Price. Of course for some Apple makes the nicest looking cases in the market but the price tag is anything but cheap. So if someone could offer this kind of case would you pay $399 or more? I've been long time ago in the HQ of Chieftec in Taiwan, they make (at least at that time) the cases for Alienware. I think I remember he told me the buying price of Alienware was around $200. Most cases like that are designed for a specific environment and specific hardware. That's the difference and difficulty for companies designing products for the open PC market.Second thing is that Apple doesn't have the problem with compatibility. You can stick a billion different components into a PC which makes the difference. We've seen how the market adobts Apple-like concepts like BTX: Not.
I would never comment on design in a review (or blog) since everyone sees it different anyway. For me it's ugly too but I am still using it as a gaming PC and I can roll it around if needed...
TA152H - Wednesday, September 17, 2008 - link
Christopher,I paid more than $400 for cases when $400 was a lot of money. $400 today I would pay in a heartbeat for a nice looking case. The reason is simple, it doesn't wear out. How about people that pay for expensive video cards, that get obsolete quickly? Things like that would make me feel like I wasted money, but something like a case lasts indefinitely.
So, for a case that was quiet, attractive, and well-made, I would pay well over $400 for it. It's a once in a lifetime purchase (well, maybe not if form factors change), and I don't mind spending a lot of money for those. I don't like spending a lot on "once in a year" purchases.
I understand that cases have to work within the limitations of component sizes, and Apple does, and always has, had more flexibility. ATX motherboards are oversized, and are difficult, but micro-ATX and smaller motherboards are not so difficult.
My main point is, the computer industry as a whole still, unbelievably, doesn't understand how important appearance is. Except for Apple.
When I worked for a large jet-engine designer, and we would meet with people from Dell regularly. The computers they sold at that time were very ugly (hasn't really changed, huh?), and I felt silly mentioning to them. However, the representative from Dell said that they got these complaints constantly. Still, it seems lost on them.
Apples never sold too well because of what they were; they have always been overpriced. But, look at their stock price; style does matter, even with electronics.
One more point, many people buy a car based on how it looks. How much time to you spend in front of (as opposed to in) your car, compared to how much time you have to spend looking at your computer? It's probably a lot less.
There are a few attractive cases out there, but Lian Li doesn't make them. Their corporate flower is probably a brick (don't tell them it's not a flower).
Christoph Katzer - Wednesday, September 17, 2008 - link
Thanks for the comment, which ATX cases you would consider nice looking then?jonmcc33 - Monday, September 15, 2008 - link
I'll never understand why case manufacturers stack HDDs on the side like that and expect a low RPM 120mm fan to do anything significant.Look at that lower bay after you fill it up with HDDs and a PSU at the back. That's a volcano of heat and that fan isn't going to do anything unless it's high RPM. Pointless design...
retrospooty - Tuesday, September 16, 2008 - link
I have almost the exact same case (v1000) I have a Raptor 150 10k RPM and a 750g WD as well... Witht eh fan completely off they are barely warm. Maybe some older hard drives had heat issues , but that is long dead history.yyrkoon - Monday, September 15, 2008 - link
except that countless studies have been done on the subject, and it has been proven that heat does not play a significant factor in HDD failure . . .Boushh - Monday, September 15, 2008 - link
I'm also a happy user of a Lian Li case. I bought my black PC-61 back in 2002 and it's still housing my gaming PC.Recently I upgrade my 7800GT to a 9800GTX+, so I had to remove the removable drivebay because it was directly located after the motherboard and the 9800GTX+ was just to big.
I thought about buying a bigger (specialy deeper) Lian Li case (that's why I keep reading your Lian Li reviews), but I succesfully relocated my drives and it seems the case still has a few years left in it ;-)
yyrkoon - Monday, September 15, 2008 - link
I built a system for a friend a couple years ago using a silver PC-61, and he loved it. Something about that case always bothered me though(look wise), So I waited for the PC-G50 to come around before I bought my own Lian Li. 15" Tall, reverse ATX layout, and with an En 34n 4in3 drive bay/120mm expansion it can house 7 HDDs + 1 optical. Only thing I dont like about my case is the 80mm blowhole on the top(would prefer it remained closed, or was a 120mm blowhole). Well, actually, since the case is so compact the PSU sits right above the CPU, sp nothing other than stock HSF is really possible without remoting the PSU to the front of the case(which i have planned).I actually thought about buying this case myself, but three things stood out for me to personally to not like.
1) like the reviewer said - holes in front of the case can make it hard for controlling dust.
2) case is TOO tall(for me).
3) I did not like the wheels on the bottom.
Felofasofa - Thursday, September 18, 2008 - link
I've got a V1000B+II, and still marvel at it. I didn't think it was too expensive and they've come down even more now with the release of new models. It's just gorgeous, and will be my main housing for years to come. Incomparable to junk from Thermaltake, Antec and Coolermaster. The only other cases I like other than Lian Li's are Silverstones which I recommend for builds I do for other people that don't want a Lian Li.BPB - Monday, September 15, 2008 - link
I have the PC-V2010B and love it. I can't speak highly enough about my case or Lian Li. I only wish I could afford the EX-33H hard drive kit to add to my case.tricomp - Wednesday, September 17, 2008 - link
I also love Lian Li. I bought hundreds of models 1200 and 2000 cases for my clients. Now I am afraid I am going to leave Lian Li..very sad. The reasons in a bottom line is quality.Much thinner aluminum that easily bends and get hurt. this 1010 model in particular is hamming with full loaded machine like a very big and muscular bee. The HDD holders are not as safe. the building impression is bad.
Its too bad Lian Li has stopped making the quality of the BEST ever cases for workstations - The 1200 II P and 2000 II P