Lian-Li PC60 USB Case
Introduction
Lian Li has been in the forefront of high-end casing manufacture for a very long time. Established in 1983 Lian-Li is one of the main leaders in manufacturing computer accessories. Lian-Li makes all of their casings using pure aluminum. The biggest advantage aluminum casings have over other metal casings is that they are much lighter and they dissipate heat very fast. Most of us wonder why our systems aren’t getting any cooler after installing some high-end CPU cooler onto the system. Fact is if your casing is not well built for good performance, no matter how good your CPU cooler is, it’ll still not be effective enough.
One of the biggest crazes among most overclockers and other PC enthusiast is to Mod their cases. Case modding has turned into a very lucrative industry these days, and Lian-Li is one manufacture producing some great modded cases for the end user. Today we bring to you one of their Aluminum cases, the PC 60 USB case. In this review, I do not plan on doing any modifications to this case other than attaching a 350W Enermax power supply. Lian-Li cases always sported a real killer look; however the only drawback to their casings is its high price. The PC 60 USB casing with a decent 350W power supply would easily cost over $250. Now that’s a lot of money just for a casing, however if you’re really looking for a good casing expect to spend some decent amount of cash.
Lets take a look at what this case to offer us, after all considering the investment you’re making on this casing, you better know what you get.
The real deal
The PC60 USB case is a midi tower casing spanning at 49.2cm (L) x 21cm (W) and 42.5cm in height. The case includes four 5.25″ drive days and three 3.5″ drive says which are located in the front of the casing. There are 3 more 3.5″ hidden drive bays at the bottom for further expansion if needed. As mentioned before the whole casing is made of aluminum making it one of the lightest casings I have ever worked with. If you move your case often then this is one casing you wouldn’t want to miss out on.
We have mentioned before the advantages of using aluminum as a heat conductor. Well if you missed the review, aluminum is one of the best heat dissipating materials out there. As a result of making the PC60 out of pure aluminum makes sure that the internal components are kept much colder than in metal casing. Trust me folks, if you’re an Athlon user, you sure do need a very good casing, the heat produced by AMD chips are far greater than Intel’s and when it comes to cooling with AMD setups, nothing is ever too much.
Immediately as I took out the casing what caught my eye is the 4 USB ports at the bottom in the front of the casing. If your mainboard supports upto 6 USB ports (Including the 2 at the back panel) then you’re able to use all 4 ports you get in front. That’s so cool, since most manufactures don’t include the extra USB ports, and this sure solves that problem.
I use around 5 USB devices and the front USB ports sure makes my life easier a great deal. I have my keyboard and mouse connected to the rear permanently and do what ever change I need to do at front, as it’s so easy to access. All instructions are given along with the casing on how to install the USB cables on to the mainboard, so if you’re not too familiar with these stuff, there’s no need to worry.
Peering inside the casing you’ll notice 3 80mm fans, 2 of which are located in the front drawing air into the system, and one acting as an exhaust. In front of the 2 intake fans Lian-Li has placed a removable dust filter to avoid making your system a dusty hell hole.
Furthermore removing the front panel of the casing, which is held by plastic clips, you’ll notice the intake fans have speed controller with 3 settings. I wish they had placed these controls into the front panel itself. The intake fans have been very strategically placed so that your hard drive will also receive maximum cooling from these fans. One thing strange with this casing is that all components you attach to the bottom 3.5″ drive bay have to be fixed vertically and not horizontally, which is kind of weird. You have to attach your drive in this bay if you want to make use of the extra cooling provided. I on the other hand was using a hard drive cooler, which did all the cooling required.
Even though the PC60 USB is in fact a Midi tower casing the inside of the casing just seems to have much more room than most other midi tower casing I have come across. The casing seems much wider and quite longer as well. This isn’t just my impression, rather it’s the thoughts of many of my friends and colleagues as well; so I know I can’t be wrong when I say this. As you can see I was able to fit in a water-cooling kit in it as well, even though I really didn’t get to the task of organising the cables a bit more 🙂
Furthermore instead of the conventional screw nails used in casings, Lian-Li uses thumb screws in their casings, which sure does make your life much easier.
One of the coolest features of the board is the removable mainboard tray. That’s so darn cool and easy to work with, once you get used to it, it’s way too hard to live without it. I tested out the Dragon Plus we received from SOYO on this casing, and it fitted into the Motherboard tray with no hassle at all. The cool thing about this tray is that you can attach all your components onto the mainboard before you actually put it back into the casing, eliminating us from working in very narrow quarters. What really impresses me with Lian-Li cases is that they go into every possible detail to make things easy for us, even though some of it may be quite trivial. For instance, the front motherboard connectors, comes with a plug, so that it can be removed easily from the casing and fixed on to the mainboard before you actually insert the motherboard tray into the casing. Furthermore all the sharp edged of the casing have been smoothed out and rounded. The case even has plastic beadings in and around the 5.25″ drive bay area.
