Thanks for the review !
Quick question : Do you think removing one of the hard drive cages would improve GPU temps ?

Except for the design, I love the features of this case. It comes standard with a whole not of configuration and cooling options mostly tool less, it's a dream to play with !! The flaws are I think minimal and are nothing a few minutes of moding can't solve. (I would personnaly dremel out the PSU grill, use zip ties to attach my favorite quiet fan to the front, get rid of all the hard drive cages and just plop the HD and SSD on the floor of the cases)
I can't believe they still have the stupid fan holders in the back, what is wrong with them !!
Please give the case a nice plain looking front, and I'll be one of the first ones to buy it !

Excellent review. The fact that you realized the effect of the HDD-mounting before testing was great.

I don't see this case as a quiet competitor because of the HDD vibrations but with few enough drives to be mounted in the 5.25 bay it should be enough for most gamers.

Cable-channel is an terrific addition to the case and Lian Li has had problems with clearance before so this solution fits them alright although 16 mm should be adequate for not creating a bulge in the side panel, no?

This could be their reason for having the restrictive PSU intake vent:

See the bottom of the page, fourth user comment: http://benchmarkreviews.com/index.php?o ... &Itemid=61

Anyway, if it didn't affect airflow in the review, is there anything to complain about? It's not like the very restrictive front vent covers on the P180/P182 surely?


Probably so that the fans don't pop out by themselves accidentally? Maybe they should've used small thumbscrews, much like the ones they use for the hard drives?


The Lancool K58/K60/K62 might suit you:

http://www.lancoolpc.com/en/product/pro ... dex=62&g=f

Rotatable HDD cage --> removable.

The fan screw holes would have to be in a key-hole form if the fan was to be "slided" out. The reason they are in the form they are now is just because it makes it easier to insert the rubber grommets. But a sliding fan mount would have been great!

The Noctua NF-P14 can mount as either 12cm or 14cm.

Do you have the hardware available to test cases with GPU cooling that's less noisy but leaves the heat in the case? I can't help but feel the 4870's you use test very different characteristics of the case from what a pair of hot cards with third party cooling would.

Especially as you mentioned that the fans of your 4870s might be degrading over time, I'd humbly suggest switching to a pair of new cards with high heat output and low-noise aftermarket cooling. Assuming you can get your hands on them ofc. Another idea would be slapping some third party cooling on the existing cards.

This is nice case design wise..

What most gamers do is remove the top half of cage and keep both intake fans. This is probably what I would do as you get more cooling on your cards.

Also I would point out that moving an intake fan to exhaust might in fact be ill-considered and not a fair test of this cases cooling abilities. slight positive pressure (when you consider that the CPU fan and graphics card can act like an exhaust) usually has good results.

People who uses all the (non-side) coolings slots in this design tend to actually put the front top as intake - so you have 3 intake and 2 exhaust. It might be better for the silent enthusiast to use more cooling slots and run alot of fans at low speed.. You would have to test this - something you guys didn't seem willing to do..

Layout wise though - great case. What's sad is that you have to spend 2x to 3x as much to get a nice layout like this in the Lian Li line near as I can tell. The B25 with its restrictive intake does not compare with this case..