What Do You Think of Lian-Li's PC-B16 and PC-A61 Cases?
Lian-Li is looking for your feedback on its PC-B16 and PC-A61 enclosures.
Lian-Li has announced two new enclosures, though they are both remarkably similar. They'll be known as the PC-B16 and the PC-A61.
The cases will both feature the same internals. The PC-B16 will feature a normal front panel, while the PC-A61 will have a door in front of the front panel for extra sound dampening.
The internals of the cases allow for up to ATX size motherboards, full-size ATX power supplies, three optical drives, up to six 2.5”/3.5” drives (more when the optical drive cages are removed), as well as graphics cards up to 280 mm long with hard drives installed and 420 mm long cards when the required hard drive cages are removed.
One of the most notable features of the cases are the hard drive cages – they feature a wildly different design from what other manufacturers use. The cages are individually removable, allowing for all the drives that are in use to remain installed but still making for easy installation. It also allows the user to remove only the required drive cages to make room for longer graphics cards rather than removing the entire cage, or worse, having to deal with a non-removable cage.
Cooling is achieved by dual front 120 mm intakes, dual 140 mm top exhausts, and a single 120 mm rear exhaust.
In line with Lian-Li's recent efforts to be more connected to its customer base, it is taking feedback on its designs from you and me, so be sure to leave your comments below with any suggestions.
There was no word on pricing or a release date yet.
Would have liked to see the 5.25 bays be optional, with perhaps the option of putting an extra 120mm fan (so you'd have a total of 3) WITHOUT ruining the aesthetic.
Maybe with a swappable front bezzel that you can buy that doesn't have the open spaces (even if they are filled with blanks it still looks bad IMO) I don't think 99% of people are gonna use more than one 5.25 bay. (perhaps a fan control + optical drive but thats really about it)
Also would like to see a metal plate for the top fan slots so I can get a good positive pressure build going without having to find fans that like to be place horizontally without dieing.
Maybe a side window addon? Perhaps? Tall order but if it had all those things I'd buy one.
+ Optimal Heat Dissipation
+ Durability & Light weight
+ Space for up to 4-way GPU's of any size
+ Form Factor Compatibility Mini-ATX up to XL ATX
+ Lower Manufacturing cost thus lowering MSRP
+ Aesthetic Customization options for the Consumer
Note - Keep in mind as time goes on more an more stuff is become purely digital. Even storage is making it's move in that direction with Skydrive, Dropbox, iCloud, etc... Mac even offers a standalone tower that is purely storage called icloud that you setup in your house. Pretty soon a case will only need to have the functioning parts (motherboard, ram, gpu, psu)
So if you are releasing cases that you want to stand the length of time ahead of us with all the new digital stuff becoming more of a standard I'd go back to the drawing board an take what I said into consideration. Innovation is what you need to move your parts ahead of the competition.
Given my experience with the PC-9F, the biggest improvements are:
+ more space for cable management behind the MB tray - nice grommeted openings
+ modular HDD trays are really great - the 9F has a big 8-slot rack that can't be removed, and which impedes airflow from the front fans.
+ space for two 140mm fans on the top, but it's unclear if a 240/280mm AIO radiator will fit... will it?
Here's what I don't like:
- Solid front panels impede airflow. Why have fixed-speed fans trying to suck air through tiny side vents? I have PWM fans in the open-grill front of the 9F and it's virtually silent.
- Too many 5.25 bays. They take out 2 or 3 of them, add additional modular HHD tray slots, leaving enough room for a 240mm radiator on the front intake.
Would love to see a shorter mATX version with 1x 5.25 bay.