Lian-Li Announces PC-Q01 Mini-ITX Enclosure
Lian-Li has released a new Mini-ITX enclosure, and it is reasonably affordable.
The case measures in at 200 x 275 x 242 mm, and because it is fully made out of aluminum, only weighs about 1.6 kg. Internally, beside the Mini-ITX motherboard, users can mount CPU coolers up to 90 mm tall along with PSUs and GPUs up to 210 mm in length, though you will have to account for connector length with the PSU in case of modular power supplies. An ideal graphics card for using in this case would be the Mini-ITX cards from Asus or MSI. Larger cards like GTX 780's or R9 290's won't fit, as they are too long.
Lian-Li has fitted both the bottom and front of the case with identical hard drive support, where each of those areas can house either one 3.5" drive along with a 2.5" drive, or two 2.5" drives. This allows for up to four installed drives. A fan can also be mounted at the bottom of the chassis, though, which might be preferable considering the only other case ventilation would be provided by the power supply.
Front I/O connectivity is fairly standard with the standard set of HD audio jacks and two USB 3.0 ports.
Pricing for the unit is set at €50 over in Europe, with no official word on U.S. availability yet. Hopefully, it'll be under about $70 when it gets here, as that'll make it a very nice option for a mid-range compact gaming system.
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Except case measurements are always given in mm, regardless of site or location. You don't see other locations converting the 2.5" and 3.5" bays to their respective metric counterparts, do you?
Babby's first tech news?
Your turn, Silverstone.
Thanks for reinforcing typical American stereotypes.
I love that Lian-Li tries to innovate, but with many of their small cases they have great overall designs that fall flat on the details; a case this small doesn't really have the luxury of a featureless front unless it is extended forward to leave space at the sides to draw in air. When everything is packed in so tightly, a pair of 120mm fans could make all the difference if they'd just stop to squeeze them in; I know they could do it as I'm planning to drill holes myself in a TU100 for this very purpose, but it's something the manufacturer could easily do in the first place.