The PC-V1000Z chassis from Lian-Li was very popular due to its outstanding build quality and extensive hardware support, but it's old -- the chassis came out out way back in 2008. With hardware advancing the way it does, a number of its features have become redundant, and it is simply missing some features found on newer cases. Now, though, Lian Li has updated the case after a six-year service life and built the PC-V1000L.
Among the changes to a more modern enclosure, Lian-Li has done away with most of the optical drives and has added support for more water cooling, better cable management, a more flexible hard drive system, and more.
The PC-V1000L supports up to E-ATX motherboards, and it has eight expansion slots in the back, giving it support for up to four dual-slot graphics cards. The case also supports CPU coolers up to 170 mm tall and graphics cards up to 380 mm long, with hard drive trays installed.
Removing specific hard drive trays will give you space for graphics cards up to 520 mm long, although we have yet to spot a modern-day graphics card that even hits the 380 mm limitation. The ATX PSUs can be up to 240 mm long.
For storage there is a single 5.25” optical drive bay, and there is room for up to nine 3.5” or 2.5” drives in the front of the case, along with either one 3.5” drive or two 2.5” drives behind the motherboard tray.
As we mentioned, this case has moved towards a more modern feature set, and that includes support for much more water cooling, including closed-loop liquid coolers.
This case supports up to three front 120 mm fans, two 120 mm or 140 mm fans up top, a single 120 mm rear-exhaust fan and two bottom 120 mm fans. The fan mounts support corresponding radiator sizes, too, although mounting a radiator in the front if the chassis will require sacrificing some or all of the hard drive trays.
Of course, you’ve already seen the pictures and realized that this case is big, but if you are wondering about precise measurements, you’ll be happy to know that the case measures 220 x 551 x 611 mm and weighs a hefty 9.3 kg. Aluminum might be light, but enough of it certainly adds up.
Lian Li is bringing out a silver version (PC-V100LA), a black version (PC-V1000LB) and a black windowed version (PC-V1000LWX). The non-windowed variants will run you $345, while the windowed variant will cost $389. Yes, these are expensive, but they are cases that are built to serve you for a very long time. For more information you can find the product page here.
Follow Niels Broekhuijsen @NBroekhuijsen. Follow us @tomshardware, on Facebook and on Google+.
