Quiet Gaming Cases, Part 3: Lian Li, Nanoxia, And SilverStone

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Lian Li PC-B12

Although we're calling it the PC-B12, online vendors will most likely list our specific case as the PC-B12B because Lian Li adds a color designator to the end of its model names: B for Black and A for Aluminum. Availability of the otherwise-identical, naturally-colored aluminum model is yet to be determined.

Although many companies sell cases that incorporate aluminum for weight savings, Lian Li uses this material much more extensively. Even the edges of the face plate are constructed of this gorgeous black-anodized metal. Plastic seems to be reserved only for small parts, such as fans, mounting pegs, and buttons.

The PC-B12 even includes aluminum cover panels for its two external 5.25” bays. The front-panel USB 3.0 ports and headphone/mic jacks are also hidden behind an aluminum flip cover. And those front-panel ports are actually located on the top panel, making the PC-B12 a floor-standing design.

Eight expansion cut-outs translate to room for a double-slot graphics card in a motherboard’s bottom slot, while two grommets make room for external liquid-cooling lines. A single 120 mm exhaust fan removes heat from the CPU area.

Some of the PC-B12’s external features are most easily discussed with the covers removed. For example, the front intake fans draw in air through a slot at the bottom, which is filtered to reduce internal dust. The power supply intake is similarly covered with a removable dust filter.

Previous Next
Summary
  1. Nearing The Quiet Gaming Goal?
  2. Lian Li PC-B12
  3. Inside Lian Li’s PC-B12
  4. More PC-B12 Features
  5. Building With The PC-B12
  6. Nanoxia Deep Silence 1
  7. Inside Nanoxia’s Deep Silence 1
  8. More Deep Silence 1 Features
  9. Building With The Deep Silence 1
  10. SilverStone Fortress 2 USB 3.0
  11. Inside The Fortress 2 USB 3.0
  12. More Fortress 2 USB 3.0 Features
  13. Building With The Fortress 2 USB 3.0
  14. Test Settings
  15. Heat, Noise, And Heat Versus Noise
  16. Quality And Value: Part 3 Cases, Analyzed
  17. Quiet Gaming Case Quest, Series Conclusion
About the author
Thomas Soderstrom

Thomas Soderstrom is a Senior Staff Editor at Tom's Hardware US. He tests and reviews cases, cooling, memory and motherboards.

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  • jrayx
    Where to buy the Silencio 650 or the Nanoxia Deep Silence ?
  • e56imfg
    Anonymous said:
    Where to buy the Silencio 650 or the Nanoxia Deep Silence ?
    Newegg e-mailed me saying that the Nanoxia DS1 ETA is 1/30
  • abbadon_34
    I never ceased to amazed by these beastly cases from Silverstone. Before I die I hope to toss down $300 for some monster.
  • johnsonjohnson
    e56imfgNewegg e-mailed me saying that the Nanoxia DS1 ETA is 1/30


    Thanks for that; I was wondering when it would arrive.
  • Anonymous
    My brother has the older FT02B with the red inside and I have the P280. I'm super happy to see how these cases performed
    He is running dual AMD 5850's with axial fans and a Corsair H50 water cooler cooling an AMD 8150, it's very quiet even at full fan.
    In my P280 I have a OC Intel i7-3770k with an Antec 920 water cooler and 2 scythe 2k rpm fans, with the scythe at full power and the 920 on aggressive thermal settings it keeps he 4.7ghz oc under 50 deg c under almost all loads while not being excessively loud.
  • Onus
    The Define R4 appears to be lacking a HDD activity LED; baffling. Those who don't like it wouldn't have to use it, but what about those who do?
    It would be interesting to repeat the tests with an axially-cooled graphics card. After all, that style of cooler would be the choice of someone building for low noise. Of particular interest would be the resulting temperature differences, especially of the Silverstone.
  • 1369ic
    I ordered an R4 yesterday before finding these articles and was happy to see it get the approved award. Now it wins a recommended buy award and UPS tells me it's on the truck to be delivered today. First time in my life I've had such luck. I am replacing an aging Antec P180, and almost got the 280, but went with the R4 because I liked the look better -- and it's currently $80 with free shipping on Newegg.
  • cknobman
    As nice as the Fractal R4 is I still would go with my Antec P280 case especially considering after discounts I picked it up for only $80.

    Toms, thanks for doing this series it was really nice to see the time and in depth detail put into this. I will be bookmarking these for reference on my future builds.
  • Au_equus
    1369icI ordered an R4 yesterday before finding these articles and was happy to see it get the approved award. Now it wins a recommended buy award and UPS tells me it's on the truck to be delivered today. First time in my life I've had such luck. I am replacing an aging Antec P180, and almost got the 280, but went with the R4 because I liked the look better -- and it's currently $80 with free shipping on Newegg.

    Half finished building with it last night. Once you get th R4, you can tell that a lot of thought went into building this case. I'm still a novice when it comes to cable management, but FD makes it real easy. For $80, IMO, you're getting a steal.
  • tripkick
    Is there any chance that you could review the NZXT H2 in the future? I was hoping to see it on your review list and how it compares to the R4. I am looking to upgrade my old Antec P180 and wondered how those two cases stack up against the P180 and its newer version P183.
  • JamesSneed
    The PC-B12’s rear duct / fan situation. I found that if you remove the fan grill from the rear fan and leave the duct attached but take the back off(the part that you can adjust the angle on) that I get good cooling , better noise reduction and the fan duct sides help keep wires and fingers out of the fan.
  • laststop311
    1369icI ordered an R4 yesterday before finding these articles and was happy to see it get the approved award. Now it wins a recommended buy award and UPS tells me it's on the truck to be delivered today. First time in my life I've had such luck. I am replacing an aging Antec P180, and almost got the 280, but went with the R4 because I liked the look better -- and it's currently $80 with free shipping on Newegg.


    Yea this competition combined with the killer R4 price is a no brainer for me. I was going to get the corsair 550d but not now.
  • stratosrally
    I'm assuming that if the Define R4 did so well that the new and revised Define XL R2 full tower should handle a dual-SLI GTX580 GPU very well. It's identical in design except for 9 expansion slots vs 7 and 4 ODD bays vs 2. With 2x front 140mm, 1 bottom 140mm, and 1 rear 140mm fan locations loaded with some top-notch quiet fans it should do nicely - especially for someone like me that needs the extra expansion slots to use the bottom PCIe mobo slot for a dual-slot GPU. Coming in 2013!

    I'm disappointed that the Corsair did so poorly with noise reduction, I thought from previous tests elsewhere that it did fine with that but had some cooling issues that could be resolved by removing the HDD cages and loading up all the fan postions. Unfortunately it seems that it would be louder still in that configuration.

    Nice review, guys. I appreciate it...
  • freedom4556
    Lord, italics much?
  • Crashman
    tripkickIs there any chance that you could review the NZXT H2 in the future? I was hoping to see it on your review list and how it compares to the R4. I am looking to upgrade my old Antec P180 and wondered how those two cases stack up against the P180 and its newer version P183.
    Good news is that it got tested in last-year's version of this series. Bad news is, last year was a different platform:
    http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/rv02-e-lian-li-sonata-iv,2946-6.html
  • tripkick
    Man, I guess I am running a year or so behind then. Thanks for the link and follow-up, Crashman.
  • hannibal
    tripkickIs there any chance that you could review the NZXT H2 in the future? I was hoping to see it on your review list and how it compares to the R4. I am looking to upgrade my old Antec P180 and wondered how those two cases stack up against the P180 and its newer version P183.


    P183 ould have been interesting alternative. It should be more silent than p280? but harder to build because of dual chamber solution. Still it would be nice to see it compared to P280, if there are any real differences. If I am building silent gaming machine the case can be even a little bit more expensive if it can achieve good results. You can get gaming casis really cheaply, but they are definitely not silent...
  • stratosrally
    freedom4556Lord, italics much?


    What are you referring to?

    (just curious...)
  • bit_user
    I wish they'd have tested a normal Lian-Li aluminum mid-tower, like the PC-9F. The design is very similar, but it's cheaper, more capable, and lacks most of the drawbacks they noted in the PC-B12. It's plenty quiet for me, and I'll bet a good bit cooler.
  • bit_user
    freedom4556Lord, italics much?

    Maybe ask for your money back?

    Sorry, but it bugs me when people whine so much about such minutiae. You're getting a lot of informative content for free. How do you think they feel after doing all this testing and writing to see snarky comments like these?
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