Lian Li PC-A55 Case Review: Unfortunate Name Befits the Design
by Dustin Sklavos on June 16, 2012 12:30 PM EST- Posted in
- Cases/Cooling/PSUs
- mid-tower
- Lian Li
- ATX
Conclusion: Just Because You Can Doesn't Mean You Should
Joking about the Lian Li PC-A55's unfortunate nomenclature aside, this was an extremely unpleasant review to write. A bad review can be fun for the end user to read, but snark comes cheaply and people put time and energy into designing and producing this case. People that I have to answer to, and people that I want to encourage. Lian Li's case designers seldom seem particularly bound by convention, and sometimes that results in some really stellar designs.
I was personally very impressed with the PC-90, a case not too much larger than the PC-A55 with absolutely stellar thermal performance. I didn't like how drives were mounted inside the case, but Lian Li was able to produce an HPTX-capable case in roughly the same dimensions as a standard ATX case from a competitor. Not just that, but it also offered better thermal performance than most of the competition.
Fitting an HPTX build in an ATX form factor and having it run efficiently is something I can see as having some real merit, even in corner cases. Yet when you try to fit an ATX build into a Micro-ATX form factor, thermal performance becomes substantially more important. We're at a juncture now where there are very few reasons to go with an ATX motherboard over a Micro-ATX board. One of those is if you're putting together a multi-GPU system, and that's a use case you can throw right out the window with the PC-A55 due to the way the cooling is engineered. With that out of the way, I see very little reason to go with an ATX motherboard if it can be avoided. Motherboards are so fully-featured at this point that expansion cards just aren't as relevant as they used to be.
In the end, the PC-A55's cooling design is fundamentally and fatally flawed. Adjusting orientation of fans and cooling inside the case wouldn't be optimization, it would be damage control. The graphics card is basically fighting for air with the power supply, and the CPU heatsink is essentially almost completely choked off from fresh air. Even with the bottom-mounted intake clear, thermals don't improve enough to justify going with the PC-A55 over a similarly sized Micro-ATX enclosure.
So how do you improve the PC-A55? Unfortunately it's difficult to do so without increasing the dimensions of the enclosure. If we're going to stick with having a bottom-mounted intake fan, we need to raise the case off the ground high enough that it doesn't matter what surface it's on and we need to make sure cool air can easily get inside the case. One of the biggest issues is the orientation of the motherboard; bottom to top airflow works in other cases because there's a nice channel for the air to flow through, cooling the CPU, GPU, and other components in the process. If Lian Li wants to do bottom and top mounted fans, the motherboard has to be rotated ninety degrees for it to work effectively. The vertical power supply mount also needs to be flipped 180 degrees and then the front panel of the enclosure needs ventilation for the PSU. And after we've made all these changes, we're basically left with...a Silverstone case.
Ultimately I feel like all Lian Li's engineers have done with the PC-A55 is prove that they could make a small case that could still support a full ATX motherboard. In the process, we lose a tremendous amount of thermal efficiency and acoustics go up catastrophically as a result. What are we left with? Unfortunately, a case I can't find any argument for.
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KingKongDonkeyBong - Saturday, June 16, 2012 - link
I'm a Mac junkie now, but rewind 4 years back and I used to build my own tower PCs like no tomorrow. I loved to pick out the best of the best components and put them together only to sell what I had done and start over again. To me, Lian Li has always stood for excellent looking aluminum cases, but they were bloody expensive then and are still today. I dreamed of a Lian Li case bak then, but I never got to build a PC with one of those beauties. :( It's great to see them still making top-notch stuff, though. Some of the better companies faded into oblivion, like SuperFlower. CoolerMaster used to make some good stuff back then, but no longer. :/ I'd put my money on Lian Li if I still had the passion to build tower PCs.Dustin Sklavos - Saturday, June 16, 2012 - link
...did you actually read the review?JarredWalton - Saturday, June 16, 2012 - link
I'd guess not. He looked at the picture and said, "That's a nice looking case!" Too bad it doesn't have the performance to back it up, unless maybe you just want to run a Core i3 CPU with now discrete GPU? Buying a $110 case for such a PC seems a bit much, though, and it still performs like A55.Brutalizer - Monday, June 18, 2012 - link
There is a smaller ATX case, the Lian Li PC-V700. It is 21 x 40 x 50 cm. And it holds six 3.5" disks.http://www.tomshardware.com/news/lian-li-mid-case-...
yyrkoon - Tuesday, June 19, 2012 - link
Yeah. I have a PC-G50. It is smaller than this ( 14.5" tall or so ), and has 3 3.5" drive slots. With the Add-on 4in3 bay adapter, I've had 7 HDD in it at one time. Plus it added a 120mm intake fan into the mix.It is not the perfect case for a couple of reasons. but I am very happy with it. However, it is by far in my mind a better design compared to this.
Move the PSU horizontal, sideways, and reverse ( with perhaps an adapter cable going out to the back ). After removing the drive bay from the bottom of course.. Then add ventilation for the PSU intake, front, or side ( both ? ). Just thinking out loud here . . . Still lots of things could be done to improve this design. Obviously.
yyrkoon - Tuesday, June 19, 2012 - link
My guess is that this person did not read / understand the article title. Never mind the article its self.One thing you do have to keep in mind however. Individuals have a mind of their own. Just because you or one of your cohorts gives equipment a bad review. Does not mean that someone else has to agree.
And there is a lot to disagree with sometimes, from the articles / reviews presented here. Everyone's priorities are different.
wonderpookie - Saturday, June 16, 2012 - link
Hehe, yea, I was just about to ask the exact same thing! Thank you for the in-depth and informative review, appreciated!Flunk - Saturday, June 16, 2012 - link
Lian Li makes some great cases, this may not be one of them but there are a lot of other models so if you like the look of this there probably is a case for you in there somewhere. I have a PC-9F that is quite similar but a bit bigger than this that's just great.p05esto - Saturday, June 16, 2012 - link
If you use Macs then what in the world are you doing on this site poser? This site is for computer enthusiasts and those into the latest and greatest, open standards and system, fastest machines around that can be upgraded and overclocked. Apple products don't fit under any of those headings. Maybe if we created an "overpriced preschool computing" Apple would fit nicely. No one wants Apple crap around here buddy.tim851 - Saturday, June 16, 2012 - link
Who made you boss, kid?It sure was that guy Anand, who probably owns every Mac ever made.