News - Lian Li unwraps "simple and stylish" PC-A06F chassis

[HEXUS]

Lian Li continues to roll out chassis at a feverish pace and its latest mini tower looks to be quite useful.

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[j.o.s.h.1408]

power supply goes sideways? what the?

[Emirzan]

Exactly my thoughts. It appears to be over where the CPU socket on most motherboards will be. That'll put a severe limit on the height of any coolers you can use. Not too clever Lian Li.

[malfunction]

A typical muddled case from the modern Lian Li - the 140mm fan up front is nice but the 120mm up top is likely to vibrate / resonate just like the old 80mm top fan in my PC60 did (which is why it was never connected). Add to that the restriction in CPU heatsink size caused by the PSU orientation and it makes it a bit of an odd choice - an expensive case with compromised cooling, a 'short' case (by Lian Li standards) but still very deep (as almost all Lian Li cases are).

[M0nkeyb0Y]

I'm liking the I/o panel and power switch on the 'roof'

[kalniel]

You've got to be able to put in the PSU in the standard orientation as well.. would kill PSU cooling otherwise.

If so, then all you need is some foam for the intakes to reduce noise/dust and it's a nice case.

[Jay]

Thermaltake has done the sideways PSU thing for years.Just put the PSU in the other way so the fan faces out of the case and not towards the side of the case

[Salazaar]

Looking at the Lian Li site it doesn't look like you can rotate the PSU.

http://www.lian-li.com.tw/v2/en/prod...s_index=63&g=d

Shame. It would have been a nice case.

[Dreaming]

Lian Li are getting very close to the perfect case imo. I have the PCA05, and the back-to-front-upside-down orientation really is the way to go - cool the most critical components first!

Problem of course was the absence of a top mounted vent. And sideways HDD bays would have been nice. Still, with each revision of the PC-A 0x range it's getting closer to what in my mind is really the best home chassis out there (obviously not ideal for a server but then that's a whole different kettle of fish).

[Pob255]

That makes for even more oddities.

For starters the width of the case is a slim 185mm, which means even if the PSU was some ware else you'd still be restricted on cooler choise as no tower cooler with a 120mm fan would fit.
Given that the PSU is where it is, you'd only be able to use a low profile cooler, most of thoes have a fan on the top pointing down (like a stock cooler) now given most PSUs now use a 120mm fan that sucks air in, then you're going to have a fan clash as the psu and cpu coolers will be pulling against each other.

Now the front fan has got a fine filter on it, but this still is an odd layout.
It would make so much more sense to put a mesh vent in the side panel so the PSU can get air from outside the case that way a cpu cooler will not be battling for air flow.

All told it is an interesting attempt to make a small case and shoehorn a full atx motherboard in. (this case is about as long as most mid tower cases, but is a good chunk shorter (less tall) and narrower.

[groo]

Looks like you can slide the power supply backwards so that it is sucking air from outside the case, and is not covering the CPU - then you wouldn't need such a low-profile cooler for the CPU or have the issue with the CPU and Power Supply competing for air (a situation I have in my current backup PC case).
Seems a unique kind of a solution, with the obvious downside that the case will become very loooong.

[Pob255]

What do you mean very long??
it's 490mm long

Let's have a look at other mid tower cases shall we?
Antec NSK-6580 472mm
Jou-jye NU-4292 482mm
Akasa Zen 500mm
Sharkoon rebel-9 486mm
Coolermaster RC-330 486mm

This length is fairly standard for a current mid tower case that takes full ATX
The main difference is Height and width
Most of thoes are around 200-210mm wide and 450-500mm tall
Where as this Lian-Li is only 375mm tall and 187mm wide.

[Webby]

Pob he was meaning if the PSU was hanging off the back to facilitate more CPU cooler room and draw cool air for the psu you would gain an extra ~140mm of length out the back (if it will secure that far out?)

[malfunction]

Pob he was meaning if the PSU was hanging off the back to facilitate more CPU cooler room and draw cool air for the psu you would gain an extra ~140mm of length out the back (if it will secure that far out?)

It's an interesting idea but cable routing would be a bit messy and I can't get the image of a "wheely-ing" case out of my head.

[groo]

From looking at the photo on the second page of the article (where the PSU is halfway sticking out) it looks like there are 3 settings - all the way in, half-way out, and almost all out (looks like there would be a few centimetres still within the case).

[malfunction]

From looking at the photo on the second page of the article (where the PSU is halfway sticking out) it looks like there are 3 settings - all the way in, half-way out, and almost all out (looks like there would be a few centimetres still within the case).

So it does - I totally missed that. Wonder how they balance this out? Sounds like the "bag of cement in the boot" porsche handling pack to me (needs some weight in the front to balance it out)... The average (good) PSU is probably 2kg+, I think HDDs are around 700g and an optical drive is probably around the same. The weight of the CPU HSF is going to add more to the back-end too. Will be interesting to see what the reviews say about this.