News - Lian Li tease a new Mini-ITX case prototype, the PC-Q33

[HEXUS]

Taiwanese aluminium PC chassis specialists are looking for design “feedback”.

Read more.

[malfunction]

Dear Lian Li:

1) Remove the HDD mounts from the front panel and just use the 2 bay rack next to the PSU - include 3.5" to 2.5" mounting plates if needed (or maybe just switch to 2.5" drives completely?). If you want to make a NAS case, make a NAS case - if you want to make a 'general' mini PC you don't need > 2 HDD bays IMO.

2) Make the case a little bit deeper and stick an intake fan on it as well - so you get a nice tunnel cooling effect for any tower heatsinks

3) Make the HDD bays a proper rack - so you can just push the HDDs in from the back of the case and don't need to worry about wiring or opening the case up if you want to swap the HDDs around

4) Find a way to mount the side panels that doesn't use screws - they look ugly and from experience with the V300 case the grommets that the screws go into loosen up and fall out after a while. Or better yet, abandon the flip down front and just make a tray that slides out the back, complete with HDDs, PSU and motherboard - basically the top, sides and front should be a 'cowl' that mounts on the case (possibly also with a bottom panel so you can keep a nice curved edge on the top and bottom)

5) Provide EASILY REMOVABLE filters for all intakes. You can have a panel that slides out the bottom of the front for the (proposed) front fan, one that slides out of the bottom for the PSU intake and two that slide out the back (out of the side panels) for the side intakes / holes

6) Don't use LED fans (they look cheap and nasty IMO) and stop using LEDs that are brighter than the sun for the power / HDD activity lights.

7) If you're still making your own power supplies (or rather having someone else make them for you) make sure you have a reasonable range of fully modular PSUs that actually fit in the case, and include a custom set of short cables for them so that you don't have to worry about hiding all the cables away.

8) Make a decent mid tower / full tower case - your stuff still looks pretty but the market has moved on. I've just bought a Fractal Design R4 and it has lots of nice features despite looking like a cheap lump of plastic.

Edit:

In fact - just make me a case made of several chambers stacked on top of each other (to segregate the stuff that runs hot from the stuff that runs cools). I'd prefer (top to bottom):

A mini ITX motherboard chamber with enough room for a LARGE tower heatsink with a 120mm/140mm fan on the front and rear of the case (possibly removing the need for a fan on the heatsink itself)

A slim ODD bay underneath the motherboard (no need to be at the top of the case as you wouldn't typically put a mini ITX case on the floor) with interchangeable face plates so you can use a slot or tray load ODD

Two flat 2.5" bays side by side, e.g. "--"
An ATX PSU with a 3.5" bay on either side (because I'm a sucker for symmetry) - e.g, "|[ ]|"

I'm not quite sure how much room you should leave for a graphics card, and cable routing - and I'm crap at using SketchUp - but this sort of 'stacked' design would minimise space while still using standard components:

[DDY]

A reference short PCB GTX670 with an aftermarket cooler will fit nicely

[ninja2000]

this looks awesome. might ditch the sg06 for one of these

[Lucio]

It's nice, and what I'd expect from a Lian Li case, but the lack of active cooling points is just daft on a premium case. Given it's shape and size they could fit in at least a top mounted fan without sacrificing the hinged design.

[Pleiades]

Definitely forward those points to Lian-Li Malfunction, all good ideas

[RavenWing71]

I like the design. I do think a couple of @malfunctions ideas could make it better.
Making it a cooling stack is a good idea. Create a barrier between the PS & HD zone and the MB zone. Rearrange the HDs kind of like @malfunction said. One on either side of the PS but I think the circuit board of the HDs should face out. With a little adjustment to the side perforations, and a duct instead of perforations for bottom cooled PSs, the HDs can be cooled by the PS fans airflow. One fan really should be able to cool the MB Zone. Flip the back fan around so that it blows in across the CPU cooler and adjust the perforations so that you don't get a heat pocket in the top. Front and side fans would be prone to making a lot more noise in the room.
I don't think this case needs hot swap bays. It's styled, in my opinion more like a Home Theater case than a NAS case. The extra HD bays in the front look handy without complicating the design. Given Windows 8's Storage Spaces feature, more drive bays are valuable to home theater machines for expanded storage.
I would like to see this concept made into a mATX case also. It would be just enough bigger to accommodate the mATX MB. This would give it more room below for more HD bays. Since most modern MBs have at least 6 SATA connectors, I would shoot for a minimum of 6 HD bays in a mATX version.

[sgtspiff]

Hi Lian Li

Just had to register here so I could answer your call for ideas.
As a SFF fan this is what I love to do.

Here's mine:

1. Make it a few mm shorter. 330mm is waay to much imho. Take the largest topdown CPU cooler (lets say Noctua NH-C14) and go from there. Or just leave 30mm on top of standard graphics card. 300mm or 290mm should be enough.
2. Move the 120mm fan from back to top. Heat rises. You could skip it entirely and let the fans on the cooler make the job for you.
3. Make it 10mm longer and put in a front fan. Blowing in air at the SSDs and PSU. (skip 3,5" altogether)
4. Shorten the USB front panel cables. They're grotesquely long in such a small case. (have this problem in my PC-Q08)
5. Skip the mesh on the right side (seen from front). It will just provide the case with more dust without helping the airflow (nothing warm there).
6. As someone already said 2x2,5" SSD holder is more than enough. If I would build a case for my self tody I would skip 2,5" and 3,5" altogether and just run with M.2 and mSata SSDs.

I like this alot. Put don't stare yourself blind at huge tower coolers. You just need enough room to fit a large cooler.
Put in the cheapest 120mm fan you can find or a Scythe or a Noctua as they will replace it anyhow.

I would also love to see you make a version of the PC-Q16 with a slot for PCIe. I have plans for a high end gaming pc in a PC-Q16 with a 240mm radiator for cooling.