LIAN LI PC-90 The Hammer Review
Up Close: Exterior
Published: 24th April 2012 | Source: LIAN LI | Price: £155.76 |
Up Close: Exterior
Although not massive in comparison to some full size towers on the market, the PC-90 (sorry, I refuse to call it "The Hammer") is still pretty monolithic in it's appearance. The brushed Aluminium is finished in a black somewhere between satin and Matte. Light seems to fall into it, in fact so much so that it was actually a bit of a pain to photograph as my camera could not pick up a light reading from many angles. I wonder if Lian Li have been working with Lockheed Martin?
Both the sides and roof are devoid of any windows or fan grills, however the roof does have a removable section allowing the addition of a roof mounted fan should you so desire. The side panels are secured by means of knurled thumb screws, but also have small metal loop brackets allowing for them to be padlocked if theft of the internal hardware is a concern.
The front of the case is a simple affair, dominated by the large mesh grill protecting the two 140mm fans feeding air in the front of the case. Above the grill is a a simple line of I/Os in the form of 2xUSB3, a single eSATA and a set of audio jacks. The power switch is a thin strip of rubber, back lit with a blue LED, to double up as a power on light, so subtle and stealthy is it's appearance that it actually took me a few moments to work out that this was in fact the power switch. The PC-90 offers just 2 external 5.25" bays, with one already pre plumbed with a sleek optical drive bay cover and switch. Just a personal opinion, but I think drive bay covers such as this ought to be mandatory as nothing ruins the looks of a case more than the sight of an ugly optical drive.
Moving to the rear of the case we see that as with most Lian Li cases the brushed black has given way to naked Aluminium. The PSU is mounted at the top of the case old school style with Lian Li offering the ability to fit the PSU from the outside as well as the inside by virtue of having a removable mount secured by 4 thumb screws.
Beneath the PSU area we find the 120mm extract fan protected by a classic circular wire guard. To the left of this lies the rear I/O slot. Under the rear fan are 2 water-cooling tube ports each protected with a rubber grommet. The lower section of the rear of the case houses the 10 expansion card slots. each one having a removable vented slot protector.
I often think that it's round the back end of a case that we get an idea of the manufacturers Quality standards and attention to detail. What I mean is if they can be bothered to make the bit that's not seen as high a quality as the bits that are then things usually bode well. for that reason I've included a few close ups of the PCI slot protectors and would urge you also to re examine the picture of the PSU mounting plate and screws above left.
Most Recent Comments
|
Originally Posted by sheroo
I think you've been more than generous giving it a silver. I wouldn't pay that kind of money for a case, knowing that no matter how much effort I went to that the cabling is still gonna look like a dogs breakfast. Lian-Li need to take their quality and get more innovative the way Silverstone have. |
It fits HTPX and EBB boards (dual socket) and yet its still midtower!Quote
|
Originally Posted by tinytomlogan
Think you are missing the point of this case though fella, its deffo not a show off case, more a compact but still get a huge rig inside kinda case. It fits HTPX and EBB boards (dual socket) and yet its still midtower! |
If they had left sufficient space behind the motherboard tray, and even mounted the hard drives behind it as well - then it'd be a different story.Quote
but if u can look at the results u will see that exactly the price range take the all thing down, ok the performance also.
And yeah, ill still buy the Silverstone Raven 02 (wich i have) 100x more.
Tom u r right with motherboard sizes, the raven does not suport this ones... but hey, for Ivy Bridge its TOP.
10x for a super review again !Quote
CSS Valid