CeBIT 09: Lian Li’s budget/gaming offshoot, Lancool, has stepped away from its Lian Li roots of aesthetic pureness and has begun a trip down Antec lane in a bid to differentiate itself and become more appealing to gamers.
The DragonLord Dark File PC-K58, Black Wind PC-K60 and Dark Ice PC-K62 might sound like something out of a kids fantasy novel, but they're actually all similar sized midi towers with all-black parts. Instead of the usual aluminium, Lian Li has gone for steel and plastic. Thankfully, it’s hard to tell because the plastic on these models blends into the case like the Antec Nine Hundred Two (902), but purists to the mother brand will no doubt be up in arms.
The design is more aggressive, with strong lines along the facia, but it still remains simple, with less fridge-like looks. Internally the features are very well thought out – with vibration reduction on just about everything: hard drive racks, quick release optical bay clips and fan mounts. It also has some of the most awesomely engineered aluminium clips for PCI slots we’ve ever seen (yes, we’re still very geeked out by the small things!).
Fan filters sit over every intake, of which there's one 120mm in the front and one in the base for the PSU, three 120mms for the exhaust - two in the top (suitable for potential watercooling) and one in the rear. Lian Li says that the final retail product will be about a centimetre or two longer to accommodate longer graphics cards with PCI-Express connectors at the end, and it will also be slightly taller to accommodate three-way SLI and CrossFire with a dual slot cooler in the very bottom slot; a very good idea for a gaming case.
In addition, Lian Li also has a chubby little mini-ITX case on show too – its tiny in height but it takes a full size ATX or micro-ATX PSU, as well as a full size optical drive and 3.5” and 2.5” hard drive support. So, while not the smallest mini-ITX case available, it’s arguably one of the most feature rich and looks good in its all aluminium design.
Finally, something else that perked our interest was a new external HDD case. It looks similar to the QNAP TS-409 we reviewed last year, but it’s eSATA or USB only for now with a large 120mm fan in the back, although Lian Li do plan to make space for a mini-ITX board making it the most perfect home-brew NAS box we could possibly imagine.
Discuss in the forums.
The DragonLord Dark File PC-K58, Black Wind PC-K60 and Dark Ice PC-K62 might sound like something out of a kids fantasy novel, but they're actually all similar sized midi towers with all-black parts. Instead of the usual aluminium, Lian Li has gone for steel and plastic. Thankfully, it’s hard to tell because the plastic on these models blends into the case like the Antec Nine Hundred Two (902), but purists to the mother brand will no doubt be up in arms.
The design is more aggressive, with strong lines along the facia, but it still remains simple, with less fridge-like looks. Internally the features are very well thought out – with vibration reduction on just about everything: hard drive racks, quick release optical bay clips and fan mounts. It also has some of the most awesomely engineered aluminium clips for PCI slots we’ve ever seen (yes, we’re still very geeked out by the small things!).
Fan filters sit over every intake, of which there's one 120mm in the front and one in the base for the PSU, three 120mms for the exhaust - two in the top (suitable for potential watercooling) and one in the rear. Lian Li says that the final retail product will be about a centimetre or two longer to accommodate longer graphics cards with PCI-Express connectors at the end, and it will also be slightly taller to accommodate three-way SLI and CrossFire with a dual slot cooler in the very bottom slot; a very good idea for a gaming case.
In addition, Lian Li also has a chubby little mini-ITX case on show too – its tiny in height but it takes a full size ATX or micro-ATX PSU, as well as a full size optical drive and 3.5” and 2.5” hard drive support. So, while not the smallest mini-ITX case available, it’s arguably one of the most feature rich and looks good in its all aluminium design.
Finally, something else that perked our interest was a new external HDD case. It looks similar to the QNAP TS-409 we reviewed last year, but it’s eSATA or USB only for now with a large 120mm fan in the back, although Lian Li do plan to make space for a mini-ITX board making it the most perfect home-brew NAS box we could possibly imagine.
Discuss in the forums.
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