Lian Li's PC-V353: Lighter Than Air
by Dustin Sklavos on September 28, 2011 4:30 AM EST- Posted in
- Cases/Cooling/PSUs
- MicroATX
- SFF
- Lian Li
- Mini-Tower
Conclusion: Only if You Plan to Move It
I was honestly really looking forward to getting Lian Li's hardware in house. The company is held in high esteem, and their case designs are both well regarded and oftentimes very unique. I actually have two more cases en route that look to be extremely interesting to review, but the PC-V353 seems like a miss.
Like many, I fear change and the unknown, and that's a small part of why the PC-V353 just didn't work for me. Deviations from traditional enclosure design should never feel arbitrary: they should either feel like an experiment or at least like a smart and intuitive alternative to existing approaches and design tenets. I don't think a side-mounted optical drive is necessarily a bad idea, for example. Virtually no one keeps their tower directly in front of them at home, so it would make sense to be able to mount the drive to the side. The problem is that the PC-V353 doesn't make a very convincing argument for the change, either, and it actually comes more at a detriment to aesthetics. Given the button placement on the PC-V353 (along with its generally diminutive stature), it seems like the case is designed to be placed on your desk, in which case having the ports and optical drive in the front would actually make more sense.
There's also the wasted case depth. While video cards that connect their power leads from the back are probably going to be fine, ones that connect from the top may run into serious problems. Likewise, given the way everything is perforated, wouldn't it make more sense to vent the side where the video card's fan is going to be? Blower-type coolers will probably be okay, but other ones are liable to be that much more problematic.
Finally, there's the asking price. $169 for the PC-V353 is just way too much. It's a nice and unique piece of aluminum, tremendously light and easy to move, but this case honestly would fare a lot better with fans. Lian Li offers the appropriate fan mounts, yet at this price I feel like optional fans should at least be included. SilverStone's Temjin TJ08-E is $69 less and performs better in every metric except weight and overall size. The PC-V353 isn't necessarily a bad case (there are no bad products, only bad prices), but for the price you just don't get enough. Unless you're married to the aluminum finish or want a new case to tinker with and modify, I'd recommend looking elsewhere in Lian Li's line.
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Dustin Sklavos - Wednesday, September 28, 2011 - link
The perspective in that pic is a little off. A standard GTX 580 does not fit, and in fact I mentioned this in the review.Hargak - Wednesday, September 28, 2011 - link
the new gtx 570 are shorter and would fit, you could run them in SLI although they recycle air with the centered fan (vs venting out the rear) they would fit. That would be quite a power house. I have a PC-Q11R (Red) with a 2600k and a GTX 570 in it. Now that's compact firepower.JarredWalton - Wednesday, September 28, 2011 - link
Even if they would fit, though, running such a config in this type of case is just asking for problems. I have 5870 CrossFire in a normal size Lian Li case (PC7 I think), and the mobo slots are only separated by a single PCIe x1 slot. The top card gets up to 100C during gaming and ends up overheating and throttling, and often crashing the games. I had to underclock to get things stable. I can't imagine what would happen in a cramped chassis like this running two adjacent high-end GPUs (without doing something like water-cooling).onetwistedsoul - Wednesday, September 28, 2011 - link
Dustin, after reading your article I was thinking "Hmmm, well done". At least until I reached this particularly insightful sentence:"Like most middle class white males, I fear change and the unknown, ..."
Really? How stupid a comment can one make and not be edited out by a superior?
BPB - Wednesday, September 28, 2011 - link
Agreed. What a stupid comment. How about I reply in kind and call it a typical PC (no pun intended) comment by a middle class white wimp. I'm thinking you probably don't swing your legs over a dirt bike at the end of the day and spend a few hours racing in the dirt with a bunch of middle class white guys. Or strapping on some skates and banging bodies with a bunch of middle class white guys hitting a rubber slab with a stick. Me thinks somebody at AT fancies himself more than a tech writer.IlllI - Wednesday, September 28, 2011 - link
you must be a republicanMonkeyPaw - Wednesday, September 28, 2011 - link
Please no.MilwaukeeMike - Wednesday, September 28, 2011 - link
Or a Human, since being afraid of the unknown is human nature. It's why kids are afraid of the dark and the eldery prefer a rigid daily routine. We wouldn't want common sense to get in the way of a good jab though, right, Illll?Skott - Wednesday, September 28, 2011 - link
Yeah, when I saw that line too my thought was why is a guy like this writing a PC case review? I don't know if it was an attempt at some kind of humor or what but it makes Dustin look bad as a person and a reviewer. Kinda kills his credibility IMO.JarredWalton - Wednesday, September 28, 2011 - link
Edited sentence. I'm a middle class white male as well, and it didn't offend me, but I was also tired -- our admin section was down for several hours yesterday so my final read of the last two pages was a little later than I wanted. But seriously, to say that a statement like that "kills his credibility"? Please. It might make you not like him I suppose, or think he's completely politically incorrect, but it doesn't change the content of the review.