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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etamin - Wednesday, September 28, 2011 - link
+1. The light weight is just as obvious...there was no need to make such a big fuss about it like this was the first small all aluminum box madekevith - Wednesday, September 28, 2011 - link
Strength comes from the inside, Dustin, from the inside:-)Nice review.
londiste - Wednesday, September 28, 2011 - link
first, i am admittedly a lian-li fan. however they don't have a single matx case i would really like. all their matx cases are too strange.lian li has some itx cases that would be better built for the purpose of fitting itx hardware (which is what you use) and thus be considerably more suitable. i've assembled a couple of systems with mid-high video cards into their pc-q08 that is frankly excellent for its size. anything without a gpu (or large/hot gpu) will also fit into and stay cool in their smaller cubes just fine (pc-q07 and pc-q11 are the current ones if my memory server me right).
considering the noise/heat situation bad for a case with no fans compared to case with a large 18cm fan is not very fair. 73w processor on an itx board is not a smart thing to do if you're assembling a quiet system. when comaring to temjin, i would be a lot more interesting in how pc-v600f fares - similar size, more traditional layout. or maybe pc-v354.
quibbles, to answer your question about atx case - as we are on the subject of lian li, pc-a05 and its newer derivatives are quite excellent at being simple, light and fairly reasonable size atx cases. price is naturally somewhat outrageous for what you get though (as with anything they produce). the first time i bought one, i had to open up the box immediately as i was afraid it was empty :)
etamin - Wednesday, September 28, 2011 - link
You might want to give the PC-A04B a look. I built one about a month ago and it is literally a shrunken down standard ATX case with a removable hdd cage that allows it to support a full length vga. Extremely quiet with three removable fan filters too...at a very reasonable price.RandomUsername3245 - Wednesday, September 28, 2011 - link
I've got a PC-V351 case, which is very similar to this one but a couple generations older. It's got several fans throughout the case, so the cooling is probably better than this one. It is a relatively light case due to its aluminum construction, but I also think it's rather flimsy. For example, it is very easy to bend one of the side panels when it is taken off the case -- it's just a thin aluminum sheet.Like the review states, if a video card has a top-oriented power connector, it absolutely won't work. I had to return one video card (luckily to a local Microcenter) because of this.
Also, the review suggests that the panel could be attached with screws instead of the clipping mechanism. The PC-V351 uses screws. It uses about 6 tiny flat-head machine screws per side. The case has a clean look, but it's a pain to disassemble vs. something with clips.
The form factor of this case is also a bit strange. It's not a small cube case (it's wider than most full-tower ATX cases that I've seen), but it is much shorter in height. I still think the case looks nice, but after living with it I realized that the extra width (3-4 inches vs. a mid tower) make it less convenient to put under or on a desk -- I think most people could spare an extra few inches in height, but might not have a few extra inches in width beside or on top of their desk for a computer case.
MichaelD - Wednesday, September 28, 2011 - link
Very nice review. I've owned a few LianLi cases and have always been impressed with them. One thing: In the Cooling area of the Specifications chart...I highly doubt this tiny case has 4x120mm fan mounts. Just sayin'.Aikouka - Wednesday, September 28, 2011 - link
I own a few older (about circa 2007), larger Lian-Li cases, and let me tell you. If an intruder comes into my home, I'm just going to take the side panel off my PC-V2000B+ and use it to ward off said intruder. It almost seems like a psychological thing, because the side panels are what we typically work with a lot on a PC, and if they seem flimsy and cheap... what about the rest of the case?My main desktop uses a Corsair Obsidian 800D, and the flimsiness of the side panels is rather bothersome. Although, I think Corsair did that because of the horridly poor design of their (much lauded) cable routing, and the flimsy side panels allows for some flex. The flex is almost necessary as the 24-pin ATX power connector is simply too thick to be routed behind the motherboard. Why don't case manufacturers give us more room in the back if they expect us to route our power cables?
int9 - Wednesday, September 28, 2011 - link
Try adhesive velcro strips for holding down the 24-pin ATX cable. Corsair's 600t case has zip-tie holes punched into the rear plate; I had almost 1-inch of clearance after tying down the power cable.Peroxyde - Wednesday, September 28, 2011 - link
Hi,I have noticed that the heavier the case, the quieter it is. If this case is too light, would it be subject to more vibration noises?
Can you please confirm? And more generally, what are the most important factors to have the quietest case?
Thanks for any advice.
Flagrant - Wednesday, September 28, 2011 - link
I have the v352 which is almost the same as this new version. The differences are cosmetic, there is a lot more ventilation with all the tiny holes on the v353. V353 have snap on side panels while mine has a lot of tiny screws. I prefer the tiny screws just for peace of mind and since I won’t be swapping out components, but I prefer the exterior look of the v353 over mine.It took me almost a week to put mine together. I spent an hour every evening to work on it and cable management took the longest time. The most painful part of the install is having to almost always remove the motherboard panel completely to get inside the case which also meant I had to unplug almost all the cables.
After the install however I have to say I am very happy with the look and size of the case. Now I can put it on my desk and it looks very nice. Actually would have loved to consider the Silverstone case mentioned in this article. But I had the impression Silverstone is too expensive and I had a budget with this build.
I think the reviewer would have given a much more favorable review if he was able to consider every component going into the tiny case and make it a complete new build with a decent graphics card. I had a lot of fun filling up this case even tho it took awhile.