I had spotted a pic or two of new Lian Li cases at Computex but it’s taken until now to get information about them. Tom’s Hardware has the details and they look intriguing.
First is the PC-Q22, pictured above. It is a 2-slot Mini-ITX case with room for two 2.5″ drives, a single 3.5″ drive, and a 240mm rad. As mentioned in the title, it only takes SFX/SFX-L power supplies. Tom’s Hardware mentions that the PSU is mounted in the front, which it’d have to be given that the rear of the case is dominated by the motherboard IO cutout, the two expansion slots, and a large vented area (which strangely does not seem to have mounting holes for 92mm fans). What I’m not sure on is whether the PSU is mounted up high like the NCASE M1 or lower down closer to the front IO.
The M1 has the PSU up high to allow a long video card to fit underneath it but I’m not sure if the PC-Q22 went that route. The front IO looks to be at a height off the bottom of the case that it would interfere with really long cards. So my suspicion is the PSU is positioned closer to the middle of the front in order to make room between the PSU and the roof of the case. The reason for this would be to free up the entire top of the case for the 240mm radiator. We’ll have to wait for more pictures of the case from different angles and with the side panel off to be sure though.
Speaking of the side panel, it looks like the window is tempered glass given the thickness of the material. My estimation of the dimensions are 290mm x 170mm x 350mm (HxWxD) for a volume of ~17L.
The next case, the PC-Q37, is basically Lian Li’s take on the Corsair Air 240 but shorter in height and depth for Mini-ITX motherboards and slimmer in width by ditching ATX power supply support and going SFX/SFX-L only. The Tom’s Hardware post states that video cards up to 390mm are supported but that’s incorrect because by my measurement the case is only 330-340mm deep. Height is ~330mm and width is ~230mm, for a volume of ~25L.
The last case isn’t particularly interesting for SFF enthusiasts from a size perspective since it’s somewhere around 45 liters. But the PC-O10 is fascinating to me in that it also sticks to SFX/SFX-L form factor power supplies despite being an ATX case. This is a great example of the advantage the smaller PSU form factor can bring to even ATX cases, because normally these dual-chamber cases are fairly wide but by eschewing ATX PSUs Lian Li was able to save 20mm on the width and keep the proportions looking relatively slim.
With this new case in their portfolio, the Lian Li PE-750 750W SFX-L power supply makes much more sense as a complementary product. This is something I wish SilverStone would do, they have a 700W SFX-L and they just announced a 800W Titanium-rated SFX-L unit but they don’t have any cases that really take advantage of such high wattages. Hopefully we’ll see more cases like the PC-O10 in the future to drive development of the SFX and SFX-L form factors.
Thoughts? Discuss them in the forum here.
