Lian Li PC-A55 Case Review: Unfortunate Name Befits the Design
by Dustin Sklavos on June 16, 2012 12:30 PM EST- Posted in
- Cases/Cooling/PSUs
- mid-tower
- Lian Li
- ATX
Introducing the Lian Li PC-A55
Marking our fifth venture into Lian Li territory in recent years, the PC-A55 enclosure we have on hand is another unique, slightly-off-the-wall design from a company we've come to expect this kind of thinking from. After all, at Computex they were showing off a case with 26 3.5" bays and another one that looks like a small train. It's not unreasonable to expect some unique cases from Lian Li, and the PC-A55 is definitely one.
What Lian Li has attempted to achieve with the PC-A55 is essentially to make a full ATX enclosure as small as humanly possible while still being easy to build and service. In some ways they've definitely achieved this, but a lot of sacrifices had to be made to get the PC-A55 to where it is and unfortunately, we're not sure they were worth it.
Before we get deeper into the review, yes, the Lian Li PC-A55 has a very unfortunate name for anyone familiar with leetspeak. Those of you with a juvenile sense of humor (like me, for example), are probably going to enjoy this review tremendously. I'm not sure how to address this otherwise; I need to refer to the model name to write the review, so hopefully we can get through this with a minimum of tittering and focus on the enclosure at hand.
Lian Li's design borrows a bit from Silverstone in that it's intended to be vertically cooled; air is drawn in from the bottom of the enclosure and out of the top. With Silverstone's cases, this is often very effective, but in my experience it has less to do with natural convection and much more to do with the clear path air has to move through the heat-generating components. Part of the reason why the FT02 is one of the best air cooling enclosures around (if not the best) is because air has a straight shot from the bottom intake up through the (preferably tower) CPU cooler and out of the top of the case, with virtually no obstructions. As you'll see, the PC-A55 doesn't share this crucial design point.
Lian Li PC-A55 Specifications | ||
Motherboard Form Factor | Mini-ITX, Micro ATX, ATX | |
Drive Bays | External | 1x 5.25” |
Internal | 2x 3.5", 2x 2.5" | |
Cooling | Front | - |
Rear | - | |
Top | 1x 140mm exhaust fan | |
Side | - | |
Bottom | 1x 140mm intake fan | |
Expansion Slots | 7 | |
I/O Port | 2x USB 3.0, 1x Headphone, 1x Mic | |
Power Supply Size | Standard ATX | |
Clearances | HSF | 150 mm |
PSU | 160 mm | |
GPU | 12.2" / 310mm | |
Weight | 4.1kg / 9 lbs. | |
Dimensions |
9.64" x 17.6" x 20.39" 245mm x 447mm x 518mm |
|
Special Features |
USB 3.0 connectivity via internal header All-aluminum build |
|
Price | $109 |
Lian Li advertises the PC-A55 as having a single USB 3.0 port and a single USB 2.0 port hidden under a door on the top of the case, but this is incorrect; the two ports share a single USB 3.0 internal motherboard header, and despite being black, the so-called USB 2.0 port does function at USB 3.0 speeds. Why they took the time to do this and advertise them as being different is beyond me.
As a whole, the PC-A55 is small and light, but because it supports ATX motherboards it's not quite small enough to notice the difference between a slightly larger, more standardized ATX case. Just the same, when we pop it open and assemble it we'll see that Lian Li made every single interior inch count; this really is about as small as they can get it while still accommodating ATX.
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Iketh - Saturday, June 16, 2012 - link
I already have 3 HDDs installed, why do I need the cage?Iketh - Saturday, June 16, 2012 - link
BTW, that's a passively cooled 2600k @ 4.3GHz at 79C with prime load WITH THE DOORS OFFhowever, evo + 2600k is lapped
Olaf van der Spek - Saturday, June 16, 2012 - link
Passive? As in no fans at all?Without the cage the case looks good.
wifiwolf - Sunday, June 17, 2012 - link
Doesn't seem right to passively cool the cpu and have fan in the front and back.The noise will still be there, having a low noise cpu fan there wouldn't add any noticeable noise
Iketh - Sunday, June 17, 2012 - link
then i guess when i tested the noise levels with and without and found a very noticeable improvement, i must be absolutely incompetent to make the judgement... thank you for showing me the path wifiwolfdoctormonroe - Saturday, June 16, 2012 - link
PC-X500/PC-X500FX in the mATX formfactor would be brilliant, hopefully it would be cheaper as well...etamin - Saturday, June 16, 2012 - link
I've been wondering why Lian Li (or any other company) hasn't employed the 90 degree rotated design that Silverstone uses. Is it under patent protection?InterClaw - Saturday, June 16, 2012 - link
It seems like a major mistake to not let the PSU get its own air from the front, especially since it dumps its hot air at the bottom of the case. The way it is now it just recycles its own hot air. Genius... This is beside all the other cooling problems what with the GFX blocking the flow.Dustin, I'm curious though why you mounted the CPU cooler horizontally and not vertically to help the airflow along. Was it not possible or is that deviating from the testing methodology since the heat sink might perform differently after being reseated?
RanDum72 - Saturday, June 16, 2012 - link
I cannot believe that the case designers never thought about where the PSU exhaust is going to come out. The heat generated by the PSU is dumped inside the case. They could have drilled some holes that aligns with the PSU exhaust but even that will also be picked up by the bottom fan and thrown back into the case. All form, no function.kesbar - Saturday, June 16, 2012 - link
after looking at the thermal results, the PC-A55 has carpet burn.