SUMMARY: Lian-Li (pronounced "Liann Lee") are known for producing a range of high quality and attractive aluminium cases for the enthusiast user. Aluminium cases are set aside from the rest for their ease of modifying and improved heat dissipation over cheaper cases. Lian-Li have cases ranging from fully decked out server towers, to mid towers with factory installed window sides and all the way down to mini towers, as well as various other accessories. Today Asher "Acid" Moses takes a look at the compact Lian-Li PC30 Mini-Tower case, does it have what it takes to house your precious parts? Read on and find out!
Removing the front bezel reveals two 80mm ADDA fans located towards the bottom of the case. These fans draw cool air from the outside of the case onto the hard drives that are located in the 3-bay cage. The fans are covered by a dust guard to stop dust from building up in the mechanics of the fan, however, this can be easily removed for those of you that require maximum airflow.
To give you a size comparison to a mid-tower case, I placed the PC30 next to my Lian-Li PC65. As you can see, the PC30 is slightly smaller than the PC65 height-wise, but what you can't tell from the picture is the difference in depth. Both cases have identical depths, which is due to the fact that both of them are ATX spec cases. If you require a more compact desktop case, I suggest you take a look at something of the MicroATX spec. However, don't expect to find MicroATX motherboards that are as high quality and feature packed as ATX motherboards.
Due to the case being so small, the power supply unit needs to be mounted vertically rather than the usual horizontal mounting. This means that the PSU sits directly on top of the CPU and on some motherboards, the memory slots as well. This can be very tedious when adding or removing hardware, however, it is really unavoidable with such a small case. To counter this problem, the case features a removable motherboard tray.
