Introduction

The rig I work and game on day to day just happens to be very large. The TJ11 I use offers me plenty of room for everything I need to do and some. This leads me to where we are going today, but way on the opposite end of the size scale. No matter how much stuff I jam into my main rig, I am always more impressed with what you can do these days with something in the Small Form Factor category. Lower powered and even more high end CPUs have the option to run on some mini-ITX motherboards. We have seen my ZOTAC many times before as a low powered example, but these days I can put a 2600K on a ZOTAC and run that to power my media center and offer a lot more options than my Atom powered solution brings to the table. I am always game for something I can put that board into, and also brings us to why you are here.

The PC-Q series from Lian Li have all been small in stature and along the lines improvements and new ideas are incorporated. What we are about to see does get most of its inspiration from the PC-Q11. The idea seems to have been to strip the PC-Q11 of the front I/O and external bays and leave a smooth undisturbed front panel in its place. Internally a few more changes are made, such as the drive bays, but they do keep some of the old mixed in as well. Don't think this is a complete rehash. Even though the idea of why something is there is the same, the way in which it is mounted or how it installs may be a complete turnaround.

As you already know if you had read the title, we are going to be looking at the latest addition to the Mini-Q cases. I mentioned that this is a more simplified external design and may not be for gamers or those who demand a ton of connectivity, or even demand access to an optical device. To me, the way to look at this case is something you might add a handle to for a LAN event or a trip over to your friends house for some old school home LAN action, at least that is how I see a gamer using this. For me this chassis is more intended to be used in a HTPC environment, on a very sophisticated desktop with an aluminum keyboard and exotic wood pen set, or maybe as a media streaming rig sitting on the floor next to your desk. Now that we sort of have a grip on what we are about to see, I say we do just that.