FRONTPAGE Lian Li PC-V750 Case Review

What's in a case? Well, a computer, that's what...but what's <i>existentially</i> in a case? Form? Function? Airflow? All of the above? That's usually what Lian Li tries to pull off with their creations. It's hard to say no when they offer to let you look at their latest E-ATX case, so that's what we're bringing you today - a look at their new PC-V750. It's a normal case, but with a twist; the power supply goes in the front. Will it work? Let's find out.

Click to expand...

... Return to article to continue reading.

Nice review, Jeremy. I love Lian Li cases and that one is seriously incredible, at least from my eyes. The side panel mechanism is just lovely. I think you could connect a 2.5" drive into a 3.5" hot-swap bay using a proper adapter, not the ones provided by the SSD manufacturers, my 800D has hot-swap bays that are compatible with both 3.5" and 2.5".

Speaking of the eSATA... that thing is as neglected as the button nine on the microwave. I've NEVER used it, and I always found it a design failure when someone, for example, ASUS, removed a SATA port from the board to put it there at the back panel, and giving the board some third party (read, usually bad) ports instead. I am against that. It's even more frustrating when the ports are not powered eSATA but plain old eSATA. At least, if it was powered, and you could hotswap a HDD with a single cable, it would be useful.

If I was the designer of that case, I'd have dropped that eSATA for a USB2. They're just more useful than eSATA.

I use eSata A LOT! When USB 3.0 is very new and prior to that I bought usb enclosures that had eSata connectors because the difference in performance was very noticeable. Now that USB 3.0 is out I think that eSata should lay down and die LOL. I am perfectly happy with esata being on the back of my motherboard and not on the front of my case. Also as far as P-eSata goes I lost a Western Digital Caviar Black because of a cheaply made P-eSata connecter. The connecter was cheap brittle plastic and it broke and power arced on the HD. Thanks a lot! There's also no high quality P-eSata connectors out there!

One additional note I'd like to add that wasn't mentioned in the review is the fact that when you mount the power supply, you had better be sure to set the switch in the ON position because otherwise, you won't be able to get to it. This is one feature I wasn't too pleased about since it means having to yank the cord from the surge protector or back of the case to cut the power to the rig, which is not a big deal, but one that should be taken into account.

I have the black version with side window, and I didn't know there were LEDs that were supposed to light up on the front panel power, reset buttons, because on my model, they don't work or are not there.

Before I got my NAS, I used eSATA a lot, since I used several external drives for backups, and well, moving uncompressed DVD rips over USB2 wasn't exactly fun. Haven't used it recently though since I have my NAS and my desktop has USB3.

But good review for a good looking case. Only thing I don't like is the price - $400 shipped? No thanks

Yeah, I won't deny that the price sure is steep for an aluminum box, and at the time, I was thinking I probably spent more for a case than has ever been spent by anyone on the planet, then after some time on OCF, I realized there are a couple places like Mountain Mods and Case Labs with cases that far exceed the price of Lian li. I didn't feel so bad after seeing that. After getting and working with this case, I have no regrets on what I paid for it as I can see myself using it over and over for future builds.

The real beauty of this case is its depth from front to back, as opposed to most cases which are either cramped or are very tall but not deep and wide. This leaves you plenty of room for mounting radiators at the top or using the rear exhaust to mount one such as the H80 without being too close or restricting access to motherboard RAM and other inputs. Virtually any long extended graphics card now or in the future is no issue either as is the issue with some cases where they may be too close to drive cages.
Having a front mounted PSU (at the bottom) is also a very good design feature since this puts the motherboard power connections much closer to the PSU outputs instead of having power cables go across your motherboard or routing them through the back with extensions. This also makes access to graphics cards/PCI slots and the ability to use more of them easy with their power connections also closer to the PSU outputs.

I have this case paired with the XL-ATX MSI Big Bang XPower II. I just wanted to let the Internets know that the motherboard has 12 mounting holes and for whatever reason there are only 11 on the case, so the bottom right corner will be unsupported unless you mod the motherboard tray and add another stand-off. It hasn't been an issue yet as the bottom right corner of the board only has SATA and front panel connectors, which won't change that much after the initial build.

Lian Li PC-V750

I will plant a mobo ASUS Z9PE-D8 WS into Lian Li PC-V750,
I need to know if this casing suited for cooler 2 x CORSAIR Hydro H110.
thx n rgds
donie

I would measure the holes first. Since the H110 is likely the typical 140mm radiator fan spacing, chances are you'll run into the same problem I did and have to...'edit'...a couple of the holes to be able to mount it.