Introduction

Lian-Li has been making high end enthusiast cases for years now, anybody looking for light weight aluminum cases with excellent classy design will have stumbled upon the name. Today we feature our first in-house Lian-Li case reviews with help of PC-Cooling.de.

The PC-7 mid-tower case series is arguably their most popular enclosure, the latest version brings it up to III, this SE unit we have in for testing comes in black brushed aluminum, it’s also available in silver color. PC-Cooling sends the case in its original cardboard box, which has the necessary info printed on the outside:



We found the case inside in excellent condition with no damage from transport.

Specifications

Lian-Li maximizes the space inside the mid-tower, limiting weight and finding a balance between functionality and looks, here are the details:



Those wondering what’s different between the PC-7 SE-B II and PC-7 SE-B III, the answer is: not much. PC-Cooling sells both at the same price of €99. They come without power supply and physically they have the same dimensions, number of drive bays and looks.

The difference is in the details; from the outside you can notice it from the top:


II on the left, IIII on the right

Where as the PC-7 SE-B II has a top 80mm exhaust (and optional fan mount), the SE-B III has no fan hole in the top panel that corresponds; instead you get a grill over the PSU area, allowing hot air to escape, or the PSU to draw in cool(er) air.

The inside differs only in the HDD bay area, where as the II version requires screws to install the HDDs, the III does away with that and incorporates a larger bay with vibration noise reducing HDD mounting rubbers.


II on the left, IIII on the right

Let’s compare size and take a closer look ->

Size comparison

Comparing the Lian-Li PC-7 SE-B III to the other cases we have reviewed in the past it’s no surprise that height wise this mid-tower is one of the smaller contenders. While this does limit the expandability options and/or water-cooling options inside the case, for most systems, the diminutive size will not pose a problem.

Compared to a 1m80 human, here’s how the cases stack up in height and width:



The remaining size specification, depth, is most important for high end VGA cards and you’ll see here that the PC-7 is far from the smallest:



Look Outside

The PC-7 series follows the classic Lian-Li design choices, a sober front with nicely integrated power/reset buttons; the side panel reveals an extra in-take.



The front panel’s top strip features a “carbon-fiber” like finishing, with the camera’s flash it stands out a lot, in natural lighting however it’s hardly noticeable.



Moving on to the back of the case, we can see the 120mm exhaust fan, PC-7 features classic ATX rules, PSU at the top. Thumbscrews are used for both side panels, the side panel in-take (more on that later) and the PSU mounting bracket.



Flipping the case on its side, we can see the silver color bottom panel, and four black plastic feet, these are from hard plastic and will transfer vibrations to the underlying surface.



Last noteworthy feature at the outside are the I/O ports, they haven’t moved place since the PC-7 series was launched, this is unfortunately, because at the bottom of the front panel they are not easily accessible, unless you place the tower on your desk.

You get two USB ports, Firewire and mic/headphone:



A look inside now ->

Look inside

Removing the side panels is easy and tool-less, once done you get a good view of the interior design. Most of the interior layout will be familiar who has ever opened an ATX case, HDD bay at the front bottom, PSU at the rear top. The PC-7 SE-B III features an extra in-take from the side panel, a metal bracket holds one 120mm fan, and this bracket can be removed tool-less as it’s held in place by 4 thumbscrews.

We could find no sharp edges; the only danger area has been protected with a plastic strip.



Inside the case you’ll find a small box which holds a manual and the necessary screws to install hardware:



You also get this imbus tool used to install the motherboard stand offs; the photo below also shows you the PCI slot cover plates, they are held in place by screws, no tool-less features for this.



The hard drive bay is held in place by a thumbscrew, after removing that, you can slide it out; optionally you can change the orientation of the HDD bay:



Cooling

Lian-Li sells this case with three 120mm fans pre-installed, these fans are very quiet at only 1000rpm, you do need 3-pin connectors as no 4-pin adapter is included.

The front fan features a dust filter which can be removed and cleaned out, to access it you need to pull away the front panel:



Strangely enough, the side panel in-take does not feature a dust filter, which make it kind of a waste to have in the front, as dust will now get inside the case from the side panel… The bracket could easily be equipped with a dust filter too. The thumbscrews you see in the photo below allow you to move the fan left/right according to where you need the airflow most.



Time to install some hardware ->

Installation

With the abundance of thumbscrews installation is easy and straightforward, while there are screws to be tightened with a screwdriver, they are in easily accessible places. It starts with the power supply, first you remove the bracket which is held in place by four thumbscrews, then you screw that bracket to your PSU and slide in the PSU, then re-screw the thumbscrews in place and you’re done.



The PC-7 SE-B III will have no problem fitting the largest power supplies, as you have most of the length of the case available.



Next up it’s time for the CD/DVD-rom drive, this one needs to be screwed tight, first you remove the front panel, which gives you access to the 5.25” bay covers, they are not held in place by screws and be easily removed and reinstalled as needed.



The hard drive bay is a custom design; it can hold a total of 3 drives, although its size would lead you to believe that you can fit 4. The reason for the -1 is the rubber mounting ring method, not hard to explain, you screw these 4 custom rings onto the hard drive,



And then you slide the hard drive in the bay and push it down a bit for a good fit. If you plan to move the case around a lot, you can secure the HDDs with 2 extra screws at the side.



After installing the motherboard standoffs you install the board and PCIe/PCI cards. Then you replace the side fan bracket, and you’re done.

Test Setup and Test Methodology

Intel Test Setup
CPU	Intel Core 2 E6400 @ 2.8Ghz (from CSMSA)
Cooling	Coolermaster Hyper TX
Mainboard	Intel 975X Bad Axe (Modded by Piotke)
Memory	2 * 1Gb PC6400 OCZ
Other	XFX Geforce 8800 GTX Coolermaster Real Power M520 520W PSU 2x Western Digital 74Gb Raptor SATA HDD

Room temperature was 20°C during testing, ambient noise clocked in at 37.8dBA. Noise measurements were taken at 50cm from the front of the case.

Realtime HDR and Orthos were used to stress the Dual Core system; Core 2 Temp was used to monitor Core temperature (duh) and Speedfan to check the temperature of HDD and Motherboard. Rivatuner’s temp monitor checked the G80 GPU at regular intervals. Maximum values were recorded.

The Intel Bax Axe motherboard features several thermal sensors, the “mobo” values are those recorded by the sensor which can be found between the DDR2 memory banks, marked A in the overview:



Cable routing & Fitting larger video cards

We found enough room behind the HDD bay, motherboard plate and 5.25” bays to hide most overly long cables, so airflow will not be restricted a lot here:



In order to fit a large 8800 GTX video card we had to turn the HDD bay 90°, so that it faces the side panel, this allowed room for the GTX to fit without interfering with the SATA/power cables:



The case is wide enough as to accommodate the side panel fan bracket and large video cards (in height), we moved the fan towards the rear of the bracket to cover the in-take of the 8800 GTX cooling fan.



Onto the performance tests ->

Performance Tests

Our stress tests compare the cooling performance of the enclosure with the standard included fans to that of all previous cases we have tested with the same hardware since January 2007. We test with different fan configurations to measure the impact; in case of the Lian-Li PC-7 SE-B III we hooked up the 3x120mm to a 5.25” fan controller which allowed us full control from 0 to 12v;

These are three test configurations we used:

• All three fans at maximum speed (Front/Rear/Side)
  
• Two fans at maximum speed, third disabled (Front/Rear)
  
• Only one fan at maximum speed, the other two disabled (Rear)

These are the results:



The results of the Lian-Li case might be misleading so let us explain further, with all three fans enabled all components inside remain quite cool, the VGA is running at 81°C but the GTX fan is running at only 71% speed, this results in total system noise of ~41.3dBA, so very quiet!

Second test with the side panel disabled causes a noticeable increase in CPU/Mobo temp, the VGA temperature drops however, but this is misleading, since the inside of the case is now hotter the GTX’s fan ramps up to 84% and thus cools better but at the same time noise increases too, up to 43.1dBA.

The last test with a single 120mm fan (at 1000rpm) doesn’t change the outcome much, CPU, mobo and VGA remain almost the same (VGA now at 87% fan speed), the HDD bay is now noticeable hotter though, 38°C vs 33°C.

In conclusion of the tests we found no advantage in disabling any of the 120mm fans, as even with all of them running the noise level remained low enough to not be disturbing.

Conclusive Thoughts

Our first review of a Lian-Li case result in overall good impression, the reviewed PC-7 enclosure lives up the Lian-Li name of quality at affordable prices. The latest incarnation of the series dubbed PC-7 SE-B III adds a noise vibration reduction system for hard drives, an exhaust grill at the top and does away with the noisier 80mm top fan. Instead you get three low noise 120mm fans pre-installed which offer an excellent performance/noise ratio, keeping high end components installed inside at cool operating temperatures.



With a retail price tag of €99 @ PC-Cooling.de (~$100 in the USA) without power supply this Lian-Li is quite affordable being a high quality brushed aluminum enclosure. While there are cheaper mid-tower cases on the market which offer similar features/performance, none are made of light-weight aluminum at this price level.

If you’re in the market for a new mid-size tower case and want a classy classic design which keeps the latest hardware cool, the PC-7 SE-B III should be on your shortlist.


Lian-Li PC-7 SE-B III Recommended for


With a touch of class

We like to thank Do-Woon from PC-Cooling.de for setting us with a review unit.