14 DAY TRIAL // Cases are all well and good, but most of them are usually little more than rehashings of previous design elements. Lian Li wanted to break away from that trend at least somewhat, so it listened to prospective customers when it made the PC-A51.
It's not really that surprising to hear of Lian Li doing this, given the way it first drew attention to the existence of its business.
Perhaps knowing that it won't really turn heads by doing what everyone else was doing, Lian Li started out back in 2010 with a spider-shaped, crimson enclosure, called PITSTOP PC-T1.
The company proceeded to invent several more bizarre cases, before it finally started to deal in more common designs.
The new PC-A51 is one such design, although Lian Li still took liberties with the internal drive bays.
In fact, it came up with a new HDD/SSD mounting system that lets buyers mount either 3.5-inch or 2.5-inch units on the five removable HDD bays.
And by removable we mean just that: the trays themselves are removable, individually, not in multi-drive cages or anything of the sort.
Moreover, if you remove the bays you can still mount up to three 2.5-inch drives on the tray, thus providing more space for airflow. A 2.5-inch drive can be mounted behind the motherboard tray.
That said, the newcomer also benefits from a reverse airflow design, which pulls cool air into the case from the 120 mm rear fan instead of the front.
The 140 mm front fan, above the PSU (also at the front) pulls the hot air out of the case. The bottom of the case can hold an additional 120 mm or 140 mm fan.
Furthermore, CPU coolers as tall as 175 mm / 6.8 inches are supported, along with PSUs of up to 160 mm (6.2 inches) and video cards up to 400 mm / 15.7 inches in length. Finally, a 240/280 mm radiator can be installed at the top if you remove the panel there (no tools required).
Lian Li will ship in North America colored silver and black ($149 / €149), black with side window ($189 / €189 ) and red + black with side window ($199 / €199). Only the last one will come out in April. The others will ship this month (February 2014).
