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  • johnhopfensperger - Friday, February 14, 2014 - link

    Just turn the 2 fans around and you've got yourself a perfectly good case.
  • piroroadkill - Friday, February 14, 2014 - link

    Yup, that's what I thought too.
  • CrimsonFury - Saturday, February 15, 2014 - link

    Except it has worse temps that way around. Your intake air is hitting the HDDs first and being impeded by the drives & cages resulting in less cool air on the CPU. Also the front intake will be fighting with the PSU exaust.

    Lian-Li have made cases with this layout before and it has been proven to be effective. People have tried reversing the fans and had worse temps. The actual impact of GPU exhaust going into CPU intake is negligible on temps (1-2 degrees at most).
  • SirKnobsworth - Saturday, February 15, 2014 - link

    Did you read the article? The front is going to be an outlet while cool air is sucked in through the back.
  • Wardrop - Saturday, February 15, 2014 - link

    Did you read his comment? He's talking about the result of *reversing* the fans.
  • SirKnobsworth - Sunday, February 16, 2014 - link

    My mistake. I read the comment but not the context.
  • JlHADJOE - Saturday, February 15, 2014 - link

    I'm thinking top, rear and front intake, bottom exit.
  • kwrzesien - Monday, February 17, 2014 - link

    Then you would have a Silverstone FT-01.
  • csroc - Friday, February 14, 2014 - link

    This reminds me of my PC-V1100B+ II (I think that was the mouthful of a name)... weird airflow designs. The 1100 had a rear intake and a side exhaust. The rear, also being where the GPU and PSU exhausted, seemed like a silly place for an intake. I reversed it and turned it in to side intake and rear exhaust and enjoyed it that way for years.
  • GokieKS - Friday, February 14, 2014 - link

    I've been interested in this case ever since they put it up on their blog and asked people for feedback. A mATX case that supports 240mm radiators seems perfect for a compact single GPU system using the Swiftech H220/Cooler Master Glacer 240L CLCs that can be expanded to include the GPU. Not so sure about the reverse airflow thing, but like other have said, that's something that can easily be switched by the user.
  • GokieKS - Friday, February 14, 2014 - link

    *Designed for mATX, rather. This case will fit an ATX board, but the size is really much more suited for a mATX build.
  • CrimsonFury - Saturday, February 15, 2014 - link

    LOL. 44L is MASSIVE for mATX. Putting a smaller board inside won't make it less cramped, because the expansion slot area isn't the part that's cluttered. This case is actually quite easy to work on compared to compact mATX cases.
  • anonymous_user - Friday, February 14, 2014 - link

    It'll be interesting to see how well this case can handle thermal loads.
  • The PC Apologist - Friday, February 14, 2014 - link

    The exhaust of blower-style video cards reentering the case through the rear intake is an excellent observation Ian. Did Lian Li offer any explanation or reason as to why the case is designed this way? Because if this is nothing more than a gimmick (which it would appear), then shame on Lian Li.
  • JBVertexx - Friday, February 14, 2014 - link

    Ahhh, Lian-Li. I love Lian-Li cases, but they always have a fatal flaw. Usually it's ventilation. This one has two. First, ventilation. How on earth did they come up with the convoluted ventilation flow. At first glance, you might think it's easy enough to reverse it. Problem is, you'll be sucking in PSU exhaust right into the front intake, although that's probably better than sucking in hot GPU blower exaust into the rear.

    This case would actually work better with a non-blower GPU. I would setup a negative pressure flow with cool are coming in the back and bottom (there is a fitting for a 120 or 140mm fan in the bottom under the GPU) and blowing out the top and front.

    But that now brings me to the 2nd fatal flaw. A 2nd GPU would be limited to 240mm (9.44in) in length due to the PSU, and that is not even accounting for cable or modular plug-in space.

    To make that work, Lian-Li would have had to pull Silverstone-like acrobatics with it's component arrangement. I think moving the PSU to the top front would be an innovation that would work well with airflow as well as optimizing expansion room.

    Overall, it's a heartache, because this case is beautifully designed, and I would buy it in a heartbeat. Unfortunately, the flaws make it so it just won't work. Damn.
  • flemeister - Saturday, February 15, 2014 - link

    I think they got it right with the PC-A05N (reverse/inverted ATX layout), where the PSU is in line with the CPU part of the motherboard, and the graphics cards are only limited by the 5.25" bays. If they had kept the same inverted ATX design with this PC-A51, then graphics card clearance would be limited only by the 3.5" drive trays. =)

    Anandtech reviewed the PC-A05FN, which has a normal motherboard orientation. Here's a review and interior shots of the PC-A05N: http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/LianLi/PC-A05N/...
  • Gsa700 - Saturday, February 15, 2014 - link

    You guys are forgetting the dual fans at the top. You can set up an AIO 2x240 at the top as intake, and the front and rear fans as exhaust, or whatever.....
  • iTzSnypah - Saturday, February 15, 2014 - link

    Take the feet off the bottom, put them on the front. Reverse the fans then put the case on its face an viola, everything solved; except you can't add a second GPU.
  • Charles6616Anand - Monday, February 17, 2014 - link

    air comes in through the rear 120mm fan, passes through the CPU cooler (make sure it is mounted the right way, this should also give the bigger temperature delta between hot/cold), I can see this being true for the processor, Would really like to see an study for the reverse air flow and its effect on the graphics card! Low power processors have no where near the cooling needs of the Graphics cards!
  • lgeorg - Tuesday, March 18, 2014 - link

    How about reversing the front fan as intake, put 140mm fans in the bottom and top and leave the rear fan as intake. That way the case draws cold air in from the rear(to cpu), the front(to hdd+gpu), and bottom(to gpu) and exhaust it from the top.

    Or you could leave the front fan as exhaust if the bottom fan provides enough cooling to the gpu

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