PC-Q01 Mini-ITX Prototype - Give Us Your Feedback

[Lian Li Tech]

Hey guys,

Thanks everyone for your input on the PC-Q33 chassis, if you still have some ideas or feedback for that please feel free to do so.

We do have another aluminum ITX case we are working on, and we would love to hear your feedback on this one too. Tell us what you like and/or dislike as well as ideas you have. On to the case...

The chassis, PC-Q01, has a fully aluminum construction, and is designed to be an small office PC and/or light gaming rig. It comes from the same line of design as the PC-Q07. What the PC-Q01 adds is more space for hardware compatibility (holding up to two 3.5" and two 2.5" drives as well as double slotted graphics card up 210mm), and a L-shaped removable cover that makes installations much easier in space confined ITX systems.

The PC-Q01 is mostly tool-less (featuring thumbscrews) as is designed to be either passively cooled or to have a 120mm or 140mm fan to be placed on the cage floor.

To give you a reference for size the PC-Q01 is about 13.3L.

Below are some pictures for you to get an idea of the case. Take a look and let us know what you think.

Removable L-shaped cover

PC-Q01 with the panel off










Front panel HDD mounts

Scratch-free 3.5" and 2.5" drives mounted behind the front panel

More scratch-free hard drives mounted to the case floor

Fan mounted to the case floor (Taking the spot of the bottom HDDs)


Specs

[Scubar]

Looks pretty nice. I think what you will find more people will be interested on here though is a case that can house watercooling equipment.

I bet if someone made an ITX case that had mounting for a pump, small reservoir and holes for watercooling tubes to go to a 240 or 360mm radiator on the back it would instantly become a hit.

[3lfk1ng]

It looks nice, small, clean, and simple. I love the size as is but the full size PSU support isn't necessary since this case won't support full sized graphics cards, multiple HDDs, ODD, etc etc.

With the impending release of the Asus DirectCU mini GTX760 I think that your team could make an even smaller case (with a similar aesthetic) with the 300watt or the upcoming 550 watt Silverstone SFF PSU in mind.

Your small cases look a lot more appealing than Silverstone's ITX offerings but I think they could be made even smaller. Also, users at XS have been asking for a Watercooling capable ITX case from Lian-Li in almost every Lian-Li feedback thread. A long time ago, you had mentioned that an tiny liquid cooled case was in the cards, any ETA on that?

[NKrader]

It looks nice, small, clean, and simple. I love the size as is but the full size PSU support isn't necessary since this case won't support full sized graphics cards, multiple HDDs, ODD, etc etc.

there really arent that many if more than one even of a good sff psu, still waiting on platinum seasonic sff. and hopefully in fanless.. after that I would endorse your message.

also @ lianli. not everyone is interested in watercooling tiny cases.. and possibly just a little more room for cpu heatsink? everyone on the market always makes so little room that they barely fit oem heatsink.. and good luck fitting anything with good heat dissapation into that space.. its always hard to get a high power rig in these cases silently..

i do like all the vents and the normal sized fan at the bottom, stagnet air is always a problem in these cases..

also, "acer" seagate drive! NICE, LOL

[UrbanVoyeur]

Very nice. I like the drive mount options. I would like a top mount fan option so I could use both bottom slots for more drives.

[Lian Li Tech]

It looks nice, small, clean, and simple. I love the size as is but the full size PSU support isn't necessary since this case won't support full sized graphics cards, multiple HDDs, ODD, etc etc.

With the impending release of the Asus DirectCU mini GTX760 I think that your team could make an even smaller case (with a similar aesthetic) with the 300watt or the upcoming 550 watt Silverstone SFF PSU in mind.

Your small cases look a lot more appealing than Silverstone's ITX offerings but I think they could be made even smaller. Also, users at XS have been asking for a Watercooling capable ITX case from Lian-Li in almost every Lian-Li feedback thread. A long time ago, you had mentioned that an tiny liquid cooled case was in the cards, any ETA on that?

About the ATX PSU - That is something that everyone seems to be divided on. On one point going with a SFX power supply in this case makes sense as this is a small case and it can't fit the largest of cards. On the other hand, availability of these SFX PSUs are still quite limited, and there are not many choices. Also, if going with the new ASUS mini GTX760 a 300W doesn't quite cut it. The 450W does just fine though.

For this case the overall feedback seems to be go SFX.

Regarding the ITX watercooling case, there we do have this PC-Q33 prototype in the works which is able to hold a 120mm rad.

[Lian Li Tech]

there really arent that many if more than one even of a good sff psu, still waiting on platinum seasonic sff. and hopefully in fanless.. after that I would endorse your message.

also @ lianli. not everyone is interested in watercooling tiny cases.. and possibly just a little more room for cpu heatsink? everyone on the market always makes so little room that they barely fit oem heatsink.. and good luck fitting anything with good heat dissapation into that space.. its always hard to get a high power rig in these cases silently..

i do like all the vents and the normal sized fan at the bottom, stagnet air is always a problem in these cases..

also, "acer" seagate drive! NICE, LOL

I agree with you on the making it easier to work with a CPU heatsink. If we go with a SFX PSU on this case this will add a little more room. Also, someone gave us a novel idea of having the PSU behind the MB tray, and then making making the MB tray removable so it can slide in and out. While this might not add much more room for the heatsink it would make it easier to work with. What do you think of that?

[alpha0ne]

I agree with you on the making it easier to work with a CPU heatsink. If we go with a SFX PSU on this case this will add a little more room. Also, someone gave us a novel idea of having the PSU behind the MB tray, and then making making the MB tray removable so it can slide in and out. While this might not add much more room for the heatsink it would make it easier to work with. What do you think of that?

I would have thought it to be the more sensible idea, I have never been able to get my head around why the insanity of having an ATX size PSU in front of the MB tray seems to be the norm..................its just dumb yet most similar LinLi ITX cases do this

[3lfk1ng]

Well, if you put the PSU on the underside of the motherboard and have the motherboard/psu running parallel to the ground, you have plenty of room for an aftermarket heatsink or AOI cooling solution and case only has to be as wide as the PSU you decide to use.

The removeable motherboard tray can use thumbscrews for mounting on top of some solid rails. I made a ghetto paint drawing to better illustrate the idea.



Mounting a 120mm radiator on the front of the PC-Q33 is good enough only for the CPU, I would much prefer to see support for a thin 240 for cpu+gpu cooling, but that's just the xtreme in me talking.

[m_jones_]

Well, if you put the PSU on the underside of the motherboard and have the motherboard/psu running parallel to the ground, you have plenty of room for an aftermarket heatsink or AOI cooling solution and case only has to be as wide as the PSU you decide to use.

The removeable motherboard tray can use thumbscrews for mounting on top of some solid rails. I made a ghetto paint drawing to better illustrate the idea.

But then the case really isn't SFF and becomes too large overall. i don't see the point in it. You pretty much made a prodigy copy. Jonsbo seem to be making nice small cases too.

[3lfk1ng]

A SFF psu is only 5" wide and 2.5" tall. Couple that with the GTX760 MiniCU at just 5" tall and the case only needs to be about 9" tall with the case feet (factor in mobo standoffs, mobo tray, mobo pcb, cpu heatsink headroom, and solid mobo rails.)

[m_jones_]

Ahhh I thought your image had a full sized psu not a sfx power supply, my error. I wouldn't mind more cases that didn't support larger coolers and went the AIO cooler route to save space, I threw something together

[3lfk1ng]

Yeah, sorry. Hard to represent scale in a 5min MSpaint drawing, haha.

Something like your design is perfect for the Swiftech Apogee Drive II users but that cuts out the enthusiast Air Cooled users as NKrader and alpha0ne had mentioned. By putting the PSU under the mobo, this allows HSF headroom atop the processor without colliding with the PSU.

[alpha0ne]

Ahhh I thought your image had a full sized psu not a sfx power supply, my error. I wouldn't mind more cases that didn't support larger coolers and went the AIO cooler route to save space, I threw something together

But we already have a near identical case to this with a few very minor tweaks......the SG05

[m_jones_]

But we already have a near identical case to this with a few very minor tweaks......the SG05

I know but you can only have a single 3.5" hard drive thrown in somewhere if you are using a AIO in the sg05 which is a deal breaker to me. sg05 can't hold all graphics cards, I'm not even talking about dual card monster and obviously added atx psu support.
Seems I have gone off topic.

[3lfk1ng]

The Silverstone SG series is a competitive product, talking pluses and minus' only helps Lian-Li (who clearly cares about community feedback).

The SG05 has the PSU above the mobo, this is a downside for those looking for a larger HSF.

[enio]

The component arrangement is best of all cases becasue it allows for decent and actually high end gaming setup. If there is big flat surface in the front, the case could look better if it was symmetrical in my opinion.

[m_jones_]

For the Lian Li case I would much prefer just a box design instead of a curve

The Silverstone SG series is a competitive product, talking pluses and minus' only helps Lian-Li (who clearly cares about community feedback).

The SG05 has the PSU above the mobo, this is a downside for those looking for a larger HSF.

That's fair enough then i can understand people who still want to use large air coolers. The node 304 is a good example of a mini itx case that can fit a large cooler in, personally I prefer small cases with the motherboard laying down and don't like height too much.

[aussie-revhead]

I want as small a case as possible, to take a full power mobo/cpu (non atom based). Going to a cube case doesnt save much space over a matx rig, so where is the advantage in mitx at all? I think I am going to get a Silverstone ML05 (very wide case) or an Antec ISK300-150 (a review I saw says psu isnt efficient).

I really like Lian-Li cases and would gladly buy a case if it fitted my requirements.

[Lian Li Tech]

I want as small a case as possible, to take a full power mobo/cpu (non atom based). Going to a cube case doesnt save much space over a matx rig, so where is the advantage in mitx at all? I think I am going to get a Silverstone ML05 (very wide case) or an Antec ISK300-150 (a review I saw says psu isnt efficient).

I really like Lian-Li cases and would gladly buy a case if it fitted my requirements.

Those are some nice choices. I prefer the Silverstone over the Antec. Mainly because of the look.

If you want to take a look at some of our smaller cases, I suggest the PC-Q02. It's actually what I use for my office PC.

It's about the same overall size as the other cases - 6.8L. Unlike the Antec and Silverstone you mentioned it is a cube case, which may not be the styling you prefer, but it doesn't take up much space. Also, since it is a passively cooled case it is pretty quiet.

What are you planning to use your new system for: a small office PC or HTPC?

[aussie-revhead]

Its just a netbox, and my second pc is my gamer/bencher. I run them through a DVI KVM so I don't run the big boy when I don't need to and I can do other stuff while benchmarks are running etc. I wanted a slim case to suspend it under my desk, in easy reach and off the floor.
The PC-Q02 would have been my choice of the bunch too, probably the smallest cube case I have seen.

Is the Q02 psu quiet? Is there anything like this with a case fan too?

[cab]

Thank you for the post. Very creative design as always.

The ATX PSU format is decades old, a modern mini-ITX idles at 18w at the wall, so using ATX is overkill. SFX is a little smaller, but has a tiny fan that makes a high-pitched noise, which defeats the purpose of mini-ITX.

My suggestion, you guys should team up with Mini-Box picoPSU and bundle their power supplies instead. Or get Asus/Gigabyte to build you a custom power supply kit that you can include with the case. There?s no reason for the PSU to occupy 50% of the case volume.

Here?s my Q11 with pico-PSU, very easy to work with.

[alpha0ne]

Thank you for the post. Very creative design as always.

The ATX PSU format is decades old, a modern mini-ITX idles at 18w at the wall, so using ATX is overkill. SFX is a little smaller, but has a tiny fan that makes a high-pitched noise, which defeats the purpose of mini-ITX.

My suggestion, you guys should team up with Mini-Box picoPSU and bundle their power supplies instead. Or get Asus/Gigabyte to build you a custom power supply kit that you can include with the case. There?s no reason for the PSU to occupy 50% of the case volume.

Agreed, we can only hope a quality company like Lian Li finally releases what the market has been dreaming of for the past ~5 years

[Lian Li Tech]

Its just a netbox, and my second pc is my gamer/bencher. I run them through a DVI KVM so I don't run the big boy when I don't need to and I can do other stuff while benchmarks are running etc. I wanted a slim case to suspend it under my desk, in easy reach and off the floor.
The PC-Q02 would have been my choice of the bunch too, probably the smallest cube case I have seen.

Is the Q02 psu quiet? Is there anything like this with a case fan too?

Yes, the PSU is pretty quiet. I have it on top of my desk, and never hear any sounds.

We don't offer anything in that size range with a case fan. The next thing up would be the PC-Q11, which is much bigger.