PC Case Review: LIAN LI PC-08WX ... Love-Hate Relationship

[Senzelian]

Today I got the almighty LIAN LI PC-08WX cube case. Everyone who has seen this case was practically falling in love with it and everyone who has seen its price tag was crying at least once.
I want to talk a little bit about the case itself, why it is so expensive and for who this case is actually for.

This is where the review starts.
Right here.
I'll put a huge headline here so everyone knows.
So it here it comes:
 

 

I'll start with a few specs and the overall construction:

As I said it's part of the cube case category. So it's quite a bit smaller than a standard sized mid tower. That is because the power supply isn't sitting directly under or above the motherboard.
Instead it has two chambers. In the first chamber at the front we have the motherboard, the graphics cards and obviously everything that sits directly on the motherboard like RAM and CPU cooler.
Behind the motherboard tray is the second chamber. This chamber contains the power supply, which is in this case a normal sized ATX power supply, the storage drives and of course most of the cables.

• Dimensions (WxHxD): 341x428x404mm
• 6x 3.5" HDD
• 2x 2.5" HDD
• Fans front: 3x 120mm (included)
• Fans rear: 1x 120mm (1. chamber) (included)
• Fans rear: 2x 120mm (2. chamber) (included)
• Fans top: 2x 120mm
• Front I/O: 4x USB 3.0, 1x headphone, 1x microphone
• Weight: 9.50kg
• PCI-slots: 8
• Graphics Cards: to max. 370mm
• CPU Coolers: to max. 170mm height
• Power supply: ATX
• Motherboard: to EATX 12"x13"

Source: http://skinflint.co.uk/?cmp=1304503

 

The case is mostly made out of aluminium and what isn't made out aluminium is made out of glass. Yes, glass. The case has two windows, one in the front and on one the left side, which are both made out of glass. A few small things like the screws that hold the glass in place are made out of some sort of plastic, so it doesn't scratch the glass as easily.

So you get finally a better idea of what I'm actually talking about, here is a picture:

Lian Li PC 08 Case at Computex 2015

 

The picture doesn't do it justice. It looks so much better in person.

 

Because everything is made out of aluminium you can expect great build quality. The case is really sturdy and I was able to feel that from the beginning on when I took it out of the box it came in.
While we're just talking about the packaging I can also tell you how well everything was packaged. Linus would be proud.
The case it self is packed in a soft styrofoam which is also quite thick. The glass panels are in a seperate box which is lying on top of the case. Those are also packed in the same soft styrofoam, seperated from each other and to prevent them from any scratches are also packed in a plastic bag.

 

Enough talked about the outside. Let's have a look inside.
It has a few problems, because of it's very simple construction.

 

Cable management:

There aren't any cable tie down points. Lian Li did put at least two small cable hooks with an adhesive in the accessory box, but those are just large enough for one of my custom sleeved 24 pin cables and it's impossible to tie down all the cables I have with only two of those hooks. It might work with smaller builds, but then again who is building a budget PC build inside such a chassis. This monster of a case if made to do crazy custom liqiud cooling loops.
 

The cable grommets are are too small. There is barely any space for one 24 pin cable. It's hard to put the connector through the grommet without ripping it out. The next problem with the grommets are that if you put a front 360 or 240mm radiator in the fron't you're going to block the cable grommets at the front. It seems almost impossible to route the cables through there if the radiator is blocking it. If those grommets were actually wider it wouldn't be a problem. The Corsair AIR 540, a very similar case, had two grommets next to each other, which worked really well. So this really shouldn't be a problem.

 

Storage options:

 

The case has this really cool looking drive cage which has space for six 3.5" harddrives and two 2.5" drives. Sounds really great at first, but that cage takes a huge amount of space, because behind it are the two exhaust fans of the second chamber. You cannot remove the fans to safe space, because they're part of the cage itself. And you're also not able to remove the cage and keep the fans and use a radiotor.

Lian Li didn't think about people like me that would actually use a bit of modding to mount the drives somewhere else. So the only option to remove the cage and keep the fans is to use an angle grinder.

Another problem with the cage is, that if you want to remove or add a harddrive you always have to remove the whole cage and that it isn't possible to choose between 2.5'' and 3.5'' mounts. You can literally not put a 2.5'' drive into a 3.5'' slot.

 

Well, now back to something positive:

The case comes with three RGB LED strips and a controller for it which is great. They work, the look good and are made in a high quality. It is possible to control the LEDs with three rotary switches at the back, which is great. Exactly how I like it. Well done Lian Li.

 

Apart from that it has also a few nice little features such as filtered intakes at the front and top which is nice, internal power and HDD LEDs and four USB 3.0 ports at the front I/O. I love that because now I can finally make use of the two USB 3.0 ports on my motherboard.

 

The end:

 

So, that's it. Not a whole lot I think was worth to talk about and I also didn't wanted to make a huge review, especially because I will show more of this case in a future build log. My final build. That's also why I didn't include many pictures. If you want to see more about the case you can check other, more detailed reviews or have a look at "The Compensator - Build Log" which Luke did on LinusTechTips.

 

Overall it's a great case, but it has its flaws. Especially the bad cable management is a problem. For the drive cage I'll most likely have to rip it out and seperate it from the fans to mount a 240mm radiator on there. 

 

Something I almost forgot to talk about: It costs around 450,- € here in Germany currently. And that is where everything changes. 

For what are you paying that price?

A full aluminium construction? No.

The glass? No.

 

It's a premium price for a premium case that is very rare and looks fantastic once you're done building in it. It's a case that you can show around. But it's not a practical case.

 

 

[Pugs501]

People who want to use this as a LAN build, DON'T FORGET IT'S 40 Pounds!

[Senzelian]

People who want to use this as a LAN build, DON'T FORGET IT'S 40 Pounds!

That's a very bad idea not only because of its weight.

Imagine some drunk gamers run into your glass case...  :blink:

[//FTP]

Once it comes back in stock on Newegg, I am going to buy it. Like @Slick said, "I think I finally found a case that I like."

[Senzelian]

Once it comes back in stock on Newegg, I am going to buy it. Like @Slick said, "I think I finally found a case that I like."

I hope you put a custom loop in there.

[//FTP]

I hope you put a custom loop in there.

I might, it would look good with the other components.

[melias24]

Rich mans air 540

[Senzelian]

Rich mans air 540

I have both. The Air 540 is overall a much better case. The PC-08 just looks so much better, so that I can forget about how unpractical it is.