Lian Li's PC-V353: Lighter Than Air
by Dustin Sklavos on September 28, 2011 4:30 AM EST- Posted in
- Cases/Cooling/PSUs
- MicroATX
- SFF
- Lian Li
- Mini-Tower
In and Around the Lian Li PC-V353
My first impression of the PC-V353 before I even opened the box was amazement: I couldn't believe just how light the case actually was. In fact I still have some trouble with it. Anyone looking for a LAN build may want to consider short-listing the PC-V353 for that reason alone; I can nearly palm the box, and I am a sad, frail, wisp of a man.
Once you get it out of the box, though, confusion is liable to set in. I'm used to cases that take a little more work to figure out, but Lian Li has gone virtually off the grid with this one. The front of the PC-V353 is entirely perforated, with only the power and reset buttons really breaking it up. Our optical drive bay is actually on the right side of the enclosure; you can opt to use the left side instead, but it would be extremely difficult to use both due to how assembly is handled (more on that later.) The ports are also on the right side, below the optical drive, and the port block can actually be removed and swapped over to the left side as well. That's made crystal clear when you look at the left side and see cutouts for the ports (shielded from behind by a plate) along with a bay shield for the 5.25" bay.
The back of the PC-V353 is home to nine thumbscrews, four of which are used for the power supply mounting bracket while the remaining five hold the removable motherboard tray in place. There are also four vented covers for the expansion slots. At this point I was wondering where the screws were to hold the side panels in place. The answer? There are none!
The side panels actually snap on and off and for what it's worth the mechanism seems pretty sturdy. It would've been easier for Lian Li to simply use screws to hold the panels in place, but I think one too many sacrifices were already made to the fit and finish of the PC-V353 by having the ports swappable between the two sides. Surprisingly, the panels feel like some of the sturdier parts of the case's design; the rest of it is so light, and the motherboard tray can actually bow.
When you do take a look at the interior of the PC-V353, it can actually seem even more puzzling: this is an instance where you're really going to want to go through the instruction manual bit by bit to be sure you know how to assemble a system within the enclosure. There's support for a grand total of five drives: one 5.25", two 3.5", and as a sign of the times, two 2.5". At first glance it also seems like you could fit a fairly long, high end video card in the PC-V353, but when we get to the assembly you'll see it doesn't really work out that way in practice.
I like how the PC-V353 looks for the most part, but I have to be honest and say it feels like they went just a little too far off the beaten path with this one. Assembling it looked frankly daunting, and in my experience smartly arranged ventilation with even a single good, quiet fan has been more effective than just venting everything. I'm also not a fan of being able to swap the optical drive and ports from the right to the left side; the result is that the side you aren't using just looks kind of unattractive and feels like there should really just be a single flat side panel. That's my personal opinion, though; your mileage may vary.
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aznofazns - Thursday, September 29, 2011 - link
"Don't get me started on their ultra high end chassis, where their exterior paintjob is pretty much the only thing high quality about them."My V2120X's interior is superb. Everything about it is superb. Airflow, layout, ease of installation, features, build quality, style.
"the Mac Pro chassis is pretty much the gold standard of aluminum cases still and if you can't get side panels as rigid as Apple, don't bother with the material."
Again, try telling that to my V2120X. The side panel is so thick I cannot even bend it when I try.
Besides, why is it crucial to have side panels built like titanium plates? That ramps up the cost of materials. As long as they're sufficiently thick to not break under normal use, does it really matter?
"A lot of the design features in their spacesaver mATX cases range from somewhat understandable to downright stupid"
I absolutely agree with you on this point. A lot of the micro ATX and mini ITX cases have illogical layouts (especially for the PSU), but Lian Li has been improving on this, as seen in the V353.
cjs150 - Thursday, September 29, 2011 - link
Lian li clearly thought about where a computer would be when putting this design together.It is, as a concept, perfectly suited for people who have a computer on their desk rather than under it. Having a side ways facing optical drive is a good design choice for those type of people.
But when it comes to the reality of the design there are lots of fail points here.
For starters, do people really need lots of HDs in a computer that is on top of desk and presumeably next to the keyboard? I am sure that many people will not agree with me but I would design it to hold a maximum of 2 HDs.
I am not convinced by the horizontal MB tray either.
I think on balance I would prefer a 200mm fan up front (with dust cover), one optical drive bay and 2 HD bays would be better airflow and still very quiet. Being a water cooling fan that would allow for a rig with decent airflow to cool everything bar GPU and CPU and a 200x2000 radiator to cool the GPU and CPU which would be very quiet
Death666Angel - Thursday, September 29, 2011 - link
I'm half through the review, nice stuff. But I'm personally not a fan of cubes anymore. I got myself a Lian Li V352, the predecessor. It is a good case, but in my opinion fairly limited. It collects dust like crazy. Because of the cube shape you cannot put anything on the floor of the caes since the motherboard covers that.Overall, the Temjin TJ08-E sounds like a much better package for me and I'm going to be buying one next year and mod it a bit for some water cooling.
don_k - Friday, September 30, 2011 - link
I'm curious to see what other models you got from them. My A77 is a joy, immense build quality. And yeah, Lian Lis are all aluminum cases and they're not cheap.softdrinkviking - Tuesday, October 4, 2011 - link
would have been nice to see you really try and stuff this case as full as you can.should have used a bigger board with a big video card and so forth.
sure, you may have run into problems, but that's really the point, isn't it?
Whatthetech - Saturday, July 21, 2012 - link
I'm sorry to say that I have to completely disagree with the review posted here. I'm not meaning to offend, but as a long time case-builder I have found that the PC-V353 case is rather nice, and that the reviewer here really didn't seem to put much effort into the build. For a real review, and pics of this case with a full build with EFFORT, head over to whatthetech.info - it's in the main navigation bar.n13L5 - Wednesday, December 9, 2015 - link
This may be a pretty old review now, but being something of a fan of Lian Li's aesthetics and quality, I can't help noticing just how many of their cases have serious flaws in details, layout and cooling concept.When they introduced that little computer case in the shape of a locomotive, I became convinced, that at least one of their case designers was an adorable dreamer - but without much care for really designing the cases for efficient placement of components or a truly optimized cooling concept. If they could at least firmly adopt the positive air pressure idea, it would alleviate a lot of issues. They do manufacture the NCASE M1, but that design was done by people who actually build systems with a clear intent to get the most fps from the smallest size box without it overheating or being noisy.
/pointless rant on an ancient 2011 review
Thanks for the review anyway, I will check out the V354, which you said you liked better :)