A while back I took a look at a case from LanCool called the K58. LanCool is a Lian Li company that gives you Lian Li quality on a budget. Today I have the chance to take a look at Lian Li’s new PC-B70 case. This is my first experience with an all aluminum case; I’m excited to take a closer look.

Product Name: Lian Li PC-B70

Review Sample Provided by: Lian Li

Review by: Wes Compton

Pictures by: Wes Compton

Specifications

Packaging

Keeping it simple, Lian Li packed the PC-B70 into a black box with a large picture of the PC-B70 on it. On the right side of the packaging, there are pictures and short descriptions of each important feature. Inside, the case was secured with Styrofoam on each side and inside of a plastic bag to keep moisture away. Overall, very simple but really do you need anything more than that?

Outside

Unlike most other cases with their plastic parts, the entire outside of the PC-B70 is made out of aluminum. Up top there isn't much going on, you will find the power and reset buttons along with an aluminum door that hides four USB 2.0 ports, both audio jacks, firewire, and an eSATA port. Unlike most of the cases we have tested recently Lian Li didn't include a fan up top, choosing to keep a clean look instead. Both side panels were also uneventful with no windows or vents.

On the back of the PC-B70 there is a little more excitement, most notably, the side panel locking mechanism uses an attached thumbscrew. Once unscrewed, the thumbscrew allows you to pull the latch out, unlocking the door. The mechanism itself reminds me of the Cosmos's latch but this design is much more secure. Also on the back is an 120mm fan with a traditional wire fan guard. If that's not enough to keep things cool almost the entire back of the case is vented in some shape or form.

Out front I was impressed with the all aluminum front panel, Lian Li did an impressive job getting the curved shapes without using plastic. To help your disc drive match they also included a drive bay cover that hits your drive without limiting its use. Both the power and hard drive indicator lights are hidden just to the right of the disc drive. The bottom half of the case is a mesh design that lets the two 120mm fans breathe to keep everything cool.

Inside

Inside I found the same quality and attention to detail as the outside of the case. A few things like the PCI slot hold-down is just like the LanCool, the same goes for the easy-to-use 5 ¼ drive bay latches. The hard drive trays are also the same but made out of aluminum this time around. With two hidden hard drive bays up top where you normally would find a power supply and six trays on the front you shouldn’t have any trouble finding a place to store all of your hard drives.

Too keep everything cool you will find two 120mm fans in front of the hard drive trays and one in the back. Compared to most of today’s gaming cases with 200+mm fans this does not seem like a lot; but it should be more than enough to keep most rigs cool.

Lian Li made it easy to route all of your cables with a few well placed holes. Speaking of that they also gave a large access hole behind your CPU for easy installation of heatsinks. Another feature that the PC-B70 has is a full PCI card support, you don’t see them on many cases, if you’re planning on moving your rig around much the support will prevent you from breaking anything. Also to keep noise down both side panels have been given the sound deadening treatment.

As you should already know by now I was impressed with the quality of the PC-B70. Of course I did run into a small issue almost right away. Both of the side panels fit so snug that they wouldn’t come off. A few small bends and this was never an issue again, but with the case being of the highest quality, I was shocked that I found any issues like that. Outside of that one issue everything else went very smooth. Installing everything couldn’t be much easier with quick latches for both the PCI cards and the 5 ¼ drive bays. Wire management was great, lots of room for wires along with a hidden wire hold-down tucked away near the hard drive bays.

With everything built the noise level was very good, now I remember why some people don’t want 15 different fans packed into their case. The three fans did keep the rig more than cool enough during my testing. Lian Li made sure the PC-B70 performed as well as it looks.

Overall

Slick all aluminum design, wire management, lots of room, in a quiet package. Lian Li worked their magic on the PC-B70 and came out with one of the best cases that we have had the pleasure to review. Of course nothing is perfect, I did have problems with the side panels. But everything else makes up for that easily fixed issue. It may not have the crazy styling that most of the cases we see, but there is an elegance about the PC-B70 that is unmatched.

Author Bio

Author: garfi3ldWebsite: http://lanoc.org

Editor-in-chief

You might call him obsessed or just a hardcore geek. Wes's obsession with gaming hardware and gadgets isn't anything new, he could be found taking things apart even as a child. When not poking around in PC's he can be found playing League of Legends, Awesomenauts, or Civilization 5 or watching a wide variety of TV shows and Movies. A car guy at heart, the same things that draw him into tweaking cars apply when building good looking fast computers. If you are interested in writing for Wes here at LanOC you can reach out to him directly using our contact form.