Final Thoughts
Lian Li has been coming out with quite a few cases aimed at the small form factor crowd over the past couple of years and they all are feature packed and quality made. The PC-TU200 is no exception, it has a ton of features and of course is made to last. Like most all Lian Li cases the PC-TU200 is made completely of Aluminum and has that nice finish we are used to seeing on Lian Li cases. It comes in both black and silver flavors. I really like the side panels on this case. They are tool-less and work extremely well. It will be interesting to see if Lian Li will use this system on other cases.
You can sure fit a lot inside of this case as well. You have room for four 3.5-inch hard drives or two 2.5-inch hard drives as well as a single optical drive. Another plus is the case supports normal ATX power supplies up to 140mm and expansion cards up to 310mm! That means you could actually fit a video card in there! The only thing that is really limited in the CPU area, you can only have a CPU cooler that is 30mm high, so that is something you are going to have to consider when purchasing this case.
Other great features of this case are the front USB 3.0 and eSATA connections, large 140mm intake fan and carrying handle. The carrying handle makes it easy to take the system with you to LAN parties and other events.
When it comes down to it the Lian Li PC-TU200 is a small form factor case done right! Overall ThinkComputers gives the Lian Li PC-TU200 case a 9 out of 10 score.
Pros:
– Lots of room inside for storage
– Cool side panel release system
– All aluminum
– USB 3.0 and eSATA
– Carrying handle
Cons:
– Not a lot of room for a CPU cooler
is it better than this one? http://www.amazon.com/Dell-iO2320-111ELS-Desktop/dp/B005KP7O0Y?tag=emjay2d-20
I built a gaming computer in this case mid-December 2011.
Here’s what’s in the box…
Zotac Z68ITX-A-E mobo
Core i7 2600K
Mushkin Enhanced Redline (2x4GB) DDR3 2133
Cooler Master GX Series RS650
Pioneer Blu-ray BDR-206DBKS
EVGA GTX 560 Ti 448 Core FTW
OCZ Agility 3 240GB
Hitachi Deskstar 7K1000
Themaltake Slim X2 CPU Cooler
I originally tried a Zalman CNPS 8000A CPU Cooler, based on someone’s blog post. While the cooler fit heightwise, it was too big left to right and could not be mounted without interfering with the video card. That’s why I settled on the Thermaltake.
After taking the hard drive cage in and out, in and out, over and over, I finally realized that it would be possible to mount my 3.5 rotating drive in the top of case holes used to mount the entire drive cage. Since my SSD mounted on the floor of the case in the 2.5 mounting spot provided., I was able to just leave the hard drive cage out. All that empty space, has made me consider putting in a liquid CPU cooler. ( A project for later this month).
My video card was not a full length card, but it was quite clear to me that a single full length card would not be a problem in this case. None the less, even with my shortened card, the video card slices the case into 2 cooling zones. 1 for the mobo, power supply and any hard drives not mounted on the floor of the case. The other zone is the video card and the SSD. The first zone (the 1 with the mobo) uses the case’s front mounted 140mm fan to blow air into the case. I have the PSU mounted so that it’s fan (which blows air out of the case) is just above the CPU cooler fan.
However, the second zone has only the video card fan(s) for air circulation. Holes in the bottom of the cage supply all the air for this second zone. Therefore if you place the case on carpeting you may find your video card over heating very quickly. A smooth hardish surface between the case and the carpet – say a piece of poster board eliminates the problem. (It only had to crash Skyrim once for me to learn this lesson)
The cable the case provided for the case power LED used a three pin connector that did not match my motherboard. A lot of cases know this can be a problem so they don’t group the 2 LED wires into a single multi-pin connector, instead they provide each LED wire with its own 1 pin connector. I wish Lian had done that for my case. As it was, I had to re-pin the connector using a safety pin to carefully remove the crimped on contacts from the plastic housing. Finally, re-inserting the contacts into a the same connector but in a configuration that allowed 1 of the 3 pins to hang over the edge of the mobo pins. FYI, the power light and disk light are very attractive and worth the trouble.
I got the black case. But fit and finish is not perfect. As a result, I think the aluminum finish might actually look better, since you would never notice a little sliver of silver showing in a gap between the case and removable panels. These tiny little imperfections shine out like a laser on the black finish case.
If you want to e-mail about my build experience with this case, write me at [email protected]
help,
I’ve purchased this case, using it for gaming i5 3570k and gtx 680. What cpu cooler would you recommend?