Lian-Li PC-B25FB or Coolermaster HAF 932?

phobic · 16 Sep 2010 at 17:26

So i'm trying to decide between these 2 cases. I'm not fond of the HAF looks, but the cooling seems great. I'm very fond of the Lian-Li looks, but the cooling doesn't seem as great. And i'm not ruling out watercooling in future, so i know the HAF would be better for this, since it's much bigger. The other thing that puts me off about the HAF is that there are no dust filters. So i'm leaning towards the Lian-Li, but still can't decide....Help!

Which would you choose?

Grimley · 16 Sep 2010 at 17:53

The Lian-Li.

mikeo · 16 Sep 2010 at 18:25

+1 for the Lian Li

I've got one and the cooling seems fine to me. I seem to remember a decent review / write up on it, that gave the cooling the thumbs up. Both my CPU and GPU are OC'd by a decent margin and I only run the fans at medium (fitted a Lian Li fan controller behind the front grill). If you do get one, I would suggest buying the stealth doors for the optical bays, they look pretty cool (if you like that sort of thing).

Only other comment s that I can think of, are:
- If wanting to fit an SSD, you will also need to buy the bracket for this. As you don't get one as standard.
- Max space for graphics card is 290 mm. So GTX260 etc, 470/480, 5850/5870 OK but a 5900 wont I suspect. Though watch the card if the power connector/s are at the end of it, rather than on the side.

If you only require 3 HD bays. Then you can fit them in the bottom section of the HD rack and mod the top section by cutting out the top left hand section of the HD rack. The HD rack would remain pretty rigid without it and this would allow acres of room then for the largest graphics card known to man.

As long as you are not looking for a case that lights up like the Blackpool Illuminations, or looks like it's been designed by a 13 year old on crack. Then this is otherwise a decent case.

As to water cooling. Like most (all?) mid size towers you are limited on room a bit. But I suspect it would be possible (depending on what you wanted to do of course). If you were thinking of a major water cooling exercise, I suspect you would want to think about a full size tower case.

If you have any other questions. Let me know.

mikeo · 16 Sep 2010 at 18:29

Pics:

Though the graphics card is an MSI 460 HAWK now.

phobic · 16 Sep 2010 at 18:51

Thanks for the replies

I don't think gfx card will be an issue, since the 5850 is nowhere near as long as it's big bro. Are the fans loud at full speed? I've heard the noise dampening is pretty great in this case, but i haven't heard one with the fans on full steam (aka, can't afford a fan controller right now).

Just another question, every pic of this case i've seen has the hard drive cables in the front. Is it not possible to put the drives in the other way to have the cables hidden from view?

mikeo · 16 Sep 2010 at 19:33

phobic said:
Thanks for the replies

I don't think gfx card will be an issue, since the 5850 is nowhere near as long as it's big bro. Are the fans loud at full speed? I've heard the noise dampening is pretty great in this case, but i haven't heard one with the fans on full steam (aka, can't afford a fan controller right now).

Just another question, every pic of this case i've seen has the hard drive cables in the front. Is it not possible to put the drives in the other way to have the cables hidden from view?

Hi

Fans are fine at full tilt. Think the front ones are only 1,000RPM anyway. And my case sits about 2ft from my right ear and they are certainly not intrusive.

The Lian Li fan controller that fits in the front of the case only retails around a tenner. Though you will need to GOOGLE I think to find someone that stocks it.

HD's can be fit the other way round. I've only got them that way round because I swap out the C: drive sometimes and run with a backup drive with Vista on. And it saves having to take the other side panel off.

Think I've got a picture of the other side of the case somewhere, if I can find it I will post it up.

phobic · 16 Sep 2010 at 19:40

Sweet, i'm definitely getting the Lian-Li now

I hate the blackpoolesque cases with lights everywhere, and there seem to be very few cons to getting this case. I've already got a fan controller anyway, so if needed i'll just stick it on, but i'd rather get a new one anyway

Looks like the cable management is decent too, much better than my 6yo chieftec dragon anyway. So i've gone and ordered it, can't wait until saturday now

Lunatic Dreyfus · 16 Sep 2010 at 21:09

Lian-Li. Even though that particular example is not the prettiest.

Every time I see one of those godawful HAF's, a little part of me dies.

mikeo · 16 Sep 2010 at 21:09

Good show. I don't think you will regret it.

Rear of case.

Plenty of room.

Funny you should mention Chieftec. My old case was a Chieftec as well, though probably much more like 10+ years old. Though much modded to add extra fans etc.

Post up some pics when you've done your install.

Have fun.

mikeo · 16 Sep 2010 at 21:12

Lunatic Dreyfus said:
Lian-Li. Even though that particular example is not the prettiest.

Every time I see one of those godawful HAF's, a little part of me dies.

Indeed. On both points really. Though I quite like the simple lines of the Lian Li.

Though beauty in the eye of the beholder... as they say.

phobic · 20 Sep 2010 at 20:28

Sweet, i got it today!

Spent ages trying to do cable management, but my mobo layout is crap. And i could put very few cables behind the motherboard, there wasn't a lot of room there tbh. But overall i'm loving it

Took a few crappy pics on my phone...

http://imgur.com/a/KrqVd/lianli

Oh and it's too bad the hard drives couldn't be placed the other way around, so the cables are hidden. They wouldn't fit, due to where the screws are and the end of the hd cage

mikeo · 20 Sep 2010 at 22:15

phobic said:
Sweet, i got it today!

Spent ages trying to do cable management, but my mobo layout is crap. And i could put very few cables behind the motherboard, there wasn't a lot of room there tbh. But overall i'm loving it

Took a few crappy pics on my phone...

http://imgur.com/a/KrqVd/lianli

Oh and it's too bad the hard drives couldn't be placed the other way around, so the cables are hidden. They wouldn't fit, due to where the screws are and the end of the hd cage

Glad to hear you like it.

Pictures look OK to me. People get too hung up on what the inside of their case looks like! Is it a work of art? or a PC? Slightly tongue in cheek comment there really. But you know what I mean.

Cable space behind the mobo tray is about average for a mid tower. The only ones I could find with much more room, where either full size towers, or a couple had "shaped" side panels to give bit more room.

Emm. As to the HD's. Must admit that I had not tried (until 2 minutes ago), I just sort of assumed it would work.

I see what you mean:

But... Mike to the rescue. Fix you wheels to the end holes and the middle holes and you get:

and:

The HD seems stable enough to me.

Otherwise it's a matter of marking where the HD fouls with a magic marker, making two cuts with a junior hacksaw and bend the offending bit of metal out with some pliers. Thus allowing the HD to slide in further. I like a challenge

Mind you, would there then be enough room for the power / SATA connector!?

But I think option one would be fine.

Your mobo does not look like it lends itself to tidy cable management (just one of those things). The position of your SATA connectors isn't the best. I shall certainly be looking for edge connectors in my next motherboard.
Out of interest, what's the graphics card?

PS. As you are not using the 3 1/2 in drive bay. Have you thought about fitting the blanking panel you removed for your optical drive over it instead? Just might look a little neater. Now who's worrying about looks?

Also... One of those stealth doors would look nice over your optical drive. Whoops, there I go again.

phobic · 21 Sep 2010 at 11:33

Ah i didn't even think of trying the middle holes, i'm gonna give that a try now

Yeah the sata connector placement sucks on that board, they're all over the place. There are 2 at the edge and then 4 all over the place underneath the gfx card. Oh the gfx card is a VTX 5850. Just built the whole thing last week, and i was expecting some crappy cooler on the gfx card, but i was pleasantly surprised. Though it sucks that my sound card has to be right underneath...

Heh i didn't think of doing that either, it didn't bother me much anyway since i don't see the front of the case. Lol, ocd much?

I'm gonna get a windowed side panel for it, now that i have it on the desk. Found one but they aren't cheap

mikeo · 21 Sep 2010 at 12:23

phobic. I would suggest you remove the competitor link. They have strict rules on this forum about this.

I had also looked at windowed side panels, but decided because of where I sit the PC, it would be to distracting.

Re OCD. Have you noticed that I even bought the little plastic blanking plugs that go in the unused USB etc. connectors on the top of the PC!?
Think I also might remove the Floppy drive (quite knows why I fitted it in the first place) and fit another stealth door (even though nothing behind it). Just to "harmonize" the front of the PC.

phobic · 21 Sep 2010 at 12:41

Oops, done!

Hah, that's even worse than cable hiding

I just cleaned things up a big and flipped the HHD's around...Still not perfect, but it'll do for now...oh and i need a 4 pin extension, it doesn't reach through the back

Oh and the second from the bottom HDD was blocked at the back from plugging anything in, so i had to leave a gap...

mikeo · 21 Sep 2010 at 13:43

phobic said:
Oops, done!

Hah, that's even worse than cable hiding

I just cleaned things up a big and flipped the HHD's around...Still not perfect, but it'll do for now...oh and i need a 4 pin extension, it doesn't reach through the back

Oh and the second from the bottom HDD was blocked at the back from plugging anything in, so i had to leave a gap...

That's not bad at all now.

Shame about the bottom HD. Though think of it in the +ve (IE. improving cooling / air flow).

You would have thought that they would have thought about this when they designed the HD cage!

phobic · 21 Sep 2010 at 14:28

Yeah i figured it'd probably give better airflow to the gfx card, but the stock fans are pretty crap anyway. Gonna have to get watercooling or better fans.

I guess they weren't banking on people turning the HDD's around, so i guess it's designed only for the cables on the outside

mikeo · 21 Sep 2010 at 14:37

Question... why do you say the stock fans are crap?

Maybe not the most aggressive in shifting air. But I've found them reasonably quiet, certainly can't hear them over my CPU cooler (and that's only set to run at 1,800RPM) and even with a heavily OCd 460 GTX and a CPU OCd to 3.6GHz, that they do the job on medium setting via fan controller.

If you do end up getting new fans, I will very VERY interested to hear your results / opinion. As I shall be doing a complete rebuild at the end of the year (probably I5) and thinking of going SLI with the 460 (if I can afford it). So may need more cooling by then.

Though I suppose you do have more HDs than me.

PS. Had toyed with the idea of modding my current side panel to add a fan blowing in at the bottom. More for something to do. Though not too sure how easy it will be to make a neat job cutting the aluminium panel. never had a problem with steel ones, but would not like to knacker the paint finish.