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Computex case round-up

by on11 June 2008

Index




In-Win is a company that had all but disappeared from our radar, but the company was showing a strong line-up of new cases at Computex. However, that doesn't mean that they're all great products, but the company was showing off some concept models, as well.

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First up, we have a couple of mini-ITX cases. Actually, they're DTX cases as far as we could tell, but they will, of course, accommodate mini-ITX motherboards, as well. Both models are a bit plain, but both models can have an internal PSU or an external PSU and an internal Voltage conversion board.

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The concept cases look rather interesting, but we're not sure how many people would actually buy them. The first model is actually red and not pink as it appears on the picture. It a has a spring-loaded door and four outlets around the back for watercooling pipes.

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The second concept case is a bit more traditional at first look, but it has space for two bottom mounted PSUs, which is something  you don't see a lot. Both PSUs have to stand on their sides to fit and this might cause some installation issues. The case also features several large fans and a top-mounted 120mm fan. There's also a wide array of top-mounted ports, including dual eSATA.

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Lian-Li has been a long time favorite with many users when it comes to aluminium cases and the company had some new products on display. First up is the PC-X500, which is a smaller version of the PC-X2000. Lian-Li recommends these cases as suitable for HTPC usage, but we're not sure we'd be too keen on having a huge tower like this in our front room.

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On the subject of HTPC cases, the PC-C36 and PC-C37 are a lot more to our taste and both cases has some unique features. The PC-C36 comes with a TFX PSU pre-installed and it has a nifty PCIe riser card which allows you to use two full size PCIe cards in this low-profile case.

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It's been designed to work with the latest mATX motherboards, as the riser fits into the second slot instead of the first, and the second slot seems to be x16 PCIe slot on most new mATX motherboards. The second slot is for a x1 PCIe card and Lian-Li will provide different riser cards, depending on the slot location in the case, but the one in the picture will work with motherboards that have the x1 slot above the x16 slot.

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Although we don't have a picture of the PC-C37 it's much the same as the PC-C36, although it takes a standard ATX PSU. It's limited to half-height add-on cards, but you can fit up to four cards.

Lian-Li was also showing off its Xbox 360 replacement case, which makes the console a fair bit larger, but the case looks quite stylish and should help improve the overall cooling performance of the console. It would, of course, also void your warranty.

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Finally, Lian-Li was showing off a new brand of products that will be sold as the Lancool Metal Boned cases. They're still made in Taiwan, just like all of Lian-Li's products, and use a steel frame with aluminum panels on the outside. Lian-Li is looking at launching five new models in the very near future and all of them differ slightly from each other. One of the models had three hot swappable SATA drive bays. You can find out more about Lancool products here.







Last modified on 11 June 2008
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