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
Testing Methodology
For testing Micro-ATX and Mini-ITX cases, we use the following standardized testbed in its stock configuration and a Zotac GeForce GTX 580 in cases that support it to get a feel for how the case handles heat and noise. Due to the power supply clearance constraints of smaller cases, SilverStone provided us with a slightly different PSU than our full-size ATX configuration for testing.
| Mini-ITX/Micro-ATX Test Configuration | |
| CPU | Intel Core i3-530 (73W TDP) |
| Motherboard | Zotac H55ITX-WiFi |
| Graphics Card | Intel HD Graphics (IGP) |
| Memory | 2x2GB Crucial Ballistix Smart Tracer DDR3-1600 |
| Drives |
Samsung 5.25" BD-ROM/DVDRW Drive Kingston SSDNow V+ 100 64GB SSD Western Digital Caviar Black 1TB SATA 6Gbps |
| CPU Cooler | Zalman CNPS8000A with Cooler Master ThermalFusion 400 |
| Power Supply | SilverStone Strider Gold 750W 80 Plus Gold |
A refresher on how we test:
Acoustic testing is standardized on a foot from the front of the case, using the Extech SL10 with an ambient noise floor of ~32dB. For reference, that's what my silent apartment measures with nothing running, testing acoustics in the dead of night (usually between 1am and 3am). A lot of us sit about a foot away from our computers, so this should be a fairly accurate representation of the kind of noise the case generates, and it's close enough to get noise levels that should register above ambient.
Thermal testing is run with the computer having idled at the desktop for fifteen minutes, and again with the computer running both Furmark (where applicable) and Prime95 (less one thread when a GPU is being used) for fifteen minutes. I've found that leaving one thread open in Prime95 allows the processor to heat up enough while making sure Furmark isn't CPU-limited. We're using the thermal diodes included with the hardware to keep everything standardized, and ambient testing temperature is always between 71F and 74F. Processor temperatures reported are the average of the CPU cores.
For more details on how we arrived at this testbed, you can check out our introductory passage in the review for the SilverStone FT03.
Last but not least, we'd also like to thank the vendors who made our testbed possible:
Thank You!
We have some thanks in order before we press on:
- Thank you to Crucial for providing us with the Ballistix Smart Tracer memory we used to add memory thermals to our testing.
- Thank you to Zalman for providing us with the CNPS8000A heatsink and fan unit we used.
- Thank you to Kingston for providing us with the SSDNow V+ 100 SSD.
- Thank you to CyberPower for providing us with the Western Digital Caviar Black hard drive and the optical drive.
- Thank you to SilverStone for providing us with the SilverStone Strider Gold 750W power supply.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
57 Comments
View All Comments
wordsworm - Wednesday, September 28, 2011 - link
I can see that there is a lot more area for the motherboard, but you just used a very small one. Second, I see a 750 watt power supply is installed. Why exactly was 750 watts required? Are you installing SLI in there or something? I can't even see a video card.This review really looks half assed. Which is really lame, because I have a particular interest in small and light cases which can handle a full sized ATX board and maybe even a video card... 10kg and carry-on luggage sized are my requirements for a new machine.
I just wish you'd made a better effort for this review.
TommyAU - Wednesday, September 28, 2011 - link
Your kidding me right?6 different pages of information and that's not enough for you...
How about you be greatfull someone went to the trouble to review it in the first place and at least say thanks
wordsworm - Wednesday, September 28, 2011 - link
Does this configuration of a micro atx without a graphics card and a 750 watt power supply unit at all look like a realistic configuration? This article fails in so many ways. I really hope the author reconsiders this article and considers taking this review a bit more seriously. Maybe actually try to make a decent build for testing rather than this rather thoughtless configuration.ie., You could probably throw in an AMD E350 and complementary board, fill up the harddrive bays, and try some home server task related work at it, and then check out temperatures, etc. You know, configure it like it is meant to be configured rather than what was done. Just using the number of pages is not a useful metric to gage the quality of an article.
Dustin Sklavos - Wednesday, September 28, 2011 - link
I'll tell you what. If you want to ship me the hardware you feel would make for an ideal build for this case, I'll happily retest it.Until then, may I remind you that we standardize on this testbed for a reason. Because I'm trying to figure out what sort of difference in the end results using a smaller power supply would really have.
zerockslol - Thursday, September 29, 2011 - link
http://images.anandtech.com/galleries/1409/cardcle...What does this look like? GTFO before you flame someone who's spending their time writing reviews of hardware for us, dipshit.
lrawrl - Thursday, September 29, 2011 - link
If he actually read the review he would understand why that exact PSU was used for the review (which is different than their usual reference configuration).Also, Dustin explains that there are no results for noise and cooling with a GPU in the case because the GPU from their standard test system uses the stock Nvidia reference design and the power connectors on this model do not line up with the cut-outs on Lian-Li's case.
If wordsworm actually read the 6 PAGE review, instead of just staring at the pretty pictures and graphs he would understand this.
SquattingDog - Wednesday, September 28, 2011 - link
If you read the testing methodology, you will see that this is one of the two standard configurations AT is using in their reviews. Agreed that the part selection seems a bit odd, but it is all to keep it as uniform as possible.Etern205 - Wednesday, September 28, 2011 - link
The case supports up to mATX so you can grab a Asus ROG Gene board and a pairof GTX 560Ti in SLI.
I've mentioned the GTX 560Ti because they're short in length which is what these cases are made for.
Flagrant - Wednesday, September 28, 2011 - link
Just an FYI the height of the vid card is also very important. any heatsink pipes that go even a little higher than rest of the card will screw you up with this case. The height given at the Lian Li website is not conservative. You need to allow for thickness of mobo.Etern205 - Wednesday, September 28, 2011 - link
Just buy a card without the nonsense and you'll have no problems.Looking at one of the pics a standard GTX580 fits.