Lian Li PC-Q28 Compact Media Case
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2014-05-07
·
1,884 words · ~9 min read
0:00
this PC q28 from lean Lee was actually
0:03
sent to me months ago and it accidentally got buried under a pile of
0:13
cases with its Factory tuning and data center DNA an Intel 730 series SSD is an
0:19
amazing choice for gamers and performance enthusiasts speaking of
0:23
which there's a link to our store in the video description if you're logged into
0:26
the forum you can check that out and you can see that we are unloading some
0:30
products that we used for previous videos on the cheap so definitely check
0:34
that out but anyway I finally dug it out
0:37
when I decided that I wanted to game more on my TV and I realized that my PC
0:41
Q7 wouldn't fit the kind of graphics card I wanted for the best possible
0:46
experience the pcq 28 is quite a bit
0:49
larger than my older case but is still small enough to fit in the cabinet under
0:54
my TV and it comes with some updated features that make it both very easy to
0:58
build in and very functional let's start with the outside if you've ever seen a
1:02
Le and Lee case before then I don't need to tell you that the fit and finish of
1:05
their all aluminum cases is exceptional and this one is no exception to the
1:12
exceptional makes it unexceptional I guess no it's good though the brushed
1:16
aluminum finish is beautiful and every joint lines up perfectly at the front
1:21
you can install a 5 and a/4 inch drive and I did I happen to own One Blu-Ray a
1:26
copy of Disney's Enchanted so if I ever feel like watching that I want to make
1:30
sure that I'm prepared true freaking story not even joking about that and
1:34
other than that on the front it's just a little lean Le logo and the power button
1:37
on the right hand side we find the front iio two USB 3.0 ports a headphone jack
1:43
and a microphone Jack and then on the bottom we find a filtered intake right
1:47
there at the front for the front 140 mm
1:50
fan that is going to bring fresh air to the inside of the system on the left
1:55
hand side we find not a whole lot of anything and on the top we find a 120 mm
2:00
exhaust at the back well two expansion
2:04
slots so it supports either ITX or DTX and then power supply so that's pretty
2:08
much it opening up the side panel was refreshingly simple rather than six tiny
2:13
little counter sunk screws lean Lee is doing a sliding system with one screw
2:19
and then little plastic latches for the rest of them much better much less
2:23
tedious to open up and much less likely uh to cause you to lose something now
2:29
the first thing I'd like to say before we get inside is that uh I am using a
2:35
personal build to Showcase this chassis so some of the hardware choices might
2:39
seem a little bit odd trust me I know
2:42
all right so now that it's opened up the first thing I want to show you is actually something that's not in there
2:47
anymore and that is this right here these two thumb screws down here on the
2:51
bottom we're holding in this handy dandy bracket that accepts up to 2 2 and 1/2
2:55
in or 2 3 and 1/2 in drives I don't really need internal drives because I'm
3:00
using a Nas with ice scuzzy to install my games so I went ahead and took this
3:04
piece out in order to give my graphics card a little bit more breathing room
3:08
here at the bottom next up is the top hard drive cage which I also removed to
3:14
give that front 140 mm fan as much room
3:17
to work as I could this one accepts Four
3:21
3 and 1/2 in drives with a 2 and 1/2 in Drive hanging from the bottom so that's
3:25
a total of up to seven mix and match internal drives in this this tiny little
3:31
case now Cable Management won't be super tidy if you do in decide to install all
3:36
that stuff so make sure that your expectations are reasonable but the good
3:39
news is that it doesn't have a windowed side panel so no one will ever see it
3:42
you can see what I did is I removed that so that does give me quite a bit more
3:45
cable management room although I don't have anywhere to actually rote those
3:49
cables to your power supply can be up to 170 mm in length but I'd recommend a
3:53
little bit shorter if you're planning to use that drive cage or if you're
3:57
planning to use a modular power supply and also recommend picking up a short
4:01
cable kit Silverstone has some great stuff for better Cable Management I was
4:05
on a budget when I first built this media PC so I'm actually using an antech
4:10
true power new 550 W power supply that I
4:14
actually hacked all the cables short on and then soldered them back together
4:18
reinsulated and resleeved them uh it does improve cable management but uh
4:23
also makes the extra six pin PCI Express cable that I had to attach for my better
4:27
graphics card with its long wire on it look a little bit out of place and
4:31
really guys that's not something that I would recommend doing it's just
4:34
something that I did for this particular uh build uh speaking of the graphics
4:39
card and the connector for it I've got an open airflow GTX 660 Ti that doesn't
4:45
quite seem to be throttling in this system but runs at 100° underload in Far
4:51
Cry 3 for that reason I would prefer a
4:54
rear exhaust card but this one I was able to trade Luke's friend something
4:58
for so the price was right um there is lots of room in the case to install
5:03
something as big as a GTX 780ti in there but based on how hot this one's running
5:08
even though it is an open airflow design I don't think that that's something that
5:11
I'm going to do without modding another intake or something because that front
5:16
intake does have a 140 mm fan behind it
5:19
but the vent is quite small and uh and
5:23
it's it's definitely going to need more air flow I mean one option would be to
5:27
take like a slim fan or even open up the bottom of the case here to get some
5:30
better air flow and just throw like a like a dust filter or something on there
5:34
and then the other thing to consider too guys is that your media cabinet is going
5:38
to get quite hot especially running games with something like this inside of
5:41
it so um but even now I'm going to have to get like a 120 mm hole saw cut some
5:47
holes and then get some get some air flow going on in there as well if we
5:50
take out the four thumb screws at the back we can slide the power supply back
5:54
which allows us to see the Gigabyte Z87 ITX motherboard that I've got installed
5:58
in here the CPU in there there's a coree i 5 4570 nonk it runs at about 70° in my
6:04
gaming load scenario in Far Cry 3 and 75° Max running Prime 95 small fft with
6:09
the random silent X cooler that I have on there I'm actually happy with those
6:13
results I turned the fan around so that it feeds directly into the power supply
6:18
for exhaust but I would definitely recommend using a thermal probe to
6:22
ensure that your motherboard vrm temps are still okay before doing something
6:26
like that in your own system normally your motherboard should want to benefit
6:31
from the downdraft air flow that's coming from your CPU fan the front
6:35
connectors in this system I don't know if you'll be able to see this very clearly but that USB 3 one in particular
6:40
is pretty taut the the other ones were okay but there's more strain on that
6:44
usb3 connector than I would have liked this is an unusual spot on this
6:48
motherboard for the front header for USB 3 um and the front ports do work but
6:53
another inch would have made a really big difference with the power supply
6:58
popped out you can also see my my super ghetto cable cutting job here
7:03
and how short the cables are on this power supply again I don't really recommend doing that so if we take off
7:06
the other side panel you can see that behind the motherboard tray we find a
7:10
very limited amount of space for cable management and we also find uh my boot
7:14
drive it's a 1.8 in 64 gig SSD from
7:17
Kingston uh this freed up some space for me in the front for better air flow
7:22
which I desperately need given that you saw my GPU temperatures and since I
7:26
don't really need any storage in this machine 64 gigs is lot for my OS and
7:30
like the four internet browsers that I need to have running at all times so in
7:36
conclusion overall I really like this case I'm happy with it but I went in
7:42
knowing that I was trading proper ventilation for physical Beauty don't
7:46
expect to fill the PC q28 up with everything that you can physically pack
7:51
inside and have it function seven drives
7:54
plus like a graphics card and and it should be noted that if you do install
7:58
drives on this bottom sled here you're not going to be able to install a double
8:01
slot graphics card so even five drives plus that graphics card it's just not
8:06
enough ventilation and you would have to make some alterations to make that
8:09
happen so with that said I've definitely still got some work to do on this build
8:14
but I don't really think it's fair to review the case after I've modded it so
8:18
I think we're pretty much done here guys like and share this video if you liked
8:22
it helps us out a lot dislike it if you disliked it and leave a comment on the
8:26
lineus tech tips Forum Linked In the video description if you want to discuss
8:30
this product with the other members of our community or if you have any
8:33
constructive criticism for me and my team also linked in the video
8:36
description is our support link with options to buy cool t-shirts give us a
8:40
monthly contribution or even just give us a kickback whenever you buy random
8:44
junk on Amazon.com or dode or do wherever it is that you happen to be so
8:49
check that out if you enjoy our videos it helps us out a whole bunch and as
8:52
always guys thanks for watching and don't forget to subscribe