Lian Li PC-O6S Review - Make an aesthetic statement with your case
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2016-05-06
·
2,014 words · ~10 min read
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A while ago, we took a look at the Bolt 3 from Digital Storm, a boutique-built
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gaming PC that caught the eyes of a lot of enthusiasts for its striking good
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looks. But as attractive as it was, we know that many of you swear by building
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your own rigs exclusively, like I do.
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So, today we're taking a look at the slightly bigger brother to the case from
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the Bolt 3, the Leon Lee PC06S, which
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supports up to microATX instead of just miniITX. It's available on its own, so
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you can fill it with whatever goodies you like without paying a premium to
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have it pre-built. So, what's it like to assemble a PC inside of it? Let's dive
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right
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in. GFuel is the sugar-free alternative energy beverage to maintain focus and
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endurance in long days and gaming sessions. Use our offer code and check
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out the new Kiwi strawberry flavor at the link below. Leon Lee has been famous
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for making aluminum PC cases with interesting looks. Anyone remember the
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train case? Yeah, that's kind of what they're known for. The PC06s is no
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exception. Not only do you get a completely aluminum body, but a side
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panel made of actual tempered glass. Beautiful. No plastic or acrylic, none
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of that stuff. This makes your components look downright dramatic,
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especially if you throw some nice lighting into your case. If you think
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its beauty is a thing to behold, you can display your work of art on the wall.
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The PCO 6S is wall mountable. So, that's pretty cool. But if you do just want it
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to be on your freaking desk, it can be oriented in either horizontal or
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vertical positions on your desk with the use of the stand if you want it to be in
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the vertical position. Let's go ahead and start our tour of the case's
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exterior. On the front, you have the power switch, but interestingly, no
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reset button. Moving on, you have headphone and microphone jacks and four
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USB 3.0 ports, which is pretty sick. You
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will need a pair of USB 3.0 headers on your motherboard to get all of these
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ports running at full speed. But because many motherboards only have a single USB
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3.0 header, they have included a USB 2.0
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adapter. You just won't get full speed from that. You also get a slim optical
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drive if you're into that sort of thing and a mesh grill that shows off your
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power supply of all things. More on that later. Moving to the top, there's more
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venting with a filter for the three pre-installed 120 mm sleeve bearing
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fans. You can also mount a radiator up here as well for additional cooling.
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Another note is that the entire top of the case is actually removable and
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unscrews and comes off, which you'll need to do when building the computer.
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The left side panel is just that large piece of tempered glass that shows off
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your internals. Since the case is quite thin, you won't be able to fit a tower
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style cooler in here, but some lower profile coolers will fit in just fine
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with the case's 85 mm of vertical tolerance. The right side panel is held
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on by four thumb screws and features a filtered fan mount that can hold either
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a 120 mm or 140 mm fan. Just mind your
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cable management if you use it as your fan blades might get very close to
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cables behind the motherboard tray. Our case doesn't seem to have come with the
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proper thumb screws for the glass side panel. Although I'm not surprised as
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this review was massively delayed and we actually received this when it was still
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a pre-production sample. So I can't really blame them for that. The back has
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an interesting design where your motherboard and expansion port IO isn't
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exactly flush with the outer part of the case, but is rather recessed a couple of
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inches. There's also more venting and four PCI Express brackets. The bottom of
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the case, unlike more conventional designs that have venting of some sort
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for the power supply, is completely smooth. Now, let's have a look at the
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inside of the case where things get very interesting. The PC06S is a microATX
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case, but we used a miniITX motherboard for our build since we unfortunately
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didn't have any microATX boards on hand, which is actually part of the reason why
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this video was so delayed. I wanted to hopefully get a microATX board, but we
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just still never got one. Anyways, getting all the parts screwed in wasn't
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too bad, but with beauty often comes tight tolerances. So, as an additional
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note, screwing some things in was easier with a couple extra hands. and doing
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this as a twoperson build might be genuinely helpful. I would also
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recommend to install the graphics card first before the motherboard. Now, it's
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a little bit backwards, but the idea is once the motherboard is in, especially
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with its heat sink on, it can kind of get in the way of installing the
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graphics card, which is below it. So, if you install the graphics card first,
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screw it in, get the PCI riser card out of the way, install the motherboard, and
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then plug in the riser card, everything just kind of works. Speaking of the
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graphics card, one of the most unique things about this case is that the
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graphics card is mounted vertically so you can show it off in all of its
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freaking glory. It sits right near the bottom of the case and connects to your
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motherboard with a beautifully sleeved and pre-installed PCI Express riser
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cable that I previously mentioned. The effect this produces is super awesome,
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especially if you really want to make an aesthetic statement with your case. The
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power supply is suspended in the upper right portion of the case. Since you
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can't access your power supply at all from the outside of the case, what you
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have to do is instead run the power cable through a hole on the back and
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then through the back of the case and then up to the power supply. It's not a
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huge deal, but yeah, it goes in back here. This really allows you to show off
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your PSU. not something that's super common, especially with basement riddled
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cases these days, but it also makes things a little bit cleaner looking at
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the back. You also won't be able to access your power supplies onoff switch
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as a note, however, so just be aware of that. There's also a removable cage for
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your hard drives and SSDs in the bottom right, as well as an extra bracket
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behind the motherboard tray that can mount up to three SSDs or two full-size
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hard drives. Literally nothing in this case, except for a few thumb screws, is
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toolless. Everything is held in with a rather large number of screws. The
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owner's manual even indicates the case uses no less than 11 different types of
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screws, which aren't always easy to tell
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apart. I suggest using some magnetic parts trays of some sort or
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organizational system to keep things split up and sorted. On the flip side
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though, this results in a very sturdy final product when all is said and done,
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which I know definitely works for some people who tend to enjoy the experience
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of building a computer and the end result instead of just rushing through
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it, picking up their screwdriver a minimal amount of times. This fits in
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with uh what is, as far as I can tell, Leon Lee's general philosophy of making
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things strong and stable, even if it
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results in a longer, more tedious process. The case's cable management
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situations somewhat reflects this idea as well. There are quite a few cable
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management holes cut out in rather sensible places. Although I would have
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liked to have seen some like black rubber grommets in order to make things
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tidier, especially as some of the cutouts tend to be large and show off a
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bit of the wiring. But theoretically with very clean wiring, this will
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actually look very nice. And instead of having rubber grommet little leaflets
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going all over the place, it's just a nice clean passound, which is probably
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what I'm expecting they're going for. There also aren't any loops built into
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the chassis on the back, though Leon Lee did include a few plastic adhesive 3M
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loops and zip ties, allowing you to use what you need and no more than that,
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making it take a little bit more time, but allowing it to be more or less
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perfect. So, fitting in with that mantra. So, conclusion time. This isn't
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the easiest case to build in, but it isn't trying to be either. If you like
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the experience of building a computer, feeling at home surrounded by screws,
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aluminum, and tempered glass, and want a case to show off a relatively small
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system in in a relatively legendary way,
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this may be the case for you. as long as your wallet is equally as legendary.
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Tempered glass and aluminum aren't cheap. And neither is this case at $360
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US, which from a Canadian perspective is closer to
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$490. Ouch. Squarespace, you should you should
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their responsive design because that's just modern and awesome. It will look
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great on any device, phone, tablet, PC,
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I don't know, headset, maybe that's going to be a thing at some point. I
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don't know. Commerce, if you need to sell something, you should use that
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because it just makes sense. There's like a storefront built in. Cover page.
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If you if your mom's like, "You should get a job." You can like use a cover
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page thing to try to apply for a job, which would be great. And you should
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start a trial with no credit card required today. When you decide to sign
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first purchase. Squarespace, you
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should. Thanks for watching this video, guys. If this video sucked, you know
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what to do. But if it was awesome, get subscribed, hit the like button, or even
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consider supporting us directly by using our Amazon affiliate code, buying a cool
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t-shirt that isn't from Transistor, which is a pretty cool game. But
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anyways, going on the forum, becoming a contributor, or just becoming a member.
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We like having people on there. It's cool. Now that you're done doing all
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that kind of stuff, you might be wondering what to watch next. So, click here. This video is where I first saw
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the PC08, which is maybe possibly going
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to become my case. I don't really know, but I used it in the compensator build,
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which there will be a V2 of, but Lionus is making it kind of difficult to make a
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compensator build, which is supposed to be an overbuilt computer, when he just
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goes around building like eight and $9,000 or no, he built a $30,000
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computer, then he got an $8,000 chassis. Like, dude, what am I supposed to do?
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How am I supposed to build like an overbuilt computer when that that's like
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all the videos you make? I t