How well would a vintage Lian Li case like this deal with modern hardware?

atarione

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Why does every single (not quite) but way too many new cases have stupid glass side panels and/or look cheap / stupid or all 3?

Yes I know I`ve apparently became a pc case boomer???

This is the question.. I really like these old Lian Li aluminum case (cable management ..etc probably safely described as "limited"?) and they only seem to take 80mm fans and I suppose AIOs are off the table as well certainly. (but I also hate AIOs).

If say I got one of these Lian Li cases like this and stuck a intel i7-12700 and RTX3070 FE, and Seasonic X750 PSU in it.... well would it be able to manage thermally ... ?? I wish I could find an ATC-201 but that seems near about impossible ?

So yeah here is the case in all it`s 3 80mm fan mount glory

1660611893087.png s-l1600.png
 
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Your prob going to have heat issues since those cases were not really designed for that amount of heat load. I have several of that style case that I used back in the day and even back then the stock fans werent that great. Back then I replaced all the fans with fast panaflo fans to keep everything cool. The current equivalent to panaflo fans would likely be noctua now, and you would need something fast enough to cycle the air through the case.

The other issue you will likely run into is that the depth of the case in not that big, so it likely wont fit many of the tower coolers out there. Also that will effect a lot of video cards both in length and depth, as a lot of video cards hang out far on the side where it screws into the card slots. Not to mention a lot of the longer cards will interfere with the front cages due to length. I would do a lot of measuring before trying to fit any modern hardware in one of those cases and make sure you have clearance and you will be able to get the side pannel on.
 
Your prob going to have heat issues since those cases were not really designed for that amount of heat load. I have several of that style case that I used back in the day and even back then the stock fans werent that great. Back then I replaced all the fans with fast panaflo fans to keep everything cool. The current equivalent to panaflo fans would likely be noctua now, and you would need something fast enough to cycle the air through the case.

The other issue you will likely run into is that the depth of the case in not that big, so it likely wont fit many of the tower coolers out there. Also that will effect a lot of video cards both in length and depth, as a lot of video cards hang out far on the side where it screws into the card slots. Not to mention a lot of the longer cards will interfere with the front cages due to length. I would do a lot of measuring before trying to fit any modern hardware in one of those cases and make sure you have clearance and you will be able to get the side pannel on.
ok fair enough.. not what I wanted to hear, but makes sense.. this is probably a nonstarter seems like a bad idea....
 
ok fair enough.. not what I wanted to hear, but makes sense.. this is probably a nonstarter seems like a bad idea....
I've got my retro rig built in that same case but with a couple of mods. I added a 120mm exhaust on top and a 120mm inlet on the side blowing on the gpu/mb area.
The rig consisted of a Q6700 @3.7 with cm 212 and sli
8800gtx ( I've changed the mb since). I've no idea what the total output was but with the added fans it ran nice and cool, even with the 8800gtxs sandwiched in there. If you don't mind busting out a hole saw you may do alright with it. The other drawback is vibrations. After I cut the top 120 I had to brace the top.
 
It doesn't take much to cool the build you have. 3 decent 120mm fans would ventilate the case enough and be reasonably quiet as long as the GPU and CPU cooler fans are tame.

Perhaps remove the extra drive bays to make everything fit and mount 2 120mm intake and one 120mm exhaust fan?
 
One way to take care of that much wattage without cutting a bunch of holes is watercooling. It's the kind of case that helped popularize watercooling for its one practical purpose: dissipating heat in a place other than where it's being generated. Yeah back in the day external radiators weren't unheard of. One of the stupid-face-thumbnail youtubers did a review on a vintage gigabyte kit.
 
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One way to take care of that much wattage without cutting a bunch of holes is watercooling. It's the kind of case that helped popularize watercooling for its one practical purpose: dissipating heat in a place other than where it's being generated. Yeah back in the day external radiators weren't unheard of. One of the stupid-face-thumbnail youtubers did a review on a vintage gigabyte kit.
Yeah lot of old cases had hose holes.

OP: I run a 20 year old case with modern hardware. The main limitation as pointed out is fans/airflow. Water cool, dremel or choose a case with large mesh/open rear and you can sort of fudge it.
I just stuck 2x180mm fans loose inside and luckily the front intakes are 92mm because weird old server cases.
 
Not sure how well it would work, but there are 5.25" bay coolers and PCIE slot coolers. Might need to paint the bay coolers to match.
 
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