Lian Li PC-J60 Review
Category : Cases
Published by Luca Rocchi on 28.04.16
The PC-J60 from Lian Li is the latest mid-tower for ATX motherboards from the taiwanese company. Made of brushed aluminum, this case offers space for watercooling solutions with radiators measuring up to 240 and 360mm as well as one high-end graphics cards. It is an elegant solution based on high-end materials as well as a classic design. If you are looking for a really clean and classy ATX case, you need to check this review.
Rating |
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Cooling |
Features |
Layout |
Build Quality |
Value for Money |
| Pros |
+ Good
compatibility for watercooling |
+ Water cooling
+ Dust filters
+ PSU Cover |
+ Interior
space
+ Good space for cable routing |
+ High quality materials
+ Rubber groomets
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| Cons |
- Not compabitle with 140mm fans |
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- Cheap plexiglass panel |
- Despite the good amount of features we believe that price is a bit too high |
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Preview
Specifications
| Model: |
PC-J60 B / WRX |
| Case Type: |
Mid tower |
| Dimensions: |
210 mm (W) x 507 mm (H) x 489 mm (D) |
| Material: |
Aluminum |
| Color: |
Black |
| Drive Bay: |
5.25": |
0 |
| 3.5": |
5 |
| 2.5": |
1 |
| Expansion
slots: |
7 |
| Form factors: |
ATX, mATX, mini-ITX |
| Cooling: |
Front: |
2x 120mm (included) |
| Rear: |
1x 140mm (included) |
| Top: |
3x 120mm |
| Bottom: |
1x 120mm (included) |
| Side: |
/ |
| Watercooling |
Front: |
120/240mm |
| Rear: |
120/140mm |
| Top: |
360mm (max thickness and length: 60mm x 160mm) |
| Link to the product: |
PC-J60 |
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Features
Dust filters
In total there are five spots for 120 millimeter fans in this case. All the air inlets are covered using dust filters. These can be removed easily in order to clean them under tap water. |
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Two compartment layout
Lian Li chose a two chamber layout for this case. In the top part of the case there is the motherboard with processor, memory and graphics, while in the bottom compartment the PSU and all the drives are being placed. |
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Cable management
For a great looking and high-priced case it’s almost self-evident that there is a well-thought cable management in place. As we already mentioned Lian Li decided to create a two chamber layout, which offers plenty of space. Below the motherboard you can hide away all your cables to achieve clean looks. Apart from that there are numerous rubber grommeted cut-outs allowing the user to route cables from one side of the motherboard tray to the other. |
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Support for custom watercooling
The PC-J60 offers good flexibility when it comes to custom watercooling gear. Looking at the case from the front, you see two 120 millimeter fans and on top you can conveniently place a 360 millimeter radiator. |
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Dual HDD tray
Right above the power supply there is a modular HDD cage. Thanks to the use of thumb screws it’s possible to remove this rack without having to look for additional tools. The rack itself allows you to install up to four 3.5 inch drives. In order to reduces vibrations the HDD cage features pre-fit rubber rings for the 3.5 inch drive. To ensure adequate cooling there is a 120 millimeter outtake fan. |
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Product overview
Overview |
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The PC-J60 is a mid tower case, which is compatible with ATX form factor motherboards. Apart from that there is also plenty of space for large CPU coolers, massive graphics cards and watercooling gear. The front has been covered using the same style on the entire case and includes the I/O panel, which features two USB 3.0 ports, headphone and microphone jacks as well as the standard power and reset buttons.
The PC-J60 is available in two versions, full black and a combination of black and red - like our sample. Both side panels are solid, well finished and the left one offers also a huge plexiglass side panel. The rear is simple and has all the features you would expect from such a case, including a spot for a 140mm fan and the motherboard I/O panel. The PC-J60 comes with a total of than seven expansion slots with air-vent design in order to improve cooling. The bottom of the case is equipped with four aluminum feet which raise and stabilize it. |
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Installation
Overview |
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| On the inside the PC-J60 is spacious since the front part of this case is almost empty. As we already metioned, the motherboard tray is compatible with the ATX standard and in that context it makes sense to offer quite a few HDD/SSD slots. On the motherboard tray there is also a large opening behind the socket, which allows you to install aftermarket coolers without the need of removing the motherboard. Around the tray, there are a few openings for routing cables and since there is quite some space between the back of the motherboard tray and the right side panel, it’s easy to hide all your cables here. In addition Lian Li decided to add a PSU cover, which helps improving the overall looks. The HDD slots and SSD drives can be installed without any problems, thanks to the tool-less system. All the HDD cages are removable in case you need more space. The most interesting feature of this case is that there is a lot of interior space dedicated to the CPU and the graphics department. For our test we used quite a simple setup since there is a lot of space available for watercooling gear on the front. |
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Ventilation options
Overview |
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| As far as cooling is concerned, the PC-J60 offers quite a few features. The front offers enough space to be equipped with two 120mm fans (both included in the delivery) and the back side comes with a pre-installed 140mm fan. The top of the case can be equipped with up to three 120mm fans. Apart from that you can install 240mm radiator in the front and 360mm in the top s as well. As previously mentioned, there are dust filters covering every single fan slot. Since there are a few limitations in terms of size, we recommend to visit the official site for a complete compatibility list. |
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Temperatures
Overview |
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For testing purposes we're using an MSI Z170I Gaming Pro AC motherboard, an Intel Core i5-6600K CPU, which receives cooling through a SilentiumPC Fortis 3 HE1425 MCE cooler as well as a MSI GTX 970 Gaming 4G graphics card. To put the CPU under full load, we're running prime95 for 10 min and in the case of the GPU we use Furmark also for 10 minutes. After these ten minutes, we're going to write down the temperatures. The ambient temperature is close to 24°C. |
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All noise dampening panels installed |
Idle (°C) |
Full (°C) |
|
Intel Core i5-6600K |
28 / 28 / 28 / 29 |
52 / 52 / 54 / 53 |
| MSI GTX 970 Gaming 4G |
44 |
69 |
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Less is better |
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Conclusion
With the PC-J60, Lian Li offers a new mid-tower case, which offers a lot of flexibility if you plan on building a watercooled rig. Thanks to a clean arrangement of the different elements and the enormous amount of space available in the front part of the case you can realize lots of different kind of systems, while easily being able to build a high-end, custom watercooled rig. The PC-J60 is compabitile with large radiators, however, it is not compatible with 140/280mm radiators, which are fairly common nowadays. There is only one spot for a 140mm fan in the back and since the case is quite huge we would like to see wider compatibility. The design is classical Lian Li without any extra openings, which makes it overall simple and elegant. PC-J60 is available in all black or black and red; unfortunately, the red looks more like pink, which basically matches no color of any existing component. We would really like Lian Li to change this color to a red, which is similar to todays motherboards and graphics cards.
The model we tested features a large plexiglas window and unfortunately the windows looks really cheap and it's very easy to scratch. We are aware of the cost of tempered glass, however, we do not understand why the company has decided to use such a cheap plexiglass panel that doesn't match with overall case quality. We've reviewed numerours cases from Lian Li in the past, also with plexiglass panels, but we've never encountered any such issues.
The PC-J60 leaves us with mixed feelings. There is a lot of space, great, yet still limited compatibility with the liquid systems, good build quality but a very cheap plexi panel is very confusing. Apart from that there is an excellent bundle with three pre-installed fans, which allows for good airflow right out of the box. Checking the price we find the Lian Li PC-J60 is available on Geizhals at a price of 235 Euros for the windowed version and 209 Euros for the standard version. Overall it really looks like this is one of the Lian Li cases we'll soon see a second revision emerge. The Lian Li PC-J60 receives
4 out of 5 stars.
