The ATX form factor has been the old reliable for gaming PC’s for a long time, ATX motherboards offer a wide array of hardware support and compatibility. The size required to house the components has led the industry to 2 common designs: airflow focused or the glass ‘fish tank’. Both have their own merits and many brands (including Lian Li) are creating fantastic versions of each. The other, slightly less common type of case tries to be compact, but typically it has to sacrifice airflow. Lian Li have stepped up to the plate with the Lancool 207. On the box is written ‘ATX Layout Re-invented’, so, what have they been up to with this one?
Case Overview
The Lancool 207 follows Lian Li’s design language faithfully. It is aesthetically simple, squared off, but with tapered edges along the front panel. It’s got a clear glass panel on the side of our white unit, which should allow unobstructed views of the hardware. There is also a black version available too, which we’d love to check out in future.
The side panels and the top pop out easily, the front magnetically attaches, it’s a little feature but it feels nice dropping it back in place. Under the glass panel there is a small mesh panel running the length of the case, there are 2 thumb screws to remove it. It makes sense that it’s screwed in as it acts as a support for the glass.
The case follows the usual ATX design, motherboard up top, with a separate area below. This is typically where the power supply lives in most ATX cases, a convention which Lian Li have adhered to. PSU’s are typically rear mounted, this part of the standard has been broken. The PSU is mounted at the front of the case, and bolted in from the side, leaving the cables to exit towards the solid side of the case. Big deal, right?...... It doesn’t sound like much, but it is actually a really smart choice! It leaves room for 2 x 120mm fans at the bottom, but more importantly airflow to them is now uninterrupted. In a clever design twist because of the raised edge of the PSU it also looks like the fans are flush mounted into the bottom of the case. In addition to the pre-installed fans at the bottom we also have 2 x 140mm fans on the front, these are 30mm thick and should create a lot of static pressure. Surrounding the front fans is a perfectly cut plate around them which should keep most of the static pressure from escaping back out of the front. So, you could say Lian Li has airflow taken care of here, but does it classify as small?
The case comes in at (h)456mm x (d)455.6mm x (w)219mm, for an ATX case it is small. Lian Li claims ‘M-ATX sized case with ATX compatibility’ and the size is similar to that of some of the medium-large M-ATX cases out there. I feel this is about the sweet spot for small, airflow focused ATX cases.
Key Hardware Support
ATX/M-ATX/ITX motherboards
ATX PSU (max 160mm)
Graphics cards up to 375mm
Up to 180mm air cooler height
Up to 1 x 360mm radiators
Motherboard Overview
We were very lucky to be able to use the ROG Strix X870-A Gaming Wifi for this project. X870 is the next generation of AMD motherboards, designed to get the best from the new Ryzen 9000 series CPUs. They are however still using the AM5 standard for the CPU, so you could, as we did, use a Ryzen 7 7800X 3D! So, if it’s still AM5, why not save some cash and go with an X670 instead? Well, let’s not pull our punches, you could do that and be fine for a while, but there are some notable upgrades on offer here! Firstly the motherboard is now PCIe 5 compatible (graphics and NVME only), so should the next generation of GPU’s require it you’d be ready to upgrade. Secondly USB4 is now available, with speeds up to 60gbps, which is blazing fast! There are other upgrades, but we’re not here for a deep dive into specs.
When building with the ROG Strix X870-A Gaming Wifi we did notice a few quirks. The M.2 heatsink is a chonky little fella, it's a 23mm thick block of what I believe to be aluminium. This should be more than enough to cool a gen 5 NVME! The heatsink also unlatches with a push button rather than screws, it saved us some time, but caused Matt a bit of confusion - is it time to retire the screwdriver flip? There are 2 USB connectors for the front panel, not many cases require 2 currently, but it’s nice as an option. Finally the BIOS screen has a bit of an update, it looks like it might be HD now, which is a nice quality of life improvement.
We love the aesthetics on offer, everything just look clean - if something doesn’t need to be on show it’s covered but accessible. We feel that the unit will work incredibly well in a white setup with silver accents.
Parts List
What Was It Like To Build?
Usually we skip over the motherboard part of the build as they’re all pretty similar, but this is a new generation so it seems wise to let you know if there have been any changes. The simple answer is no, not really, everything still fits in the same way as we’re used to. There is comfort in similarity. The only real difference was the latching mechanism for the main M.2, the heatsink comes off with a button press and the M.2 also just clicks into place.
As for the Lian Li Lancool 207 the build process was a little mixed. Fitting the components was fine. It all seemed very normal, fit the completed motherboard, attach the radiator, fit the power supply and then cable manage. At first glance the space for cable management seemed ample, there is a wide, vertical channel with 3 velcro straps and then a smaller channel with hooks up top. The problem was a combination of the cable channel depth and cables from the power supply needing to immediately bend because of their positioning, we’d further compounded this by adding cable extensions! Getting everything in and flat was difficult, so much so that we had to unscrew the brackets holding the cable channel and use some additional space to the side. If we were to do this again we wouldn’t use cable extensions and perhaps look at PSU’s which have individually braided cables instead - this should solve the problem.
Airflow
The Lancool 207 is built with airflow in mind and we went into testing believing it would perform admirably. We’re typically right with our predictions, and have proved to be once more. It seems from the airflow visualisation that both the bottom and front fans have no issues dragging air into the case. With the fans at full speed there is also a sort of cyclical effect shown by bits of the smoke, where it is ejected out the top with some being drawn back in. Usually redrawing in air is not a good thing as you’re getting heated air being taken in, but it is a very small amount of air at full speed and testament to the pressure created by the fans. It’s unlikely any PC will need the fans to sit at max speed for prolonged periods and even more unlikely that such a small re-drawing of air will have negative consequences.
Roundup
Have Lian Li re-invented ATX layout? The answer isn’t so simple, they haven’t redesigned the layout, almost everything goes where you would expect. If anything the Sup-01 was a bigger departure from the ATX norm. The change, more than anything, is moving and re-orientating the power supply to allow optimum airflow within a smaller footprint. The design update is much smaller than the claim, but is it about the magnitude of the change or the resulting effect?
If we move away from bold statements and see this case for what it is then we gain clarity. The Lancool 207 is a well built, compact, airflow focused ATX case, and we don’t need it to be any more than that! Building in it can have complications with cable management, but that will be down to the power supply chosen and the decision as to whether you feel the need to use cable extensions. This is an excellent case and should it follow similar pricing to its predecessor then it will also be a bargain!
Check out the full build video below.
Blog post written by Sam Thwaytes
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US Links
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UK Links
Case: Coming Soon
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Cooler: not available
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