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Lian Li Launches PC-O12 Mid-Tower: Three Chambers, E-ATX, LCS-Focused
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Lian Li Launches PC-O12 Mid-Tower: Three Chambers, E-ATX, LCS-Focused

Lian Li has started to sell its new PC-O12 chassis for high-performance gaming desktops. The new mid-tower computer case from the company has an unorthodox construction that allows fitting in motherboards that are in the E-ATX form-factor, as well as two vertically mounted graphics cards and up to eight storage devices in a 2.5-inch form-factor. Despite the focus on the premium aspect of the design, a peculiarity of the PC-O12 case design is that liquid cooling is designed to only be used on the CPU, and it supports no more than two add-in cards.

Following the latest trends in PC building, the Lian Li PC-O12 has multiple compartments for different kinds of components as well as multiple windows made of tempered glass for everyone to see what is inside. With its new chassis, Lian Li decided to go above and beyond with the number of chambers: one houses the motherboard, another accommodates up to two vertically mounted graphics cards and the third one is where the PSU (up to 230 mm) and up to eight storage devices live. Three compartments in case of the Lian Li PC-O12 help to spread out multiple heat sources across the chassis, which somewhat simplifies cooling. What is important is that despite the triple-chamber design, the mid-tower case is not too wide for tall CPU coolers.

Like many contemporary PC cases, the PC-O12 can accommodate motherboards in the Micro-ATX, ATX and E-ATX form-factors. Meanwhile, graphics cards have to be installed vertically using riser cables into a different compartment simply because there is no space for add-in boards in the primary one. A good news is that length of the graphics cards does not matter for the PC-O12 — everything up to 340 mm (and possibly longer) is supported, but this configuration naturally poses a challenge for users who use add-in cards besides graphics adapters. Moreover, if two video cards are used, it is impossible to install a high-end audio board or any other card – only two AIBs can be installed into the PC-O12.

Yet another challenge presented by the relatively thin dual/triple-compartment design is cooling. The maximum height of the CPU cooler supported by the Lian Li PC-O12 is 75 mm, which means that for CPUs from the higher end of the product stack only liquid cooling can be used since all advanced air coolers are higher than 100 mm (Scythe’s Big Shuriken 2 is an exception, but it is unclear how well it is going to handle chips with TDP of well over 100 W). Meanwhile, there is a special compartment for a 360-mm LCS radiator on top of the chassis (which can also be used to install three 120-mm fans) as well as frames to install two 120-/140-mm fans for air intake on the front panel.

Lian Li PC-O12
Motherboard Size ATX, E-ATX, Micro-ATX
Drive Bays External –
Internal 4 × 3.5″ and 4 × 2.5″
AIB Bays Internal 2, up to 340 mm cards are supported
Cooling Front 2 × 120 mm or 2 × 140 mm
Rear –
Top 3 × 120 mm
Middle –
Bottom –
Radiator Support Front –
Rear –
Top 1 × 360 mm
Middle –
Bottom –
I/O Port 1 × USB-C 3.1
2 × USB 3.0
1 × Headphone
1 × Mic
Power Supply Size Up to 230 mm
Dimensions W: 203 mm × H: 508 mm × D: 550 mm
Colors Grey
Features Glass front and side panels
Price $399.99

As the PC-O12 case from Lian Li belongs to its premium O-series family, the PSU and HDD/SSD mounts are equipped with rubber vibration dampers to reduce vibration and noise, whereas the bottom panel features removable mesh dust filters.

The Lian Li PC-O12 is destined for Newegg, at $399.99. Going forward, the computer case will be available in other stores in different regions, but exact MSRPs are unknown.

Gallery: Lian Li PC-O12

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AT20 Giveaway Day 19.5: NZXT Pumps It Up
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AT20 Giveaway Day 19.5: NZXT Pumps It Up

Taking us into our final AT20 afternoon giveaway is NZXT. The case, cooling, and peripherals company has made a name for themselves with their high-end gear, and this afternoon we’ll be giving some of it away. Altogether we have two prizes: the …

AT20 Giveaway Day 19.5: NZXT Pumps It Up
  • Comments are Closed

AT20 Giveaway Day 19.5: NZXT Pumps It Up

Taking us into our final AT20 afternoon giveaway is NZXT. The case, cooling, and peripherals company has made a name for themselves with their high-end gear, and this afternoon we’ll be giving some of it away. Altogether we have two prizes: the …

AT20 Giveaway Day 19.5: NZXT Pumps It Up
  • Comments are Closed

AT20 Giveaway Day 19.5: NZXT Pumps It Up

Taking us into our final AT20 afternoon giveaway is NZXT. The case, cooling, and peripherals company has made a name for themselves with their high-end gear, and this afternoon we’ll be giving some of it away. Altogether we have two prizes: the …

WD Adds Helium-Filled 10 TB NAS HDDs to WD Red, WD Red Pro Lineups
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WD Adds Helium-Filled 10 TB NAS HDDs to WD Red, WD Red Pro Lineups

Western Digital has announced two new helium-filled hard drives targeting consumer and business NAS applications. The new WD Red and WD Red Pro HDDs increase capacity of WD’s NAS drives to 10 TB, boost their performance and also reduce their power consumption. Therefore, the new drives enable makers of NAS units to increase capacities of their products to 80 TB (or 160TB) while increasing speeds and cutting down power.

After introducing its first hermetically sealed helium-filled NAS and video-surveillance HDDs with 8 TB capacity and six platters last year, Western Digital is refreshing its Red and Purple lineups with more advanced drives offering 10 TB capacity and using seven 1.42 TB platters. The new WD Red and WD Red Pro with 10 TB capacity are based on revamped 5400 RPM and 7200 RPM HelioSeal platforms that can support a higher number of platters. The drives also feature increased areal density and 256 MB of cache, enabling ~17% higher sequential read/write performance compared to its predecessors, as well as a lower power consumption compared to previous-gen helium WD Red hard drives. Other than that, Western Digital does not really disclose the feature set of its platform for helium-filled HDDs for NAS applications.

The WD Pro 10 TB drive is engineered for personal or small business NAS systems with up to eight bays, is optimized for mixed workloads and has a 5400 RPM spindle speed. By contrast, the WD Red Pro 10 TB is aimed at medium business and enterprise-class NAS systems up to 16 bays, which is why the HDD features additional protection against vibrations as well as improved random read performance due to both 7200 RPM spindle speed and firmware tuning.  Just like their predecessors, the new WD Red/WD Red Pro hard drives come with SATA 6 Gbps interface.

Comparison of Western Digital’s Helium-Filled NAS HDDs
  WD Red
WD100EFAX		 WD Red
WD80EFZX		 WD Red Pro
WD101KFBX		 WD Red Pro
WD8001FFWX
Capacity 10 TB 8 TB 10 TB 8 TB
RPM 5400 RPM 7200 RPM
Interface SATA 6 Gbps
DRAM Cache 256 MB 128 MB 256 MB 128 MB
Data Transfer Rate (host to/from drive) 210 MB/s 178 MB/s 240 MB/s 205 MB/s
MTBF 1 million hours
Rated Workload (read and write) 180 TB/year 300 TB/year
Acoustics (Seek) 29 dBA 29 dBA 36 dBA
Power Consumption Sequential read/write 6.2 W 6.4 W 5.7 W 8.3 W
Idle 2.8 W 5.7 W 2.8 W 5.2 W
Sleep 0.5 W 0.7 W 0.5 W 0.7 W
Warranty 3 Years 5 Years
Price (as of May 2017) $494 $266.25 $533 $359.99
$0.049 per GB $0.033 per GB $0.05 per GB $0.045 per GB
20 GB per $ 30 GB per $ 18.76 GB per $ 22.2 GB per $

It is interesting to note that WD has improved the power consumption of the 10TB drives over the older 8TB drives. We are asking how exactly WD is doing that, as details were not given with the press release.

The 10TB WD Red and 10TB WD Red Pro are available in the U.S. from select retailers and distributors. The WD Red 10 TB is covered by a three-year warranty and has a price tag of $494. The more advanced WD Red Pro 10 TB features a five-year warranty and has a $533 MSRP.

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