It is no secret that I am a big fan of Lian-Li cases. After having built hundreds of PC's in virtually every case company's products, there simply is not a better choice for consistantly well thought out designs that set the benchmark for quality materials and craftsmanship time after time.

BoxGods will be attending PDXLAN 9 in Portland in mid February, and I needed a "smallish" mid tower case to mod so we could "bring along a little heat". A quick email to Moddersmart and they passed on my request to the great people at Hampton Technologies (they distribute Lian-Li products) who agreed to send a new Lian-Li design, the PC-A16.

I unpacked the PC-A16, set it on my workbench, and had a good long look at it. Nice...very very nice. Another classic is born!

The PC-A16 has Lian-Li's now standard brushed aluminum finish which is fine as it just screams quality--screams, in a silky smooth whisper that is. They have also grafted in a little of the perforated look of the very popular V series of cases on the front via the optical bay covers.

Above, you can see left/front and right/front views. What you won't see are colored bits of plastic, fake carbon fiber, funky hole patterns on the side panels or the top--and no handles or covers either. Just simple, clean classic lines. The center image shows the front I/O ports have been moved from the front of the case to the top. This not only looks a lot better, but actually works very well.

The other thing you won't see are finger smudges. Lian-Li has found some sort of coating that goes a long way toward eliminating these. My first Lian-Li case was a PC-60 and, though it was beautiful, it was easy to smudge the surface and hard to clean. When I reviewed the Lian-Li V300, I noticed right away that it did not have this bad habit, and the A16 does not either.

A quick look at the back before we open the A16 up for a look under the hood.

The picture above gives the impression that the A16 is rather wide, but that is because the case is not overly tall at 17.5 inches--the width is a very standard 8.5 inches. Starting at the top, we see the removable PSU plate. Remove 4 thumb screws, fasten the plate to your PSU, slide it in from the back, and lock it in place with the 4 thumb screws.

The next thing to grab your attention is the included 120mm rear fan--with a mesh cover as opposed to the flow restricting punched metal grate pattern we usually see on lesser cases. This also makes for a less noisy fan btw. The sharp eyed among you will also see the two 1 inch holes above the fan--more on this feature later.

Below the 120mm fan, we see what looks like a squirrel cage fan which would suck as they are loud and inefficient at moving air for the most part. Thankfully, that's not what it is--though it is an air vent. Inside, there is another 120mm fan turned 90 degrees to move hot air off your video cards and out the back of the case--more on that in a bit. Rounding out the back, we see the rear I/O plate and 7 PCI slots.