SPCR

I remember buying a cheap aluminum case a decade ago and it liked to buzz a lot. Anyway, after a decade of really borinz dull cases, I am yet again attracted to the glistening color of aluminum again. Blame Apple. I am looking for a small tower case and there are several Lian Li models but am still wary of the pitfalls of aluminum and whether Lian Li has solved this problem or not. I won't have anything powerful in the case. Just an i3, a midrange gtx, couple sticks of memory, and a 400w PSU. And two hard drives and an SSD.

Steel cases are preferred over aluminium, mostly because aluminium is more prone to vibration, the pannels are also less thick and will help less with dampening, but i say this and i own 3 lian li aluminium cases, and to me as long as you chose quiet components you should be fine. That said, lian li cases in some scenarios have a lot of opening... so might not be ideal depending on the components you chose. Either way to me Lian Li finishes are really nice, the hole reason i keep buying them. To recap it, if you like lian li go for it but be very careful into what hardware you will place in, but if you are seeking the most quiet setup then go for a steel case, like a Antec Solo II or Fractal Design Define R4, etc.

silverwolf0 wrote:I remember buying a cheap aluminum case a decade ago and it liked to buzz a lot. Anyway, after a decade of really borinz dull cases, I am yet again attracted to the glistening color of aluminum again. Blame Apple. I am looking for a small tower case and there are several Lian Li models but am still wary of the pitfalls of aluminum and whether Lian Li has solved this problem or not. I won't have anything powerful in the case. Just an i3, a midrange gtx, couple sticks of memory, and a 400w PSU. And two hard drives and an SSD.

What about the Ncase? In case, you may order it up to about the 20th june, I guess.

IMO, stock Lian Li cases probably won't cut it for you. I used an A05FN for a while, and had terrible vibration issues. The HDD decoupling was insufficient, the fan mounts were murder on static pressure, and it didn't take much airflow to turn it into a freaking pipe organ.

Having said that, if you go with a more open/high-flow design, the problems are relatively cheaply/easily solved, and though steel does have superior noise-blocking properties, even low-flow cases are too open for that to make much of a difference.