Lian Li has today launched its latest mini-tower chassis in the form of the slightly unusual PC-A05N, a chassis that differs from most by directing airflow from the back to the front.
At the rear of the chassis, pictured below, a 120mm fan is used to pull cool air in and over the residing components. The airflow is then directed to the front and exhausted through side vents by a second 120mm fan and a front-mounted PSU.
The theory, says Lian Li, is that the front-mounted PSU allows for a smaller overall chassis. The PC-A05N - complete with brushed aluminium finish - measures a tidy 210mm x 381mm x 490mm, but retains support for full ATX motherboards and has room for seven PCI slots.
As you'd expect from Lian Li, the chassis has plenty of noteworthy finishing touches - the PSU-attached power plug is routed to the rear of the chassis to keep cables out of sight, there's an internal hard-disk drive cage that'll mount up to three drives with anti-vibration grommets, and there's a row of multimedia I/O ports on top including two USB, FireWire and HD Audio. Along with two 5.25in optical-drive bays and a single 3.5in bay, we'd expect the usual high standard of Lian Li workmanship.
Our gripe, unfortunately, is a scepticism toward the PC-A05N's thermal credentials. We're fond of small-and-tidy enclosures, but the back-to-front airflow in this one still has us raising our eyebrows. We've yet to see real-word temperatures, but air running over hot components and then directly onto the hard drives and power supply doesn't seem to be an ideal formula.
Has Lian Li got it backward? Share your thoughts in the HEXUS.community forums.
Official press release: Lian Li launches the all new PC-A05N Mid-Tower Chassis
Official product page: Lian-Li.com
