Pros & Cons
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- Top-notch cooling performance, with five pre-installed fans
- Easy-to-clean front and bottom dust filters
- Durable steel construction
- Attractively finished wood accents
- Supports reverse-connector motherboards
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- Somewhat noisy with stock fan operation
- No filter over lower fan intake vents
- No fan lighting
Lian Li Lancool 217 Specs
| 120mm or 140mm Fan Positions | 7 |
| 120mm to 200mm Fans Included | 5 |
| Dimensions (HWD) | 19.9 by 9.5 by 19.5 inches |
| Fan Controller Included? | |
| Front Panel Ports | HD Audio |
| Front Panel Ports | USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-A (2) |
| Front Panel Ports | USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-C |
| Included Fan Lighting Color | Addressable RGB |
| Internal 2.5-Inch Bays | 7 |
| Internal 3.5-Inch Bays | 4 |
| Internal Chassis Lighting Color | None |
| Maximum CPU Cooler Height | 180 |
| Maximum GPU Length | 412 |
| Motherboard Form Factors Supported | ATX |
| Motherboard Form Factors Supported | MicroATX |
| Motherboard Form Factors Supported | Mini-ITX |
| PCI Expansion Slot Positions | 7 |
| Power Supply Form Factor Supported | ATX |
| Power Supply Maximum Length | 210 |
| Power Supply Mounting Location | Bottom |
| Side Window(s)? | Yes (Tempered Glass) |
| Weight | 22.3 |
Let’s list a few things you won’t find in a typical mainstream-priced PC case: spiffy wood trim, more than four fans, or a powered fan hub. Combine these with a full load of basic features, such as multiple drive trays and filters on all intake-fan locations, and that should result in a premium chassis that costs north of $150. (Even if you cut back on the structural materials, it’s a challenge to get all that goodness much below that price point.) That calculus makes Lian Li’s Lancool 217 something of a cool enigma: a $119.99 PC case that packs the feature set of a model that usually costs $40 or $50 more, and looks good doing it. (Think PC case crossed with 1970s wood speaker cabinet.) We give the Lancool 217 an Editors’ Choice award as a top value among mainstream tower cases.
Design: Feature Overload for the Money
We tested Lian Li’s black version of the Lancool 217, outfitted with dark walnut trim; the company also offers a white version with beech accents for a $5-higher list price. We expect a case at the Lancool 217’s price to include a pair of intake fans and an exhaust fan, but Lian Li goes one better by equipping this model with an extra pair of fans mounted to the top of its power supply tunnel.
Lian Li continues its splurge by securing the corrugated mesh front panel with magnets and surrounding it in nicely finished wooden trim. Its designers also decided to secure its left-side tempered-glass panel with snaps at the top and tabs at the bottom. Plus, that side’s vented lower portion is removable, with sliding tabs along its length and a screw at the back.
The power button, on the top panel and metal-skinned, features a power-on indicator LED behind a small rectangular plastic diffuser. It looks striking.
(Credit: Thomas Soderstrom)Oddly, a second power button is positioned in the classic “front panel” group along the front edge of the lower left side-panel. Positioned exclusively for people who like to be able to see inside their PC while they work or play (i.e., who have their tower on a desk or table), the group includes a headset combo (headphone plus microphone) jack, a pair of USB 3.x Type-A ports on a Gen 1 internal cable, and a Type-C port on a Gen 2x2 internal cable.
(Credit: Thomas Soderstrom)A few features are hidden underneath the Lancool 217, such as the one-piece rear foot that conceals a rear-panel power jack, and three sets of slider slots for attaching Lian Li’s two internal drive cages (included) in various positions.
(Credit: Thomas Soderstrom)Here’s a look at that power jack, along with the reason it’s located there: The power supply bay is designed to hold the power supply either longitudinally or transversely, and a cover plate is factory-installed to encourage transverse mounting. If you do the transverse mounting scheme, the power cable from the PSU gets fed from this rear port. Barely long enough to cover its air inlet, a power supply dust filter slides out the back of the case through a notch in its one-piece rear foot. Here you can see it partly removed.
(Credit: Thomas Soderstrom)The rest of the rear panel features a removable expansion slot module that can rotate to support the vertical installation of a graphics card via a riser cable (not included). Also back here are four slots on a dual-pattern fan mount that allow a 140mm or 120mm rear fan to be installed at any height within the range of the motherboard’s I/O panel. A 140mm exhaust fan comes factory-mounted, and a notch near the top of each side panel makes it easier to pull these away from their upper-edge snaps.
A vent along the lower edge of the right side’s panel feeds air to the Lancool 217’s center fans and drive bays.
(Credit: Thomas Soderstrom)Behind that right side panel is the below assortment of cables, cable grommets, drive trays, and mounting bays.
(Credit: Thomas Soderstrom)Starting with the powered fan hub at the top of that opening, we can see that five of its six fan headers are factory-filled with included fans. That leaves just a single PWM header for adding another case fan, though you can certainly connect additional fans directly to headers on your motherboard or add splitter cables when the need arises.
(Credit: Thomas Soderstrom)The four ARGB headers that are also present go unused, since the included fans aren’t lighted, and the case includes no other lighted accessories. Its 3-pin (5V) ARGB headers are protected by caps.
Below the motherboard tray and its two rear-mounted 2.5-inch drive trays, the lower bays feature room to mount two drive cages and the power supply. Also stowed there is the cable you’ll need to use if you transverse-mount the power supply, with its power jack hidden behind the opposite side panel. We measured 210mm of power-supply clearance cross-ways (despite Lian Li’s 180mm rating). Builders who need more space than that can get all the room they need by removing the rear cover plate, mounting their power unit lengthwise, and leaving out at least one of the separately packed lower drive cages.
(Credit: Thomas Soderstrom)Though it’s part of the installation kit, we decided to show one of the add-in drive cages below to give you a better idea of how the above space can be used. Each cage contains a single drive tray that holds a 2.5-inch drive on the underside and a 3.5-inch drive on the top side. The lid of the cage is also designed to hold either a 2.5-inch or 3.5-inch drive using rubber grommets and shoulder screws to provide a vibration-damped snap-in interface.
(Credit: Thomas Soderstrom)Moving a few cables out of the way also exposes the adjustment screw for the horizontal graphics-card support on the opposite side.
(Credit: Thomas Soderstrom)Below we see the graphics-card support mentioned above. It’s a small tab located just above the forward fan of the center divider (i.e. the power supply tunnel). Also visible at lower left is the mounting flange for installing the power supply cross-ways, the rear fan hole cover that features a set of holes to allow a seventh (!) 2.5-inch drive to be mounted there, the outlet side of the two reverse-flow center fans, and a bunch of holes in the motherboard tray that were placed there to support motherboards with reverse-facing cable headers.
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(Credit: Thomas Soderstrom)Note that the reverse-connector passages are spaced for MSI Project Zero and Asus BTF MicroATX and ATX motherboards that have that feature, while the range of supported boards that don’t have that feature goes all the way down to Mini-ITX (which is to say, the smallest of ATX-based boards) and all the way up to SSI-EEB (the largest of EATX-labeled boards).
Lian Li is one of the few companies that has figured out how to make a rotatable card bracket that has its screw tabs on the inside of the case. In traditional builds, this allows your PCI Express cards to be inserted straight down into the slot, rather than tilting the card and finessing its bracket through a rear-panel hole.
(Credit: Thomas Soderstrom)The Lancool 217’s top fan mount is removable. It fits up to three 120mm or two 140mm fans, and it leaves you enough space above the motherboard to hold a 406mm-long radiator with fans up to a combined 60mm thickness.
(Credit: Thomas Soderstrom)The Lancool 217 front fans are an unusual oversize kind, at 170mm, and mounted without the airflow restriction of a multi-size bracket. That’s because Lian Li decided instead to include adapter brackets in its installation kit for those who would like to install a standard-size front-panel radiator. Radiators up to 457mm long and 38mm thick will fit behind the fan mounts.
(Credit: Thomas Soderstrom)The factory 170mm fans can also be positioned slightly higher on the front panel by removing the top filler panel visible above, snapping the fans into their alternate mounting holes, and reinstalling both filler panels at the bottom of the opening. Below, you can see one of the filler panels removed near the case's top.
(Credit: Thomas Soderstrom)Building With the Lian Li Lancool 217
The Lancool 217 is packed with an extensive hardware kit and a physical manual. The accessory kit includes a front-panel dust filter (why it came in the kit and not pre-installed, we’ll get into later), two adapter brackets for front-mounting 120mm or 140mm fans, a brace for mounting a graphics card vertically atop the power supply shroud, a filler panel that allows the center fans to be moved forward (into the front radiator gap) when positioning these beneath the power supply shroud, and two of the previously discussed single-tray drive cages.
(Credit: Thomas Soderstrom)Front-panel connector cables include a nine-pin button/indicator-LED group, the usual HD Audio, a Type-E (Gen 2x2) header for the Type-C port, and a 19-pin one for the two USB 3.x Type-A ports. The mentioned extension cable for mounting the power supply sideways is also included, and the ARGB/fan hub uses SATA-style power from the power supply to pass PWM and ARGB signals through to up to six fan motors and four ARGB devices.
(Credit: Thomas Soderstrom)Here’s a look at how our standard test components, including our ATX motherboard/power supply and slightly oversize graphics card, fit inside the Lancool 217. Though this specific case has a rear fan of its own to help pass air over our motherboard’s voltage regulators, we mount our system’s radiator above it whenever possible (as shown) to assist in the cooling of this area.
(Credit: Thomas Soderstrom)Connecting our motherboard to the Lancool 217’s ARGB had no effect since the case doesn’t come with any ARGB devices, but we’re sure that the understated look of having just a few internal devices lighted against a dark background of black fans will garner a few followers.
(Credit: Thomas Soderstrom)Performance Testing the Lian Li Lancool 217: Good Flow, Big Noise
Below is a list of the components installed above, as well as the settings we used to perform our tests.
Lian Li was concerned enough about the airflow capabilities of its front dust filter that the case maker boxes it separately and instructs discriminating builders to leave it out to maximize cooling. So, we tested the Lancool 217 both ways.
Whatever concern Lian Li had over its front filter’s flow capacity should be tempered by the fact that our internal components rose by only 1 degree C after installing it. Also, we can’t fully understand that part’s impact on the overall dust situation when the case also has a pair of center fans that have no filter, blowing air straight up from unfiltered holes in its right-side panel!
The cooling performances of the Lancool 217 and the Asus TUF Gaming GT302 ARGB (which also supports reverse-connector motherboards), the top-performing cases in this lot, are somewhat of a wash, as you can see below. Bravo to them both. (In the Lancool's configuration, having five factory-installed fans helps, of course.)
Other competing cases here include Fractal Design's Meshify 3 and MSI's Velox 300R Airflow PZ.
Noise levels, though, have these two cases competing as the trailing cases of this test group. The Asus TUF Gaming GT302 is the second noisiest, behind the Lancool 217’s full-speed roar.
We make that observation above about the case noise, but 44db is barely quieter than 45db. Any of these cases really needs to be set up to follow a thermal map to reduce fan speed (and thus noise) to the greatest practical extent, and every PC motherboard we’ve examined has had headers and firmware capable of making those adjustments.