A Closer Look - Outside

The general look of the chassis is identical to the Tyr PC-X2000 - just smaller. The main attributes of the chassis are a very simple but effective thermal layout, shallow depth and a lot of space. The front is completely clean, as the drive bays are located on the side of the X500. The rear looks a bit out of the ordinary as well, but it is black like the rest of the chassis. We will go into greater detail in a bit.


Moving back to the front area of the chassis, there are a few small highlights. The most prominent being the diamond cut straight down the center. On the top left are two small LEDs - one for power and one for hard drive access. On the very bottom is a fairly large Lian Li logo. You will find the I/O and the pair of power and reset button on top of the chassis. While this was a problem with the X2000, which is extremely tall, the X500 should be compact enough to fit under most desks with a few inches left above the chassis.


Both sides of the X500 look identical. They are completely clean and do not have any air vents or openings for fans.


The case has a total of six openings for external drives. Four 5.25 inch and two 3.5 inch version. In reality you can actually use only half of these, as these cover the same drive bays. This means that you may choose if your drives open toward the left or right of the X500.


The rear of the case has three distinct areas. The very bottom is taken by the seven mainboard expansion slots. They are perforated to allow air to pass through this area of the X500. Above that is the cut-out for the mainboard backplate and a large 120 mm fan as well. Lian Li has actually used traditional fan grills this time around. They are painted black to go with the looks of the chassis. The top of the rear holds an additional fan. It cools the hard drives installed in this area. Below it you have the PSU bay. A frame gives you the option of mounting it with the fan facing upward or downward.


Just like it was the case with the X2000 enclosure, you can easily remove the front cover of the X500 as well. Just pull it off to reveal a dust filter covering the two fans. These fans cool the bottom compartment of the chassis. A fan controller is located behind the dust filter above the fans. It can only be accessed after removing the dust filter. All recent high-end cases from Lian Li have this little but very useful feature.