Lian Li T60 Bench Table Review
Hey guys, after a break, I am back with another review for you. This time its Lian Li T60 bench table. This product is targeted mostly at open air benchers and people like me who test lots of products and need some platform which will allow you to change the components on the fly quickly without ripping apart your entire system each time.
This is one of the first bench tables which is actually reasonably priced and a lot of thought was put into designing this. This is not the kind of bench table aimed at hardcore benchers, but Lian Li has tried really hard to make it a useful and user friendly platform for occasional benchers and overclockers alike.
Lets have a look at it.
Specifications
As you can see, it supports standard ATX and mATX boards.
The case
As you can see, its a unique design. Lots of thought has gone into making sure it is perfect balance between hardcore bench table and day to day use bench table.
Lets have a close look at the entire package
The Package
The entire package ships in a box which is about the same size of some premium motherboards like Gigabyte X58A UD7.
Once you open it, you will first find the manual and documentations. Trust me, you will need it. So don't throw it away or you will end up having to download it from Lian Li first time when you put this together.
You need to assemble the entire bench table yourself. It ships in parts and instruction guide. And it will take good 30 mins to put this together.
Lets have a quick look at all the parts.
Closer look at the contents.
This is the main motherboard tray from the top.
And this is same motherboard tray from bottom. You can see the wires for motherboard power, reset and HDD jumpers.
You can see there is a cutout where CPU will be to ensure easy installation and removal of heatsink. You will not have to remove the entire motherboard off the bench table for that job.
Here is the base and two side support panel. The two side panels attach to the bottom forming the main frame of this open air bench table.
This is the handle assembly. it is made up of two parts. the top plate slides into the pyramid shaped triangular handle and it needs to be screwed in place. This provides a much needed handle to carry the system from one place to another fully assembled.
The top frame is the power supply bracket. It first at the back of the case which provides screw points for mounting the power supply.
The second one is the hard disk drive cage which can take 3 standard 3.5 inch hard disk drives.
These four plates are the support plates for up to two optical drives, One optical and one 2.5" laptop HDD/SSD or two 2.5" laptop HDD / SSD. These attach to the underside of the motherboard tray.
Here is what left. The bottom left plate is the underside of the hard disk drive case.
The top left plates are the mounting plates for power supply which attach to the base. This is there to create a small gap needed if you have the power supply that sucks in the air from the bottom.
You can also see the bracket to hold and secure PCI and PCI express card slots. It uses thumbscrews and hence providing tool free installation and removal of expansion cards. There are two height levels which can be adjusted as per your wish.
You also get 4 rubber case feet and all the screws, nuts and bolts you will need to assemble this open air bench table.
Here is the close look at some parts.
The power supply mount area.
The HDD cage installed.
The instructions are precise and if you follow them, it will not take more than 30minutes to put this entire thing together. Don't waste your time trying to figure it out by yourself. It will take ages if you don't read and follow the instructions to the point. There are plenty of screws of different sizes and shapes and they have specific application.
Final thoughts and conclusion.
Here is my main rig completely assembled on the T60.
All major parts use thumbscrews. Motherboard tray, HDD cage, Handle all are fitted using thumb screws making it easy to remove and reattach all these in short time.
As you can see, this does have buttons for Power and reset and all indicator LEDs you will find on normal case. Like I said in the beginning, this is user friendly bench table. Once all assembly is done, you can easily and safely move your entire bench rig from one place to other. The handle is sturdy and can take the weight easily. Also handle is attached to the frame using 4 thumb screws. Same is the case with motherboard tray which attaches to the side support panels using 4 thumb screws (2 on either side). This means you can quickly remove these two if and when needed for better access and reattach it quickly. This does help a lot when you are benching different heatsinks / pots / chips / GPUs etc.
There are few optional extras which you can buy like the fan bracket for additional fans as well.
Overall, this is very compact bench table and may prove to be slightly cramped if you use big cards. Basically the power supply connectors for the cards liike GTX 470 comes right below the handle, and it takes some efforts to remove and attach the cables there if you have power supply that comes with stiff cables. Its not a big drawback though as handle is easy to remove.
But it does leave a nagging feeling in the back of my mind that this would have been perfect if it was just 10 or 20% bigger. As of now, we dont have any other options other than custom built bench tables to this. And this will satisfy the needs of most enthusiast who wish to have little organised open air bench table.
And at Rs.5500, it's not hugely expensive like many other bench tables that you can buy internationally. Sure its as pricy as some of the mid tower cabinets, but those are no real substitute for this. I am pickuing up one for myself for sure.
Pros
- Great compact design
- Very good finish
- Flexibility
- Easy to change parts you want without touching all other parts
- Lots of optional extras
Cons
- Slightly smaller that I would have liked
- Would have loved to have front I/O attachment bundled with the case
My score card.
Design : 8/10
Functionality : 8/10
Value: 8/10
Built quality : 8/10,
Overall : 8/10.
Thanks to Lian-Li and Phoenix who arranged this for the review and being patient enough to wait almost a month for me to post this review. I hope Lian Li will go easy on him now
Digg this review : http://digg.com/news/technology/lian_li_pitstop_t60_bench_table_review
