A Closer Look - Inside

With the side panels removed, the interior of the Lancool 207 looks pretty traditional when you focus on the area around the motherboard. At first, it seems like there is just a little bump in the front section of the shroud. Looking at it from the other side, there are more hints that things are swapped around underneath the shroud, which ends up being a pretty impactful change to the real world performance as well.


With the glass panel taken off, you can unscrew the two captive thumb screws holding the mesh panel in place. Removing this reveals two storage plates towards the back of the case and a PSU bay at the front, along with a power cable to route the outlet to the backside of the enclosure. Above the shroud, there is a simple but functional metal GPU support bracket, which is lined with foam.


Instead of a PSU, the area below the motherboard comes equipped with two 120 mm fans. These are set to pull air through the vented parts of the sides and push it up the case, offering additional airflow to the expansion cards. By embedding these into the shroud, they will not block your motherboard either. On top of that Lian Li has done an excellent job with the wiring, with none visible. In fact, these two fans are wired to only require a single motherboard header. The only downside is the fact that these are not inverse fans, so you will have to look at the backside of the fans. To alleviate this a little bit, Lian Li has opted for blank black stickers on the hubs. Towards the front, there is that PSU bay which has been rotated sideways. This does mean that you have to ensure your unit is no longer than 160 mm. Luckily, these days there are plenty of compact yet potent and efficient options out there for you to pick from.


On the backside, there is no room for cable management behind the motherboard itself. Instead, there is a dedicated, wide cable trench towards the front of the chassis with three Velcro equipped metal brackets. There is also an opening with a grommet cover here, which is nice to see, but which we did not end up needing at all. At the top edge of the motherboard tray there is another, slimmer, trench with two plastic hooks which unfortunately turn out to be not so functional. Lian Li could easily redesign these so that cables don't pop out.


With the unique sideways PSU bay, you are meant to slide the compact power supply in through this side of the chassis. Thanks to the two thick foam liners, it is detached from the chassis a bit as well. Above that in the front, you can see the two 140 mm intake fans. These are also only needing a single PWM header, which once again is a very nice detail. While Lian Li does not advertise this area as being compatible with 280 mm radiators, I would not be surprised to see someone trying to pair these 30 mm thick fans with one at their own risk (or reward?).


Underneath the shroud towards the rear there are two HDD trays, each capable of holding a single drive of 2.5" or 3.5" size. While there may be a little bit of a cable mess from this angle, you can also easily access them from the other side of the case if need be. Above that, things go back to a bit more traditional with the seven expansion bays and the previously mentioned mounting possibility for a rear fan. There is plenty of clearance above this part of the case, so that you should be able to have both an AIO in the ceiling and still place a fan in the rear as well.


Speaking of radiators in the ceiling, you should have no issues with your motherboard, thanks to the offset mounting holes as far away as possible from the board. On top of that, as your board is recessed into the tray, that gives you even more room, meaning you can probably go for pretty crazy cooling setups in the ceiling - especially if you stick to a 360 mm radiator size.


All the wires inside the Lian Li Lancool 207 are sleeved black. Both USB leads are nice and flat and there is a unified front panel connector even though you only have the power switch to worry about.