A Closer Look - Outside

The tower is quite slim and looks very nice. You will not find any special designs with the A7010. Being a workstation case, it is all clean and straight lines for this one.


The front has some design aspects of the Armorsuite, while the back looks very unique in its layout. As you can see, the rear is silver, while the rest of the case is black. Once again, such an aspect is really not of concern here, as you will most likely not be carrying the case around from one LAN party to another.


Both sides of the chassis are completely clean. There are no air vents, windows, fan placements. This should decrease the overall noise that can escape the case through such openings, making for a quieter computing experience.


As mentioned before, the lower front area has the same general design of the Armorsuite. On the very bottom is a fairly large company logo. It does not look disturbing and the placement is perfect for this design. The middle area is occupied by a power and reset button. This part visually divides the inner drive bays and external expansion bays of the chassis. There are five such external 5.25 inch bays. Lian Li has already provided a 5.25 to 3.5 inch adapter in the bottom bay. A nice touch, as you are no longer required to spend even more money on one of these.


Turning the case around, let us take a look at the rear. The bottom holds the power supply. It is mounted on a frame, so you may choose the direction of installation. Above that are the seven mainboard expansion slots. These also act as air vents when unused. On top of that is the area for the mainboard backplate and the rear fan. Lian Li has also added two holes to pass water cooling tubes through. The very top is occupied by another fan. You do, however, have an additional power supply frame, so this area may be used to place a second unit in the case. By default, there is a hard drive cage in this area.


The I/O is located on top, toward the front of the A7010. An eSATA, FireWire, four USB 2.0 and the usual audio connectivity make for a complete set. The door is spring loaded (little device under the cover, to the right) and keeps the door in place firmly both when closed or in the open position.