A Closer Look - Outside

The first thing you will notice when taking a look at the PC-V650 is its width. Lian Li made it much wider than your average case. This is to procure enough space for a full ATX board inside a case of this size.


There is only one external 5.25" drive bay, and the case lacks the completely perforated front we have seen with the V600, for example. A look at the rear's seven expansion slots actually shows that the V650 can provide for a full ATX motherboard.


Both side panels of the chassis are completely solid. Lian Li chose to attach these side panels through numerous pins so that you can pull it apart without the use of any tools at all—just some muscle.


Taking a closer look at the front, there is a large vent for the intake fans there, a multi-card reader, and one USB 3.0 connector. The interesting bit here is that the card reader is connected to USB 3.0 as well, which should give you the added benefit of speed when reading/writing from fast SD cards. You will find the usual pair of USB 2.0 and audio plugs on top of that. Our chassis unfortunately came with a fairly big scratch right out of the box. I assume someone at the factory let this one slide past QA as the scratch is on the piece of aluminum the whole case is made out of; it cannot be replaced. The aforementioned 5.25" drive bay comes with a flip-down cover and a big power button. Its construction also allows you to remove it completely if you would rather use something else besides an ODD drive within the bay.


In the rear, the PSU bay has actually been placed to the left of the motherboard-expansion slots. This design also contributes to keeping the chassis shorter, but Lian Li was, instead, forced to widen it considerably. Above that is another 120 mm exhaust fan and a hole for the optional fan controller. I would expect a fan controller to be included with a chassis that has four pre-installed fans.


The fourth and last fan can be found in the top of the chassis and is meant to pull hot air out of the chassis, expelling it upward. A quick peek at the underside reveals no additional vents, but two spots through which 2.5" drives may be attached to the PC-V650's interior.