Assembly

Before installing the mainboard, let us take a look at the connectors. These are of the standard variety and Lian Li includes both AC '97 and HD Audio connectors. Installing the mainboard is accomplished - just like in other enclosures - with the use of spacers and screws. The case is extremely compact and fitting large components is no easy task. But, it does work and thanks to the cable routing possibilities you can keep the little space left, pretty much clutter free.


Installing hard drives in the cage is easily done. Simply place the screws on the drive and slide it into place. A single thumb screw secures each cage. You may install a total of four drives inside the X500. Lian Li has decided to leave out any SATA backplates. The reason is simple: with the X2000 there is enough space to create a rail system. This means that you do not take out a cage, but simply slide the drive in place. The compact dimensions of the X500 do not allow for such rails, making the use of a backplate impossible.


Placing the optical drive in the case uses the same system as the X2000. Screw on the special screws, slide it in place and secure it with normal screws. Both drive bays were filled for this review.


The PSU can be easily installed from the side of the chassis if it is small enough. If that is not a possibilty, you may slide it in from the rear of the case.


Once all the parts are filled inside the case, there is very little space left. As you can see, the X500 was packed to the rim with four hard drives, two optical drives, large graphic cards and a large Noctua CPU cooler. It all fit nicely. On top of that, there are barely any cables to be seen. The big mess can be found on the other side of the chassis. That is perfectly fine and the possibilty to hide the cables like this in such a small case is excellent.


Placing the side panels on the case can prove to be difficult, if there are a lot of cables, but with a bit of patience and a bit of gentle pressure here and there, the panel does fit. The LEDs light up blue and red (power & HDD activity), just like with the X2000.


Considering that Lian Li includes a little box for screws, I have taken a picture with all the left over parts after filling the case completely. As you can see, there are more than enough screws included.