I added 2 x 140mm fans in the slots below the GPU which is mounted traditionally, keep my 3090 well fed with fresh air. Other than this minor inconvenience, the Lian Li Lancool 216 is an excellent mid-range chassis. Installing a system inside the case is easy, the adjustable motherboard mounting position makes motherboard components at the top of the case accessible when in water cooling mode with a top-mounted radiator and for those who want to air cool the system the motherboard can be lifted to create more space for bigger bottom fans and large CPU air coolers while still being able to mount a big graphics card vertically.

Located in the second chamber behind the motherboard, a SATA-powered fan hub can support up to 4x ARGB and PWM fans.

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By installing the external fan slightly wonky and with only one screw I was able to connect to one HDMI port on the graphics card and run the thermal tests. Hopefully, Lian Li can take a second look at the fan mount and modify it so that it can compatible with more system configurations as it is genuinely a good feature, especially when combined with the PSU shroud mounted fans. Adding additional 120mm fans to the PSU shroud helped drop GPU temperature again and installing the rear external fan mount, equipped with a 120mm Lian Li UNI Fan SL120 V2 reduced GPU temperature even further. With these extra fans installed the case cooling goes from good to great. The interior of the LANCOOL 216 RGB can be optimized for the installation of radiators by rotating the frame for the I/O panel. As a result, the mainboard sits lower and there is more space for the radiator and fan above the mainboard. 360 or 280 radiators can be attached to the front and the housing cover (water cooling mode). A 240 mm radiator can be placed on the power supply cover - only in air cooling mode. KitGuru says: The Lian Li Lancool 216 is an impressive chassis for its price point. There is some tough competition in that sector of the market but Lancool 216 is up there with the best of them, what do you guys think?

It should be noted that when running our acoustic tests, we did not have the PCIe fan running, since it doesn't come with this fan and acoustics would differ based on what fan you install there. We did, however, install and run the Silent Wings 4 fan in this spot for our Thermal tests, since this is a key feature of the case. Like its older sibling, the Lancool III, the 216 is a loud case. However, I’m not bothered because the fans are bigger than usual. Don’t get me wrong, this case isn't quiet, but the thermals make up for the noise,as we're about to see. Thermal Results for the Lian Li Lancool 216 So my Strix B550-E is paired with an AMD Ryzen 5 5600x mildly O.C to 4.55Ghz, 2x 8Gb of 3200Gt RAM and a Corsair H100i 240 cooler and in the Corsair 600T it ran at about 55-60C at idle at 18C ambient. Now in this chassis runs at around 42-45C at idle, there's thermally lots of headroom . The included 160mm ARGB fans feature two channels of LEDs (one on the outer rim of the fan, another at the shaft of the fan blades) that can be controlled separately via an optional accessory, or via the motherboard lighting software by connecting them directly to a motherboard 5V 3pin header.All temperature measurements are presented as Deltas – meaning the ambient temperature has been deducted from the CPU temperature giving us a Delta. Data shown in the charts represent the average component temperature over the length of the test as measured by HWiNFO and then the last 15 minutes of the data are calculated to get the average. The ambient temperature during thermal tests is between 20-21⁰C. Supported hardware includes motherboards up to E-ATX form factor, CPU cooler height of up to 180.5mm, a maximum graphics card length of up to 392mm and power supplies up to 220mm long. Over the past year or so, the most popular cases on the market have been airflow-focused instead, rather than focusing on glass and RGB. With that said, many of those cases are starting to look the same, and so feeling a bit boring. That doesn’t apply to the Lian Li Lancool 216, because the company brought some of the defining features of the Lancool III and O11D Evo, and added a helpful PCIe fan with its latest case. All this is excellent news for users of high-end graphics cards. However, the implementation of this feature is flawed as it is only compatible with motherboard and graphics card combinations that place the graphics card video outputs in the top PCIe slot. With the majority of motherboard and graphics card combinations, you will find that the video outputs populate the second and third PCIe slots which means that you can't install the external fan and access video outputs.

Lian Li’s 216 chassis is very versatile, supporting motherboards that are up to EATX in size and up to 280mm wide. The case also supports ATX power supplies that are up to 220mm in length, which means that this case can support large PSUs with insane maximum wattages. Because they’re the only two major-brand cases on the market that feature 160mm fans, I directly compared the Fractal Design Torrent Compact and the Lian Li Lancool 216. The difference in CPU thermals is within margin of error, but the 10-degree difference in GPU teps clearly indicates that the PCIe fan is legit. Optimised for air and liquid cooling with an adjustable motherboard position and a rotatable rear I/O. Liquid cooling mode creates more space at the top of the case for radiator installation while air cooling setup allows for the installation of large air coolers while still offering vertical GPU mounting. With enough room for graphics cards up to 392mm in length, and 180mm in height (for air cooling mode), the LANCOOL 216 is compatible with even the largest NVIDIA 4000 series cards.While the case is designed to support two 160mm fans at its front, the Lian Li 216 can also support wither three 120mm fans or two 140mm fans, allowing the case to support a front mounted 360mm radiator or a 280mm radiator if needed. The top of Lian Li’s 216 chassis can also support three 120mm fans or two 140mm fans. While the case’s specifications do not mention this, the LANCOOL 216 appears to have mounts for two 160mm fans. Including a power button, reset button, audio port, 2x USB3.0 ports, and a USB Type C port, the front I/O module can be relocated to the lower left side of the front panel. For users who take dust management to the next level, a magnetic front panel dust filter is available as an optional accessory. The dust filter fits perfectly between the front panel and the front fans. The Lian Li Lancool 216 has been specially designed for maximum airflow, alongside being optimised for air and AIO cooling. The front and top panel feature fine mesh that permits ample air to flow both into and out of the case. Furthermore, Lian Li has totally redesigned the front fans for the Lancool 216, utilising dual 160mm fans. They are able to produce an astounding 118.85CFM of airflow with a static pressure of 3.10mmH2O. In addition to this, these fans are incorporated into a specially designed shroud that channels air for minimal turbulence. Our acoustic test consists of three scenarios: We run the CPU at full load, the CPU and GPU at full load, and an optimized mode. The CPU full load test runs the CPU and case fans at their maximum speed. For the CPU and GPU full load acoustic test, we also stress the Gigabyte RTX 3070 Ti Gaming OC and set the fans at 75% speed, because in gaming, the fans never run at 100 percent and are far too loud when they do.

For the optimized mode, we run the GPU fan speed at 30% and the CPU and included case fans at the lowest speed they will spin. The LANCOOL 216 offers multiple options for easy cable management. Along the cable grommet bar, 3 large velcro straps can hold 2 different sets of cables. 3 small clips are located along the rear side panel, ideal for cleanly routing the CPU 8pin cable, and 2 additional velcro straps are located near the PSU chamber to help hold down the extra PSU cable length away from the ventilation path in the bottom chamber. The 216 is a chassis from Lian Li that is designed to act as a blank canvas, offering PC builders the option to exploit this case’s unique features to create truly custom PCs. We will look deeper at this case’s custom features later in this review. The PCIe expansion slot panel can be rotated to vertically install the GPUs, only an additional riser cable is required. After comparing the Lancool 216 to the best-performing cases from this year, it’s safe to say that this case is worth strong consideration, especially if you want impressive GPU thermals. Bottom LineExtensive cable management is provided by three large cable straps in the central channel, an additional cable management channel to the right of the motherboard tray includes three clips for CPU EPS power cable routing while multiple cable cutouts are placed in handy locations.