Lian Li V100 Mid Tower Case, White, ATX Support, Mesh Front Panel, Tempered Glass, USB-C, Tool-Free Side Panel

I've built in a lot of cases over the years. Genuinely, a lot. And the ones that stick in my memory aren't always the expensive ones. Sometimes it's the budget chassis that drew blood from my knuckles on a sharp PSU shroud edge, or the mid-tower where the GPU clearance was so tight I had to remove the front panel fans just to slide a 3080 in. Those experiences shape how I look at every new case that lands on my bench. So when I started putting together a system inside the Lian Li V100 for this Lian Li V100 case review UK 2026, I had my checklist ready: sharp edges, cable routing, clearances, airflow. The things that actually matter when you're wrist-deep in a build at 11pm.

The V100 sits in what I'd call the entry tier. Competitively priced for a Lian Li product, which is a brand that usually charges a premium for its build quality. That's interesting territory. You're getting the Lian Li name, a mesh front panel, tempered glass side panel, and USB-C front I/O at a price point where most competitors are still shipping solid steel fronts and USB 3.0 only. Whether the quality holds up at this price is exactly what I wanted to find out. I spent several weeks building in it, swapping components around, and generally poking at it to see what gave.

The short version: it's a genuinely good case for the money, with a few quirks worth knowing about before you buy. The longer version is everything below.

Dimensions sit at roughly 440mm tall, 210mm wide, and 430mm deep. That's a fairly typical mid-tower footprint. It's not a compact case, but it's not a desk-dominating beast either. Weight without components is around 6.5kg, which feels solid without being ridiculous to move around. The steel used feels like standard 0.6mm SPCC, which is what you'd expect at this price point. It's not going to flex dramatically, but it's not the 0.8mm or 1.0mm steel you'd find in higher-end chassis.

Fan support is where things get interesting. The front panel supports up to three 120mm or two 140mm fans. The top supports two 120mm or two 140mm. The rear takes a single 120mm. That's a total of six fan positions, which is more than adequate for a build of this class. Radiator support follows the same logic: 360mm or 280mm at the front, 240mm or 280mm on top, 120mm at the rear. The front I/O includes USB 3.0 Type-A, USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-C, and a combined audio jack. Power and reset buttons are on top.

The footprint is manageable. 430mm deep means it'll fit on most standard ATX desk setups without hanging off the edge. If you're working with a shallow desk, measure first, but for the vast majority of setups this won't be an issue. The top panel has ventilation cutouts for fans or a radiator, and the power button is positioned at the front-top edge, which is where I'd want it. Easy to reach without fumbling around the back.

One thing I noticed is that the case sits on four small rubber feet. They're not huge, but they do the job of keeping the case stable and protecting your desk surface. The clearance underneath is minimal though, so if you're planning to use a bottom-mounted PSU with a dust filter (which the V100 does have), make sure your desk surface is reasonably smooth. Carpet is fine, but a textured mat might restrict that bottom intake slightly. Worth thinking about if you're particular about thermals.

For Micro-ATX builds, the extra space in the case actually works in your favour. You get more room for cable routing and the overall build feels less cramped. Mini-ITX in a mid-tower is always a bit of an odd pairing visually, but if you want the airflow headroom of a larger chassis with a small board, the V100 handles it fine. Just be aware that with a Mini-ITX board, the PSU shroud area can look a bit sparse unless you fill it with storage or a fan hub.

One thing I'd flag for anyone running a high-end ATX board with a large VRM heatsink or extended PCIe slot layout: check your specific board's dimensions against the case specs. Most standard ATX boards (up to 305 x 244mm) fit without issue. Extended ATX or E-ATX is not supported here, so if you're running a workstation board or a high-end HEDT platform, the V100 isn't your case. But for the vast majority of gaming and productivity builds, you're sorted.

Where things get tighter is if you're running a 360mm front radiator. With a thick 360mm rad mounted at the front, you're losing some of that clearance depending on the radiator's depth and the fan thickness. I'd estimate you're looking at around 320-330mm of effective GPU clearance with a front 360mm AIO installed. That's still enough for most cards, but if you're pairing a 360mm AIO with a particularly long GPU, measure carefully before committing.

There's no vertical GPU mount option out of the box, which is a bit of a shame at this price. Some competitors in the same bracket are starting to include a PCIe riser cable and vertical bracket as standard. Lian Li doesn't include one here, and the case doesn't appear to have a dedicated vertical mount slot either. If showing off your GPU vertically matters to you, this probably isn't the right case. For everyone else who just wants their card to fit and run cool, the standard horizontal mount works perfectly well and the tempered glass side panel gives you a decent view of the card anyway.

For AIO liquid cooling, the front panel is your best option for a 360mm radiator. The top supports up to 280mm, which means a 280mm AIO is a solid choice if you want to keep the front clear for intake fans. I ran a 240mm AIO on the top during part of my testing and it worked well. The mounting points are clean and the screws provided are the right length. No cross-threading issues, which sounds basic but I've genuinely had that problem with cheaper cases.

One thing to watch with top-mounted radiators is RAM clearance. Tall RAM with large heatspreaders can sometimes conflict with a top-mounted rad's fans, depending on the radiator thickness and fan choice. In my testing with standard-height DDR5 modules, there was no conflict. But if you're running something like Corsair Dominator Platinum with those tall heatspreaders, check the clearance between your RAM and the top fan mounting position. It's not a V100-specific problem, it's just physics, but worth mentioning.

The 3.5-inch drive cage uses tool-free mounting with a sliding bracket system. You push the drive in, the bracket clips into place, done. It's not the most premium tool-free mechanism I've used (that honour probably goes to Fractal Design's systems), but it works reliably and I didn't have any drives rattling loose during testing. The 2.5-inch mounts on the motherboard tray back use screws, which is fine. You're not going to be swapping SSDs regularly enough for tool-free to matter much there.

M.2 drives are handled by your motherboard rather than the case, which is standard practice now. The V100 doesn't include any dedicated M.2 mounting brackets, but that's not unusual or a criticism. If you're building a modern system, you'll likely have two or three M.2 slots on your board anyway and won't need the drive cage at all. The cage can actually be removed if you want to free up space for cable routing or just prefer a cleaner look behind the PSU shroud. I left it in during testing but it's a nice option to have.

Velcro straps are included in the accessory bag. Two of them, which isn't a huge number but it's better than nothing. I added a couple of my own during the build, but having some included from the factory is a nice touch. The PSU shroud covers the bottom of the case and hides the PSU and most of the drive cage, which immediately makes the build look cleaner through the glass panel. The shroud has a cutout at the rear for the PSU fan and ventilation, and a cutout at the front for cable routing.

The 24-pin ATX cable routing is straightforward. There's a channel that runs it neatly from the PSU shroud up to the motherboard connector. The CPU power cables (8-pin or 4+4-pin) route through a channel at the top-left of the motherboard tray, which keeps them hidden behind the board. I was running a modular PSU during testing, which always helps, but even with a non-modular unit the routing options here would keep things manageable. It's not a Fractal Meshify 2 in terms of cable management sophistication, but it's well above what I'd expect at this price point.

The case ships without any fans, which I mentioned in the specs section but it bears repeating here because it affects how you think about the airflow setup. You're starting from scratch. For a basic build, I'd recommend three 120mm fans at the front as intake and one 120mm at the rear as exhaust. That gives you positive pressure, which helps keep dust out, and the mesh front handles the filtration. If you're going with a 360mm AIO at the front, the radiator fans handle the intake side and you just need the rear exhaust.

The top panel has ventilation cutouts covered by a magnetic dust filter, which is a proper quality-of-life feature. Magnetic filters are so much better than the clip-on or screw-mounted ones because you can actually remove them for cleaning without tools. The bottom of the case also has a dust filter for the PSU intake, which is again magnetic. Lian Li has clearly thought about long-term maintenance here, and I appreciate that. Dust filters that are easy to clean mean people actually clean them, which means better airflow over the life of the build.

The USB-C port is the standout feature here. USB 3.2 Gen 2 means you're getting 10Gbps throughput, which is fast enough for external SSDs and modern peripherals. A lot of cases at this price still ship with USB 3.0 Type-C or skip it entirely, so having Gen 2 here is genuinely useful. The internal connector is a standard USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-C header, so you'll need a motherboard with that header to use it at full speed. Most modern mid-range and high-end boards have it, but worth checking if you're using an older platform.

The combined audio jack works fine. I'd always prefer separate headphone and microphone jacks, but a combined jack is the industry standard now and most headsets and adapters handle it without issue. The power button placement at the top-front is sensible for a desktop case. If you're mounting the case on the floor or in a tower position, you might find yourself reaching up for it, but that's a case orientation issue rather than a design flaw. Overall, the front I/O is one of the stronger aspects of the V100 and it's clearly been specced with a modern build in mind.

The tool-free side panel mechanism is one of the better implementations I've seen at this price. The tempered glass panel uses a thumb screw at the rear and then pivots open on a hinge at the front. It's not a full tool-free design in the sense that you still need to loosen one screw, but the hinge means you're not juggling a heavy glass panel while trying not to drop it on your GPU. The steel right panel uses a push-button release at the rear, which genuinely is tool-free and works well. I opened and closed both panels dozens of times during testing and nothing loosened or misaligned.

Sharp edges. This is the thing I always check first, and I'm happy to report the V100 is largely clean. The PSU shroud edges are rolled, the motherboard tray cutouts are smooth, and the drive cage has no rough spots. I did find one slightly sharp edge on the top panel ventilation cutout, but it's in an area you wouldn't normally contact during a build. It's not the kind of thing that's going to draw blood, but it's there. The white powder coat finish is even and consistent across all panels. After several weeks of use, there are no chips or scratches from normal handling, which suggests the finish is reasonably durable.

Against the 4000D Airflow, the V100 holds up well. The Corsair has slightly better cable management routing in my experience, with wider channels and more Velcro points. But the V100 has USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-C as standard, whereas the base 4000D Airflow ships with USB 3.0 Type-C. That's a meaningful difference for a modern build. The Fractal Pop Air has excellent build quality and a very clean interior, but it's typically priced a bit higher and the front mesh isn't quite as open as the V100's.

The biggest practical difference between the V100 and the 4000D Airflow is the included fans. Corsair gives you two 120mm fans in the box. Lian Li gives you none. So if you're comparing raw case prices, the V100 looks cheaper, but factor in the cost of three decent 120mm fans and the gap narrows or reverses depending on what fans you choose. That's not a criticism of the V100 specifically, it's just something to factor into your budget planning. The Fractal Pop Air includes two 140mm fans, which are generally better for airflow than 120mm, and the case has more CPU cooler headroom at 185mm. But you're paying more for it.

For a first-time builder or someone putting together a mid-range gaming PC on a budget, the V100 is a strong starting point. It's the kind of case where you won't be fighting the chassis during the build, and you won't be embarrassed by it on your desk. The 4.8-star rating from over 170 reviews on Amazon suggests I'm not alone in that assessment, and having spent several weeks with it, I understand why people are happy with it.

Who should buy this? Anyone building an ATX gaming or productivity system who wants proper airflow, a clean aesthetic, and USB-C front I/O without spending mid-range money on the chassis. It's particularly good value if you're already planning to buy a fan kit separately, since you're not paying for bundled fans you might replace anyway. Who should look elsewhere? If you need maximum CPU cooler clearance for a large tower cooler, or you want a vertical GPU mount out of the box, or you'd prefer included fans to get you started, the Corsair 4000D Airflow or Fractal Pop Air might suit you better. But for what it is and what it costs, the V100 earns a solid recommendation.

My score: 8 out of 10. Lian Li has delivered a well-thought-out case at an entry price point. The compromises are real but they're the right compromises. Current pricing via the shortcode below.