Lian Li LANCOOL III Review - The Best Case of 2022?

Lian Li put a lot of effort into this case, and it shows

It often feels like many PC cases are designed using checklists. Tempered Glass? check. RGB fans? Check. Mesh front for airflow? Check. This has left us with a PC market where many cases lack personality and soul, features that make specific cases unique and convince us that the engineers behind them were genuinely enthusiastic about their jobs.

With Lian Li's new LANCOOL III chassis, we have a case that has spirit. In many ways it is over-engineered in the best way. It is clear to us that Lian Li created this chassis as a labour of love, and not as a simple box ticking exercise. Why do we say this? We say this because Lian Li has included features that don't need to be there, options that elevate the Lancool III above many of its peers. These features make it clear that this case was designed by a real hardware enthusiast, and not somebody that's merely copying the popular features from competing designs.

If we sound enthusiastic about the Lancool III, it's because we are. There is a lot that we like about this case, and in a sense this review is our love letter to the case's designers. They did an excellent job here, and we are looking forward to seeing more of this with the team's future case designs. 

Pricing and Specifications

- Update - UK Pricing Confirmed and Added

Having recieved this case pre-launch, we only have access to this case's US price tag. We hope to update this review with UK pricing soon, but here is what PC builders should expect to pay for a Lancool III. The addition of RGB fans costs an additional $10, as does the case's white option. All models ship with three front-mounted fans and a single rear mounted fan.

In the UK, LAIN LI's LANCOOL III is available to purchase at Overclockers UK. 

- Black - $149.99 (US) - £149.99 (UK)

- White - $159.99 (US) - £159.95 (UK) 

- Black RGB - $159.99 (US) - £159.95 (UK)

- White RGB - $169.99 (US) - £169.99 (UK)

By shipping all of the LANCOOL III's models with the same number of fans highlights the intent of LIAN LI's design team. They wanted the LANCOOL III to deliver strong cooling performance, and refused to cut costs with their non-RGB model by shipping the case with fewer fans. Many manufacturers ship their non-RGB cases with too few fans, compromising their designs to hit a lower price point while forcing their users to either deal with sub-optimal airflow or purchase more fans. 

Being a large case, the LANCOOL III supports E-ATX motherboards that are under 280mm wide, which should come as great news for anyone building a workstation system with high-end desktop processors like AMD's Ryzen Threadripper lineup. Both side panels of this case are tempered glass, and aside from the case's aluminium door handles, most of the Lancool III is built using steel.

We will discuss liquid cooling and radiator support later in this review, for now we will say that the LANCOOL III supports front/bottom mounted 360mm radiators and a top mounted 420mm radiator. This should be more then enough for all modern PC setups, even ultra-high-end ones. 

Storage-wise, the LANCOOL III has two 2.5-inch mounting points behind its motherboard try, three 2.5-inch shots above its PSU chamber, three 2.5-inch mounting locations behind a flip panel, and four 3.5/2.5-inch cages under the case's PSU tray. These spaces are ideal for storage drives, RGB controllers, fan controllers and other accessories. There is plenty of room in the LANCOOL III for large creator systems that feature a lot of storage drives and accessories.