Ten years ago, Lian Li was mostly known for extremely expensive aluminum cases that many dreamed of, but few could actually afford. But in the last few years, Lian Li has pivoted to become the people’s case maker. Gone is the requirement for everything to be aluminum – these days you’ll find plenty of steel, especially in the frames and mesh – but the design brilliance has remained, if not improved.
The company’s latest ITX case, the Q58, is an example of exactly this new way of thinking – it offers a brilliant design, oh-so-premium looks, and – get this – it only costs $130. If you’re familiar with the world of ITX cases, you’ll know that’s not a lot of money for a small, 14.3 liter case, especially with the likes of the NCase M1 costing around $210 and Louqe’s Raw S1 tallying in at a mighty $330.
So, without further ado, let’s dig in and find out if the Q58 is good enough for our Best PC Cases list. It certainly has stiff competition, with both the Hyte Revolt 3 and Cooler Master’s NR200P impressing us on the compact case front in recent weeks.
Specifications
| Type | Mini-ITX |
| Motherboard Support | Mini-ITX |
| Dimensions (HxWxD) | 9.8 x 6.7 x 13.5 inches (250 x 170 x 342 mm) |
| Max GPU Length | 12.6 inches (320 mm) |
| External Bays | ✗ |
| Internal Bays | SFF PSU: 3x 2.5-inch + 1x 3.5-inch |
| ATX PSU: 2x 2.5-inch | |
| Expansion Slots | 3x Vertical |
| Front I/O | 1x USB 3.0 |
| USB Type-C | |
| Mic/Headphone Combo | |
| Other | 3-Port Fan & RGB Hub |
| Front Fans | ✗ |
| Rear Fans | ✗ |
| Top Fans | Up to 2x 140mm |
| Bottom Fans | Up to 1x 120mm |
| Side Fans | ✗ |
| RGB | No |
| Damping | No |
External Design
Circling around the outside of the chassis, the first thing that stands out about the Q58 is its simple design. You’ll find half-height glass panels at the top, half-height mesh panels at the bottom, and an aluminum front panel that matches the rest of the case, with a finish split right in the middle.
The case’s side panels are made of painted steel with a fine mesh that’s good enough to act as a rough dust filter, but the top panel is made from prettier anodized aluminum and has its mesh milled out. It’s a rougher mesh, but that’s okay as this is the exhaust location, so it doesn’t need to filter any air.
Flip around the back of the chassis, and there’s not much to be seen other than the motherboard’s IO cutout, three vertical expansion slots, a power socket, and a trio of thumbscrews. Front IO consists of a single USB 3.0 Type-A port, a USB Type-C port, and a mic-headphone combo jack.
But don’t be fooled by the tidy, simplistic exterior. Hiding inside the Q58 has a very neat, surprisingly flexible design.
Internal Design
First, lets talk about the panels a little more. The four side panels are all on hinges, and they are exchangeable. The default layout (and the layout I’d recommend), has the glass panels at the top with the mesh at the bottom, but you can opt to swap these around, or have all glass on one side and all mesh on the other. What you can’t do is have glass at the top of one side and the bottom of the other – the panels are mirrored, so their hinges won’t support this.
The one thing we do have to note about the panels is that two of them seemed awfully tough to slip from their hinges, though Lian Li informed us beforehand that this was an issue with our sample and that it would be fixed in retail cases.
On the right side of the case you’ll find the main motherboard area. This fits an ITX motherboard mounted upside-down, and the bracket for the SFF PSU is installed from the factory.
Flip over to the left side, and you’ll spot the GPU area.
But if you look at the top of the chassis, you’ll spot a large cavity. Believe it or not, you can actually fit up to a 280 mm radiator up here, complete with fans. That’s honestly an amazing amount of cooling power for a case this small, and certainly something you should utilize given you don’t need any other layout.
The bottom of the case supports a single 120mm fan as intake underneath the PSU, though it does not ship with any fans. The bottom does have magnetic dust filters included in the accessory pack.
At the back of the case, near the top, you’ll also spot a fan hub. This is a simple PWM & RGB hub with three ports – so it isn’t SATA powered, but it does offer a neat way to run all your fans and RGB devices through a single header. Given that most ITX motherboards only have one RGB header, and the case supports exactly three fans, this is a neat inclusion, especially at this price.
For storage, you can fit up to three 2.5-inch drives in this chassis and one 3.5-inch drive. These are placed at the bottom, along the top radiator mount, behind the power supply; the last 2.5-inch slot is sneakily placed between the frame paneling at the front. It’s too tight there to get cables to, but Lian Li built in a hot-swap bracket. Keep in mind that the bottom drive only fits if you don’t install an intake fan.
The Q58 can support ATX PSUs
However, if you don’t want to invest in a pricey SFF or SFF-L power supply, Lian Li also includes a bracket to convert the chassis to ATX mode. In this mode, the Q58 will still happily swallow 320mm graphics cards, but you will be making a few sacrifices. For one, the biggest supported radiator drops from 280mm to 120mm, and storage options drop to just two 2.5-inch drives. So, for best results, we recommend sticking to an SFF power supply.
In its base variant, black with a PCIe 3.0 riser cable, the Q58 costs $130. If you want a model that has a PCIe 4.0-capable riser cable because you’re dropping in an RTX 3000 or RX 6000 graphics card, this will run you an extra $30, bringing the price tag to $160. Meanwhile, the Q58 is also available in white – a finish that costs $10 extra on both the PCIe 3.0 and PCIe 4.0 variants.
We are using the following system for today’s build:
| CPU | Intel Core i5-11600K |
| Motherboard | Asus ROG Strix Z590-I Gaming WiFi |
| Memory | G.Skill Trident Neo 16GB, 3600 MHz |
| Graphics | Zotac RTX 3080 Ti Amp Holo |
| CPU Cooling | Phanteks 240MP AIO with Noctua NF-A12x25 fans |
| Noctua NT-H2 Thermal Paste | |
| Storage | Corsair Force Series MP600 NVMe SSD, 480GB |
| Power Supply | Corsair SF750 750W SFF PSU |
With this build, we’re using the new ITX case test setup based on the 11th Gen Intel Core i5-11600K processor, paired with an Asus Z590 ITX motherboard and a large RTX 3080 Ti graphics card. That’s a lot of hardware to throw at an ITX case, but the Q58 shouldn’t be troubled by this. That said, the Zotac GPU might be too big, so I do have the RTX 2070 Super ready in case I need it.
Step 1: PSU Installation
First, I installed the power supply in its designated location. By default, the case comes with the SFF bracket pre-installed, and the PSU slides right into place. If you have an SFF-L PSU, you may need to remove the bracket, install the PSU onto it, and re-install the lot.
Step 2: Motherboard Installation
Then, I installed the Asus motherboard, with the AIO’s pump head already installed. I could try and get the PCIe riser cable out of the way and install the pump head afterwards, but that seems like an inefficient way of going about things.
Step 3: AIO Installation
Then, it was time to install the AIO’s radiator at the top of the case. The Q58 supports 280mm radiators, as you can tell from the bracket I removed from the top of the chassis, but I don’t have a 280mm AIO available (yet). So, I installed the bracket and tried to put the radiator in place.
But I made a mistake: I installed the radiator on the bracket outside the case, and with the tubes not routed through the top opening, I couldn’t get it in place. So, I undid the radiator again, ran its tubes correctly, and re-installed the bracket. At this point, I decided that it would be easiest to leave the radiator uninstalled and off to the side, as this would give me extra clearance for cable management.
Step 4: Cable Management
Next, I decided it was time to tidy up all the cables. I find that in ITX cases, this is easiest to do without the GPU installed, as it just gets in the way. About 30 minutes later, I achieved the below result, which is quite tidy.
But there is a catch: The cable slack from the power supply had to go somewhere, and I shoved it right below the PSU. There is plenty of space here, but it is the spot where otherwise, you could install a 120mm intake fan. With some creativity and a lot of extra time, you could fit a fan here and use the standard cables that come with a power supply. There is some space behind the PSU, and you could jam things in a bit tidier – after all, the back of the fan has the prongs that hold up the motor, so you’re unlikely to get blade contact.
However, for best results, you may want to budget for a custom cable set that’s made to the exact lengths you require. This will lead to an easier build and much tidier looks.
Step 5: GPU Installation
With all the cables tidied, and the PCIe power cables pre-routed, installing the large Zotac RTX 3080 Ti was a breeze. I did have to nudge the PCIe riser card over a bit, but with that done, the GPU slotted right into place.
There’s just one thing I need to mention here: The GPU end of the PCIe riser cable could use some extra support. I was pushing down on the GPU, seeking that satisfying ‘click’ letting you know that it’s fastened into the slot, but I wasn’t getting it.
As you can see, I managed to bend the PCB a bit. This wasn’t a problem – I hadn’t damaged it and it did work just fine, but if you’re not careful, you might. Two simple standoffs to hold it up at each end isn’t enough to protect against uncareful installers bludgeoning the GPU in, so I’d like to see Lian Li add a support brace here.
Build Complete
With that, the build was complete. Time to throw on the panels.
In the end, building a system into the Q58 wasn’t as tough as ITX cases used to be. Admittedly, this one was a little trickier with the cable management and cramped space for cable slack, but it was still perfectly manageable with some time and patience. The Hyte Revolt 3 certainly builds easier, but it doesn’t have as nice a finish as the Q58, and while the Louqe Raw S1 both builds easier and is way more premium, it does cost much more and offers far fewer storage, cooling, and PSU options.
Although the Q58 doesn’t ship with any fans, it shouldn’t need any either. The GPU is pressed tight against the intake mesh on the side, and the AIO at the top, if you’re using one, takes care of the CPU and system exhaust. A 120mm fan can be added at the bottom for intake if so desired, but I’m not testing with one today as it isn’t essential.
We are using an updated testing methodology first introduced with the Cooler Master NR200P Max here, which involves new settings, more realistic acoustic tests, and worst-case-scenario thermal tests. For CPU cooling, we’re using the biggest AIO that I have available at the time of testing, allowing you to get a better idea of the thermals you can expect in a typical build intended for the case.
Acoustic Results
As far as acoustics go, the Q58 performs alright but not great. It’s quieter than the Hyte Revolt 3 even with an identical setup, though that’s likely due to the different GPU and AIO orientation. Naturally, the Cooler Master NR200P Max was quieter, but that’s because it was tested with its included 280mm AIO, which has quieter fans that spin at lower maximum speeds.
Thermal Results
When it comes to thermals, the Lian Li Q58 performs better than average, only being outperformed by the NR200P Max when it was using a mesh panel, and even then, it’s only by a sliver. The Q58 does witness a slightly higher CPU temperature, but its GPU temperature is impressive at 58 °C when normalized to a 20 °C room.
Of course, keep in mind with that with this thermal test, the CPU’s clock speed is locked at 4.0 GHz at 1.2V, and the GPU’s fan speeds are locked at 75% to ensure it can meet its power target – in practice, you’ll witness lower CPU temperatures and higher GPU temperatures due to the behavior of the boost algorithms.
Testing the PCIe 4.0 Riser Cable
To test the PCIe 4.0 riser cable, I simply set the PCIe mode in the BIOS to Gen 4, boot the system, run Furmark, and check whether it’s running at Gen 4 speeds in GPU-Z. If the cable makes it through this simple test, it gets our thumbs up, and the Gen4 cable that comes with the $160 Q58 made it through this test without issue.
Conclusion
To wrap this one up, all I can say is that Lian Li has yet another winner on its hands. After the Lancool II Mesh Performance last year, and the PC-O11 Air Mini last week, the company is showing that it is more than capable of building impressive, stylish cases that perform well at impressively friendly price points. The secret appears to be ditching the all-aluminum designs, though some does remain here on specific bits of paneling for that distinct, luxurious Lian Li look.
More specific to the Q58, this ITX case manages to squeeze a high-TDP build such as our system with an i5-11600K and an RTX 3080 Ti into an astonishingly tiny, 14.3 Liter enclosure, not only with a pleasant build process and great looks, but also above-average thermal performance. And there is some room for improvement: We only used a 240mm AIO, but you can bump that up to a 280mm unit and add an intake fan for even better performance.
Conversely, if you’re on a budget, you can opt for the simple version with just a PCIe 3.0 riser cable, convert it to support your old ATX PSU, throw in a cheap 120mm AIO, and the end result will look just the same as ours thanks to the dark tint on the glass.
Priced at $130 for the base variant, with a $30 premium to jump to a PCIe 4.0 riser cable, and a $10 premium for the white finish, the Lian Li Q58 ITX case gets an easy recommendation. We only wish the GPU end of the riser cable was a bit stronger or better supported. Hopefully Lian Li will make that change.
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Lian Li Q58 Review: Best ITX Case Yet? - Tom's Hardware
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