Next up on the list of miniature gaming cases that appear far larger than their “ITX” designation is Lian-Li’s PC-Q08. The idea, once again, is to fit full-sized performance and storage within a reduced-size package by attaching those big parts to a tiny motherboard.

A look around back shows that the PC-Q08 would have been tall enough to hold a microATX board, if not for the fact that critical parts have been shifted lower. That downward shift provides extra space for the optical drive and top fan, where several inches of added depth would have been required in order to make a taller motherboard fit.

Users benefit from a case that’s only 14” deep (including protruding hardware) rather than the more traditional 18”, allowing it to fit atop a smaller desk. A full-sized power supply up to 7” long can be positioned between the rear mounting panel and hard drive cage, with enough room to spare for hard drive mounting hardware and cables.

CPU cooler height restrictions prevent most tower coolers with perpendicularly-oriented fans from being installed, but large parallel-fan units are still supported. Users whose motherboards don’t support wide coolers have a third option, since the 120 mm exhaust fan fits single-fan liquid-coolers such as the older Corsair H50 or the new CoolIt ECO.

Though a total of six 3.5” hard drives are supported in the PC-Q08’s as-delivered configuration, removal of the lower two-bay cage extends maximum card length from 7.1” to 12”. That’s enough for a single Radeon HD 6970 or GeForce GTX 580, though most dual-GPU cards still won’t fit.

Rubber grommets secure a 140 mm fan bracket into key holes behind the PC-Q08’s front panel, and Lian-Li even includes a clip-on dust filter and 3-pin-to-4-pin fan adapter. Unfortunately, opening the case to access the fan and dust filter requires at least six side-panel screws to be removed each time, wearing on the screw’s black finish and potentially reducing the finished system’s pristine appearance.
The reason is that in such a case it would be very interesting to install self-contained water cooling unit like Corsair's H50/60/70 or Antec H20...
so either installed to draw air in or out, the 140 mm fan would aid the expel/intake much better is it is bit further in the front than closer to the rear fan.
With a wee bit of patience and cutting a hole in the case, the guy got a GTX 480 AND a Corsair H70 in there!
Good to have the confirmation of the Sugo SG05/06's maximum internal size for a graphics card (without modding) as I'm speccing a Sandy Bridge gaming rig paired with a Sapphire 6950. Silverstone declined (WTF) to give me internal dimensions so I've had to do a bit of guessing!
Otherwise, an interesting article. I think ITX gaming should be pushed more by the companies as a means for people to get into PC gaming even if their desk real estate is confined.
Please let me know if it is fine to run with top game settings this video card (560 TI OC) using the 450w PSU provided.