Montech is a newcomer to the US PC parts market, having recently asked us to take a look at its new Air 100 ARGB chassis. While its design is fairly standard, and its Micro-ATX size means its appeal is limited, when we heard about the price, we were happy to heft this compact tower onto our test bench.
The Air 100 chassis comes in Lite and ARGB variants, with the latter on deck today carrying a price tag of $70 for the black version. Going white will cost about $5 to $10 extra, and cutting the RGB drops the base price down to about $52.
Without further ado, lets find out if this surprisingly affordable chasis deserves a spot on our Best PC Cases list.
Specifications
| Type | ??? |
| Motherboard Support | Mini-ITX, Micro-ATX |
| Dimensions (HxWxD) | 16.7 x 8.2 x 15.9 inches (425 x 210 x 405 mm) |
| Max GPU Length | 12.9 inches (330 mm) |
| CPU Cooler Height | 6.3 inches (161 mm) |
| External Bays | ✗ |
| Internal Bays | 2x 3.5-inch |
| 3x 2.5-inch | |
| Expansion Slots | 4x |
| Front I/O | 2x USB 3.0, 1x USB 2.0, discrete 3.5 mm Audio & Mic |
| Other | 1x Tempered Glass Panel, RGB Controller |
| Front Fans | 3x 120 mm (Up to 2x 140mm, 3x 120mm) |
| Rear Fans | 1x 120mm (Up to 1x 120mm) |
| Top Fans | None (Up to 2x 140mm) |
| Bottom Fans | None |
| Side Fans | ✗ |
| RGB | Yes |
| Damping | No |
| Warranty | 1 Year |
Features
Touring around the outside of the chassis, it’s clear that this is a case with very simple, straightforward design language, and I quite like it. There’s no fuffing about with extravagant shapes, just clean and simple, with three intake fans as the most aggressive design feature – but they look quite good.
Around the top of the case you’ll find the exhaust for the top fans or radiators, along with the IO. The exhaust isn’t recessed for a sleek finish once fans are installed, and although a filter is included to place over it, this top area doesn’t look particularly refined.
IO is very complete though, with two USB 3.0 ports, a USB 2.0 port, dedicated microphone and headphone jacks, and power and reset switches – though the reset switch is wired to the RGB controller from the factory to control the lighting. I’ve been hard on cases for doing that before, but because it’s not actually marked as a reset switch on the outside of the chassis here, I see no reason why that would be a problem with this case.
The case’s panels all come off quite easily – the glass panel has a handle to easily swivel it out, after which you can lift it off its hinge, and the front panel is held in with magnets, so it comes off with just a light tug -- a bit too light though, the magnets aren’t very strong.
The panel on the right side of the chassis comes off by removing two thumbscrews, though they don’t stay fixed to the panel like many other cases do.
Internal Layout
In the main compartment of the chassis, you’ll find room for up to Micro-ATX motherboards and GPUs up to 12.9 inches (330mm) long. Other than that, there’s not much going on here that’s worth mentioning, though I do appreciate the rubber cable grommets for keeping things tidy.
Along the rear side of the chassis we spot room for the ATX power supply, a single 3.5-inch hard drive and two 2.5 inch SSDs, though you can secure another drive to the top of the drive cage.
This is also where the RGB controller hides.
Cooling
At this point we haven’t reached testing yet, but cooling should be one of the Air 100’s strengths – it comes with four 120mm RGB fans, has room for CPU coolers up to up to 6.3 inches (161mm) tall, and can fit up to a 240mm radiator at the top or a 360mm unit at the front (the spec sheet lists a 280mm max, I don’t see why a 360mm radiator wouldn’t fit), albeit at the sacrifice of some GPU space. The fans come with a 1x 3-pin to 4x 3-pin splitter so that you can connect all fans up to a single header.
We are using the following system for our case test bed:
| CPU | Intel Core i9-9600K |
| Motherboard | ASRock Z390 Phantom Gaming-ITX/WiFi |
| Memory | Corsair Vengeance LPX 3000 MHz, 16 GB (2x 8GB) |
| Graphics | Nvidia GeForce RTX 2070 Super Founder’s Edition |
| CPU Cooling | Phanteks Glacier One 240MP AIO |
| Noctua NT-H2 Thermal Paste | |
| Storage | Corsair Force Series MP600 NVMe SSD, 480GB |
| Power Supply | Corsair AMP 750W |
Because I don’t have a Micro-ATX board at my disposal, I’m resorting to a Mini-ITX board for testing this chassis, in which I have installed 16 GB of memory, a 500 GB SSD and Intel’s Core i5-9600K processor.
Step 1: Motherboard Install
The motherboard drops right in for an easy install, though I did have to hold it up, as there is no pre-installed anchoring standoff to hold it in place while I secure it.
Maybe do the AIO Later
I thought about installing the AIO, but with the radiator held in place, as you can see above, it would be challenging to get to the power and fan headers – so I decided to get the PSU and cable management taken care of first and then install the AIO. This is a weird order of installation, but tight cases often call for this kind of thinking during the build process.
Step 2 PSU & Cable Management
Of course, the PSU slipped right in, and cable management was modestly doable. I appreciate that Montech includes three Velcro straps, as these always make cable management much more of a breeze, though I would have liked some extra depth to the cable area: To get the side panel back on, I did have to lay the case on its side and push on the panel to get it in place.
Step 3: AIO Install
Of course, with all the cable management done, the AIO installation was a breeze. The only thing I didn’t like about this step is how the top of the chassis looked afterward.
As you can see, the screws to hold the radiator in place stick out from the top, and although a filter is included to cover the top, it doesn’t look much better and is bound to reduce airflow. Recessing the screw holes would have resulted in a much cleaner look.
Step 4: GPU Install
Our FE RTX 2070 Super installed easily. First, I bent two IO covers out of place and then dropped the GPU into place, securing it with two screws. Easy as can be, but keep in mind that the expansion slot covers, once removed, cannot be re-installed – so make sure you remove the right ones for your GPU and any other add-in cards.
Build Complete:
And shot with RGB
The four included RGB fans only have 3-pin DC control, which was a bit of a pain with this ASRock motherboard, as it only supports speed control with PWM signals. As such, for testing, I did wire up a separate system externally with a board that does support DC fan control. With this, I found that the fans spin at a minimum speed of about 500 RPM and a maximum of 1200 RPM. That said, something about the 4-fan splitter seems to limit the lower range to 1000 RPM, so you will likely have to connect the fans up individually for the best results at the quiet end – though this may also be due to our motherboard.
When it comes to the RGB, the standard lighting effects disappoint. The light dispersion of the fans is great, but there are no moving effects – just a fixed rainbow that breathes or basic colors such as red, white, green, blue at a fixed brightness. That said, you can just connect the RGB system up to your motherboard for better control, so as it’s not really an issue.
Acoustic Results
For our acoustic tests, we run four scenarios: an optimized idle with the fans quiet, adding the case fans at full speed for a reading on just those, then adding the CPU cooler at full blast, and finally adding the GPU at a loud 75% duty. These load fan speeds are higher than you’ll want and need to use in practice, but it ensures I don’t run into thermal throttles and provides consistent testing data.
For the optimized idle, we run the GPU fan speed at 40 percent (the 2070 Super FE GPU does not have a Zero-RPM mode), and run the CPU and included case fans at the lowest speed they will spin at.
Acoustically, the case performs about as expected. It can get reasonably quiet if you spend the time optimizing the fans for idle performance, though you will need to plug them in individually, depending on your motherboard and how well it supports multiple fans on a single header. Ours didn’t, so I had to improvise with an external ATX motherboard for these tests, but most boards shouldn’t have this problem.
Thermal Results
For the thermal tests, I run the CPU and GPU at their stock settings, fan speeds maxed out except for the GPU, which I run at 75 percent to maintain its power target, so that the temperature is the only variable. Keep in mind that it does run loud like this, and your real-life test will show slightly higher thermals but much quieter operation.
Of course, as a chassis with this many fans and a meshed intake, performance is excellent. Removing the front mesh and top filter nets about a 3 degree performance improvement on both the GPU and CPU, but it’s really not a necessary step to take.
That said, keep in mind that the front mesh, although fine, isn’t a dust filter. In that way, it’s similar to Phanteks’ designs with its ultrafine mesh that they say acts as a filter, but in reality, you’ll get more dust buildup in a chassis like this than one with a proper filter behind the front panel. That’s alright if you only run the system an hour or two a day to game on, but if it’s your working machine, you may prefer a case with real air filters to prevent frequent system cleanup jobs.
Conclusion
But it is a single-serve case – a chassis you’ll use to build one system in and not look back. That’s fine if that’s what you’re looking for, but if you’re the kind of person who frequently changes things in their build, you’d be better served with something from our Best PC Cases list, though that will mean spending a little more.
To sum up my experience with the Montech Air 100, I can say that it’s a case without major issues. It’s not a particularly great case – certainly not enthusiast-class, but it’s not a terrible case either, especially at this price. If you just need a Micro-ATX case for your system and want some RGB goodness on a budget, it’s certainly worth having a look at. Just keep in mind that more and more motherboards aren’t offering 3-pin fan speed control anymore, now that 4-pin PWM spinners are starting to become the norm. So pick your board carefully if you want quiet operation at idle.
Normally though, for a case of this quality, I’d say that $70 is a bit steep – and it would be if it wasn’t for the RGB – the non-RGB ‘LITE’ variant costs around $20 less and has two fewer fans, so I’d say it’s priced appropriately for what it is. It’s not particularly refined, but it does the job for what it costs and offers a nice compact and reasonably good-looking Micro-ATX housing.
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June 18, 2021 at 07:00PM
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Montech Air 100 Review: A Case and 4 RGB Fans for $70? - Tom's Hardware
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