Montech is a newcomer to the US PC parts market and recently asked us to check out its new Air 100 ARGB chassis. While the design is pretty standard and the Micro-ATX size limits its appeal, when we heard about the price we were happy to lift 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 costs about $5 to $10 extra, and lowering the RGB lowers the base price to about $52.
Without further ado, let’s see if this surprisingly affordable chassis deserves a spot on our list of the best PC cases.
Specifications:
| Type | I |
| Motherboard support | Mini-ITX, Micro-ATX |
| Dimensions (HxWxD) | 16.7 x 8.2 x 15.9 in (425 x 210 x 405 mm) |
| Maximum GPU Length | 12.9 inches (330mm) |
| CPU Cooler Height | 6.3 inches (161mm) |
| External coves | |
| Internal Bays | 2x 3.5″ |
| 3x 2.5″ | |
| Expansion Slots | 4x |
| Front I/O | 2x USB 3.0, 1x USB 2.0, discrete 3.5mm audio and microphone |
| Other | 1x Tempered Glass Panel, RGB Controller |
| Front fans | 3x 120mm (up to 2x 140mm, 3x 120mm) |
| behind fans | 1x 120mm (up to 1x 120mm) |
| top fans | None (up to 2x 140mm) |
| bottom fans | New |
| side fans | |
| RGB | Yes |
| damping | New |
| Guarantee | 1 year |
Functions
Touring around the outside of the chassis, it’s clear that this is a case with a very simple, clear design language, and I quite like it. There’s no fussing with extravagant shapes, just clean and simple, with three intake fans being the most aggressive design feature – but they look pretty good.
Around the top of the case you’ll find the outlet for the top fans or radiators, along with the IO. The exhaust isn’t recessed for a clean finish once the fans are installed, and although a filter is included to fit over it, this top section doesn’t look particularly refined.
IO, however, is very complete with two USB 3.0 ports, a USB 2.0 port, dedicated microphone and headphone jacks, and power and reset switches – although the reset switch is wired from the factory to the RGB controller to control the lighting. I’ve done that before, but since it’s not really marked here as a reset switch on the outside of the chassis, I don’t see any reason why that should be an issue with this case.
The housing panels all come off quite easily – the glass panel has a handle to turn it easily and you can lift it off the hinge, and the front panel is held in place with magnets so it comes off with just a light touch. jerk — a little too light, the magnets aren’t very strong.
The panel on the right side of the chassis comes off by removing two thumbscrews, although they don’t stay on the panel like many other cases do.
Internal layout
In the main compartment of the chassis you’ll find space for up to Micro-ATX motherboards and GPUs with a length of up to 12.9 inches (330 mm). Other than that, there’s not much going on here worth mentioning, though I do appreciate the rubber grommets for keeping things tidy.
Along the rear of the chassis we find space for the ATX power supply, a single 3.5-inch hard drive and two 2.5-inch SSDs, although you can attach another drive to the top of the drive cage.
This is also where the RGB controller hides.
Cooling
At the moment we haven’t reached the tests yet, but cooling should be one of the strengths of the Air 100 – it comes with four 120mm RGB fans, has room for CPU coolers up to 161mm (6.3 inches) long and will fit a 240mm radiator on the top or a 360mm unit on the front (the spec sheet states a maximum of 280mm, I don’t see why a 360mm radiator wouldn’t fit), they it at the sacrifice of some GPU space. The fans come with a 1x 3-pin to 4x 3-pin splitter, so you can connect all the fans to a single header.