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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.
