Peak Marketing - 'Air' in Name Only _ Montech Air 1000 Lite

# Montec Air 1000 Light Case Review: A Copycat Attempt at High Performance Cooling

## Introduction to Montec and the Air 1000 Light

Montec is quickly establishing itself as a copycat brand in the world of cases. The company, relatively new to the market, has been releasing cheap or "cheap-ish" cases that closely mimic some of the popular cases already on the market. This trend continues with their latest release, the Montec Air 1000 Light—a case priced at $70 that aims to compete in the higher airflow or high-performance category.

While it may seem like a bargain compared to its competitors, the Air 1000 Light is not without flaws. Priced just $10 less than Corsair's popular 4000D, the Montec case tries hard but falls short in several key areas. Despite its three included 120mm fans and a front panel with perforations, it doesn't quite make our recommendation list, especially when compared to alternatives in its price range.

## Design and Build Quality: A Close Clone of Corsair's 4000D

The first time we looked at Montec was for their X3 case, which was clearly inspired by Fractal. This time around, the Air 1000 Light is very obviously inspired by Corsair, particularly their 4000D airflow model. The front panel design alone shows a striking resemblance, with similar metal construction and mounting mechanisms.

The metal front plate on the Air 1000 Light snaps into place at the top, much like the Corsair 4000D, but the fit is looser. While this prevents potential damage to the snaps when the plate is pulled off at an angle, it doesn't match the precision of Corsair's design. The front panel on the Air 1000 Light also appears less open than the 4000D airflow model, which we reserved judgment on until our thermal testing phase.

One of the standout features of the Air 1000 Light is its top magnetic filter. While this feature is likely inspired by Corsair, it doesn't quite match up in terms of execution. The mesh pattern and color-matching on the filter are both small details that could have been better. Additionally, the top filter isn't color-matched well with the chassis paint—a common issue among budget cases.

The case includes three identical 120mm fans, all white, which is something we've been seeking in Corsair's case models for years. However, these fans are DC-controlled and operate at around 1200 rpm, which is standard for this price range. The front filter, while sturdy, doesn't line up well with the holes in the case, leading to some airflow obstruction.

The side panel of the Air 1000 Light features the same hinged glass style as the Montec X3. This design balances cost and convenience well but lacks a screw hole for fastening during transport. The fabric pull tab on the side panel works decently as a handle but sticks out awkwardly, making it less practical.

The build quality of the Air 1000 Light is generally solid, with chamfered edges on the glass panel. However, we noticed some damage to one corner of the panel during our testing, which could be a sign of manufacturing oversight. The hard drive cage can fit two 3.5-inch drives but lacks any vibration damping or rubber washers in the accessory kit—a common issue among budget cases.

## Thermal Performance: A Mixed Bag

The Air 1000 Light is marketed as an airflow-focused case, but its thermal performance leaves a lot to be desired. During our testing, we compared it to the Corsair 4000D and Montec's own X3, which served as a baseline for expectations.

In a full system torture test with combined 100% CPU and GPU workload, the Air 1000 Light struggled to keep temperatures in check. The CPU averaged 52 degrees Celsius above ambient, dropping slightly when the front panel was removed. However, this improvement was minimal compared to the Corsair 4000D, which managed a cooler 50 degrees under similar conditions.

The GPU thermals were particularly disappointing, with the Air 1000 Light averaging 62 degrees above ambient. Removing the front filter had little impact on GPU temperatures, leaving it stranded and left to its own devices due to the case's poor fan positioning. This issue was consistent across our testing, highlighting a significant weakness in the design.

The case's cable management space is limited, with only about 2.4 centimeters of clearance. However, we were pleased to see several pre-installed Velcro straps and additional ones included in the accessory kit. Despite its thermal shortcomings, the Air 1000 Light scored points for ease of installation and decent fan control.

## Value and Alternatives

At $70, the Air 1000 Light is priced competitively but doesn't offer enough value to justify its purchase over alternatives. The Corsair 4000D, while more expensive at $80, offers better thermal performance and design execution. For those on a tight budget, Montec's own X3 case remains a strong contender, despite its higher fan count and lower price point.

If you're looking for affordable airflow cases, there are better options available. The LandCool 215 and Fantax P400A Digital are both excellent choices in the $100 range. Additionally, we recommend checking out our case review playlist or roundup of the best budget cases from 2021 for more options.

## Conclusion: Mixed Feelings About Montec's Air 1000 Light

While the Montec Air 1000 Light isn't a terrible case by any means, it doesn't bring anything new to the table. It's essentially a budget clone of Corsair's 4000D, with minimal improvements and several design flaws that hold it back.

For those who prioritize thermal performance and innovative design, we would recommend looking elsewhere. The Air 1000 Light is only worth considering if you're particularly drawn to its appearance or have no other viable options in your region.

In the end, Montec's attempt at creating a high airflow case falls short of expectations, leaving us with mixed feelings about their potential in the market.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enmontec is quickly establishing itself as a copycat brand in the world of cases it's got a long way to go the company's relatively new but it's been putting out cheap or cheap-ish cases that very closely mimic some of the popular cases on the market this is no exception this is the new montak air 1000 light it's a 70 case it comes with three 120 millimeter fans it's trying to target the higher airflow or higher performance category while being a competitor it's only like the corsair 4000d which is about 10 more expensive and in several ways it falls short and we're going to explain why that is where even with three fans a bunch of holes in the front it doesn't quite make our recommendation list and some of these thermal categories let's get started before that this video is brought to you by evga's new keyboards evga's new z20 and z15 rgb optical mechanical gaming keyboards have abundant rgb leds and programmable macro keys on the left side of the keyboard they also have a sensor to detect and turn on the leds when you're in front of the keyboard and turn them off when distant offering a unique feature for keywords the keyboard claims a 0.5 millisecond response time and 100 million keystroke lifespan learn more at the link in the description below so the first time we looked at montag it was for the x3 which is a high fan count cheap case and that one was clearly inspired by fractal this one is very clearly inspired by corsair just looking at the front alone we'll put a shot on them side by side or something so you can see the comparison copycat products are interesting because they're problematic in that they're not doing anything new they're not adding anything to the market there's no innovation there's nothing particularly interesting for the most part with a a copycat or something that's too much of a clone uh too much of of a shanghai product and as we've talked about before but this one the difference is it's a little bit cheaper and we've talked about that in the past too where you get into territory of if it's a copy but it's cheaper and it does a little bit different maybe there's value there it's purely on price and at that point the biggest value is driving other people in the industry who make a similar product to maybe reduce their prices or compete in return to this one on the topic of clone products at least for cases what we'd like to ask for first is for you to leave a comment below what's your general opinion on if you have something sort of price for price or a little bit cheaper do you consider it just fair competition and it benefits you maybe in some way anyway or would you prefer to see something that's more unique but maybe more expensive so in other words we're curious where you stand on if you would buy something that's obviously inspired very heavily by an existing successful product so this is the montec air 1000 light we're gonna get start with review going through the build section we'll talk about thermals thermals are the big thing here we didn't have a lot of complaints for the build or the build quality but we'll go through it all so starting off the air 1000 light is undeniably similar in appearance to corsair's 4000 d air flow that mostly applies to the front panel design though montag hasn't borrowed much more than that the metal front plate snaps into place at the top just like corsairs does but at the bottom it hooks in with metal tabs the fit is looser than on the 4000d but montex solution doesn't run the risk of damaging the bottom snaps when the plate is pulled off at an angle the air 1000s plate also appears less open than the 4000d airflow but will reserve judgment for that in the thermal section later we can say that the mesh diagram on the product page is somewhat misleading it says that the holes are one millimeter apart side by side and it implies that they're also one millimeter apart up and down which with the specified hole diameter of 1.2 millimeters would mean 46.7 percent open air instead our measurements indicate that it's about 27 open air this is why sometimes when a case has a bunch of holes perforated in the front of it it actually is still not that particularly open or good at airflow it can look like it without actually providing much access to air or at least much different than with a more traditional design the top magnetic filter is also likely inspired by corsair the mesh forms triangular patterns and the magnetic strips are color matched to the filter these are both small attention to detail things that we pointed out liking in the corsair 4000d and the rest of the x000d series we wish that montec had opted for a normal mesh here relatively few holes on the filter line up with the holes in the case and so they end up blocking each other this is also why we always say that double or triple stacking mesh and filters doesn't actually mean it's better also the top filter isn't color matched well with the chassis paint another common problem between typically chassis side panels montec captioned an illustration of this filter with quote the specialized dust filters not only effectively blocks dust and permit maximum airflow the geometric shapes not only looks cool it also provides extra structural strength well we believe the part about dust but that's about it the three fans installed in our sample are entirely white this is something that we've actually been looking for with corsair's case models where the one thing they don't really color match that much is the fans with the case so since the 4000d launched we've been seeking some of this color matching the air 1000 lights product page mentions to a high airflow fans the correct count at least based on what we received appears to actually be three and all three fans are identical all fans in the light model are three pin dc controlled and the range is around 1200 rpm plus or minus the usual 10 percent at the top speed the front filter is the air 1000 lights flashiest feature because pressing down on the filter pops it up and out of the case we've mentioned concerns about corsair's 4000 d and 5000 d filters potentially wrinkling or sagging over time but the air 1000 light avoids this with a sturdy frame and some crossbars the quick eject mechanism is entirely unnecessary but it works and it's hard to call it a waste of money when the entire case costs about 70 it does mean that running the case without the filter installed leaves a large gap in the top of the case which may be a downside for users who aren't concerned about dust the bottom filter is also sturdy but it ejects to the rear like the 4000d which is just harder to access and requires moving the case around when you want to get that filter out to clean it regularly the side panel is the same hinged glass style that we saw on the montek x3 this is almost the ideal balance of cost and convenience but again we'd like to see at least one screw hole for fastening down the panel during transport the fabric pull tab works well as a handle but it does stick out awkwardly at all times if you cut it or tuck it behind the panel there'd be no easy way to get it back open again it sort of eliminates the point anyway finally the reason we mentioned cost as a benefit of this design is that it allows montag to use a plain rectangle of glass without requiring drilling or shaping like we've seen in some of our glass factory tour videos even so the glass panel has chamfered edges and there was some damage to one corner of the panel on our case where the process chipped the glass the hard drive cage can fit two three and a half inch drives one inside a sled and one on top this isn't a hard drive friendly case though the dedicated sled doesn't have any vibration damping and there are no rubber washers in the accessory kit this used to be something we would think is cheap but these days we think it's probably more likely an oversight where manufacturers have forgotten that hard drives exist or how to use them when they're doing early prototyping it's not unusual these days but budget builds using this case because it is cheaper for what it is are likely to include at least one hard drive as cheap storage the cage can be mounted in two locations but with a typical 160 millimeter long atx power supply like the one we use for testing only the forward position is viable two and a half inch drives have four other possible mounting locations there's two sleds on the back of the motherboard tray this is so much standard and then two more mounts on the motherboard tray itself the forward hard drive cage position does limit the maximum length of a front radiator but we wouldn't suggest mounting a front radiator that extends below the power supply shroud anyway first of all the shroud cutout isn't large enough to mount a 360 millimeter radiator with the tubes down and secondly a 360 millimeter all-in-one cooler would cost more than this entire case anyway the top mount does just barely support a 280 radiator as advertised we were able to actually fit an alpha coil radiator up there with approximately two and a half centimeters of overhang at the end where the fittings would connect but anything more than that would have caused a problem montag has no reservations about filling up its front i o space it's not pursuing the again asinine minimalism design where we just sacrifice anything useful for purposes of making it plain and blank there are three type a ports here there's two 3.0 and one 2.0 they're two separate audio jacks at 3.5 millimeters of course there's no usbc but as we've reported usb type-c connections are not cheap and that's why they are often left out of cheap cases the light also retains the led control button from the premium case version which is an interesting choice because most budget manufacturers would just repurpose the reset button for led control but montec has included separate power reset and led buttons on all of the air 1000 cases the led button doesn't do anything out of the box on the lite version but there are third-party led controllers or even other case peripherals that could be controlled via the button so including it is still helpful and it's an extra step that again we commonly see skipped so we do like that cable management space is limited with about 2.4 centimeters of clearance but it's adequate as long as the hard drive cage is pushed forward to allow some storage space between the cage and the power supply we were happy to see several pre-installed velcro straps at this price point plus a couple more included in the accessory kit so it makes it easy to work with and ease of installation is the first thing that gets cut when a company tries to do cost savings the only notable difficulty we had with cable routing was with the front fan cables the cutouts for these cables are tiny and they're hidden behind the edge of the chassis so they're a little annoying to work with time to start talking about thermal testing that's really where this case will make it or not seeing as it's a thermally focused case we stuck to our usual set of thermal tests for this one but we decided to do a test with both the front plate the metal front plate and the front filter removed in addition to our usual no front panel test the main competitors we'll be talking about will be the corsair 4000d which is 80 for the airflow model and which the air 1000 clearly wants to be slightly less expensive then and we'll be looking at montec's own x3 the x3 is one of the cheapest airflow cases that we've seen in the past year and overall got a decent review from us the first of our thermal tests is a full system torture test with a combined 100 cpu and gpu workload the cpu averaged 52 degrees celsius above ambience in this test which dropped down to 48 degrees with the front panel removed indicating that it does at least partially obstruct airflow but so far the change isn't too big the air 1000 already contains a filter so the purposes of the metal plate are limited to protection and decoration it could have much larger holes like the 4000d airflow's front panel with really no downside removing the filter as well dropped cpu temperatures even further down to 45 degrees average really this filter should be the only meaningful obstruction to airflow and the plate should be designed so that it has a negligible effect seen as the point of the filter is to catch dust we don't need functionally double filters here it just ends up blocking more air than anything else compared to the rest of the results on the chart 52 degrees is not stellar it's not impressive against the 4000d airflow at least which managed 50 degrees stock and one of our reservations about that case is that it only comes with two 120 ml fans versus the air one thousands three fans corsair is doing more with less here because the design and the fans are both better the x3 managed a significantly better 47 degree average with its six stock fans and it shares the air 1000 the lights 70 msrp of course we'll have to look at noise normalized testing and we'll do that in a little bit for a more level ground comparison seen as the fan swaps between all these things influence the results in the same test the gpu averaged 62 degrees above ambient get used to that number because nothing we did had a huge impact on gpu thermals removing the front metal plate reduced the average to 60 degrees but removing the filter as well left it at 60 degrees both of the front fans are mounted fairly high on the case which puts them above the level of the gpu and limits their impact on gpu thermals the gpu is mostly stranded and left to its own devices here that explains the minimal change gpu thermals are on the absolute high end of our chart here which is disappointing the 4000d airflow and the x3 were tied at 52 degrees in this test a full 10 degrees below the air 1000 light because the gpu can down clock to protect itself it's rare to see temperatures get any higher than this under any circumstances even the non-airflow 4000d averaged to 56 degrees here the air 1000 premium with its three 140mm intake fans likely doesn't suffer from the same problem but gpu thermals with the stock layout on the air 1000 light just aren't good the average gpu temperature was 60 degrees during the fire strike extreme and stress test slightly cooler than baseline again that's at the warmest end of the charge the x3 averaged 55 degrees and the 4000d airflow managed a 51 degree average that's a huge difference especially for a gpu where we don't see quite as much swaying as we do with cpus it's possible that better fan coverage could solve this problem for the air 1000 light but we'll look at that in the standardized testing in a moment the first of our two blender tests uses the cpu to render a custom cut scene the cpu averaged 37 degrees here not unusually good or bad the 4000d tied it while the x3 was a couple degrees cooler at 35 average which is enough to put it among the best results on the more tightly packed chart rendering on the gpu instead resulted in an average gpu temperature of 31 degrees still among the worst few results for stock cases that are currently on this chart this is a real world workload and it doesn't produce much heat from the cpu or other components but the gpu thermals are still bad despite being basically an isolated work look we use a set of two 140 ml noctua intake fans and one 120 ml exhaust fan for the standardized fan test which we have a full separate video on explaining if you need to learn about the methodology this is configured with 140ml fans in the front and 120 in the rear if possible which it was in the air 1000 light average cpu temperature dropped to 46 degrees with an error of the result the stock fans managed with both the front panel and the filter removed good case bands obviously make a huge difference here it changes massively where the position is it's in the middle of the chart for cpu thermals with this set of fans but it's tied with the 4000d for once and significantly outperforms the x3s 51 degree average here the cpu temperatures were already at least acceptable though so the real test is gpu temperature that's where this one struggles the new average was 56 degrees with this set of fans not as dramatic a dip as we might have hoped for but it's still cooler than any of the tests we performed with stock vans this is where the x3 and the 4000 d pull ahead again with 52 and 50 degree averages respectively we positioned the intake fans low right above the level of the power splash route so this isn't purely a problem with fan positioning noise validation is next we use a heavily controlled and standardized approach for this where we test at 26 db noise floor and at a 20 inch distance with the noise meter with the case fans running at their maximum speed of about 1200 rpm we measured a noise level of 40.7 dba and we use controlled speeds for the other component fans reducing that to the 36dba threshold we use for noise normalized testing required reducing the fan speed for the case fans to 62 in bios or between 900 to 950 rpm cpu temperature increased moderately with the speed reduction up to 54 degrees now that's within error of the 4000 d air flows result and from a certain point of view it beats the x3 by default since all of the x3 stock fans are molex and they can't really be controlled unless you adapt them to something else the gpu average of 61 degrees in this test is within error of the original torture result as well again because the gp's ability to protect itself with down clocking and because of the fan positioning the temperatures don't get much higher than this unless something is severely wrong with the case it makes sense then that it tied as the worst performer on this chart with the o11 air mini overall then the biggest weakness here is obviously the gpu thermals it's struggled the most it's left to its own devices for the most part because of the fan positioning the fan strength in general and the huge amount of obstruction here the relatively low porosity as it were so the the hole to metal ratio is unfavorable in this montek case and that's those factors the fan positioning the power and the front panel are what contribute to poor thermal performance for the gpu and mix thermal performance for the cpu sometimes it's okay sometimes it's really not that good uh so it is not a strong performance thermally and that means that for how it looks or being named air it's just not really delivering what's been promised to us by marketing and by imagery so it gets a a losing mark there 70 and the appearance makes this thing look like it's a budget course here 4000d the thing is the corsair 4000d is already a budget 4000d because it's 80 so the 10 difference there's not really enough being shaved off there where corsair has done more with less in terms of the fan count and some of the design elements so torster's definitely in the the winning position here case for case if you're just strictly picking between the two with a light difference between them for alternatives we would recommend checking out montec's own ultra budget x3 if you want something that's cheaper the 1000 premium case the other version of this at 90 would probably do better thermally but at ninety dollars it's also competing with a really fierce set of competition other cases we'd strongly recommend looking at for budget or even the 100 range would be something like the landcool 215 the fantax p400a digital or you can check out our case review playlist uh or look at one of our roundups of some of the best cases including airflow cases for 2021 that we filmed earlier in the year and we're doing another one soon once we get through a couple more cases so that's it for this one really we don't we don't hate it from a build quality standpoint but it does not bring anything new to the table uh it's not particularly competitive there's other cases we would buy instead so this one the only reason we'd say to buy it is if you really like how it looks or something or if you really have no other options and all the other things that we've said we like in the same price class are available maybe in your your region or your country then it starts to make sense but if you have other options and the front is not that interesting to you or appealing to you versus the competition there's no reason to buy this and there's a lot of flaws in the design uh it's named air but it's basically error in name only it's not the worst thing we've seen but it's pretty closed off for something that tries to look as open as it tries to look so a lot of really basic mistakes on this one but that's it for this video thanks for watching subscribe for more you can go to store.gamertexas.net if you'd like to back order one of our toolkits they are finally back on back order so you can make sure you get one on the next run once they ship out or you go to patreon.comgamersnexus i've just posted a behind the scenes uh blog post update over there thanks for watching subscribe for more we'll see you all next timemontec is quickly establishing itself as a copycat brand in the world of cases it's got a long way to go the company's relatively new but it's been putting out cheap or cheap-ish cases that very closely mimic some of the popular cases on the market this is no exception this is the new montak air 1000 light it's a 70 case it comes with three 120 millimeter fans it's trying to target the higher airflow or higher performance category while being a competitor it's only like the corsair 4000d which is about 10 more expensive and in several ways it falls short and we're going to explain why that is where even with three fans a bunch of holes in the front it doesn't quite make our recommendation list and some of these thermal categories let's get started before that this video is brought to you by evga's new keyboards evga's new z20 and z15 rgb optical mechanical gaming keyboards have abundant rgb leds and programmable macro keys on the left side of the keyboard they also have a sensor to detect and turn on the leds when you're in front of the keyboard and turn them off when distant offering a unique feature for keywords the keyboard claims a 0.5 millisecond response time and 100 million keystroke lifespan learn more at the link in the description below so the first time we looked at montag it was for the x3 which is a high fan count cheap case and that one was clearly inspired by fractal this one is very clearly inspired by corsair just looking at the front alone we'll put a shot on them side by side or something so you can see the comparison copycat products are interesting because they're problematic in that they're not doing anything new they're not adding anything to the market there's no innovation there's nothing particularly interesting for the most part with a a copycat or something that's too much of a clone uh too much of of a shanghai product and as we've talked about before but this one the difference is it's a little bit cheaper and we've talked about that in the past too where you get into territory of if it's a copy but it's cheaper and it does a little bit different maybe there's value there it's purely on price and at that point the biggest value is driving other people in the industry who make a similar product to maybe reduce their prices or compete in return to this one on the topic of clone products at least for cases what we'd like to ask for first is for you to leave a comment below what's your general opinion on if you have something sort of price for price or a little bit cheaper do you consider it just fair competition and it benefits you maybe in some way anyway or would you prefer to see something that's more unique but maybe more expensive so in other words we're curious where you stand on if you would buy something that's obviously inspired very heavily by an existing successful product so this is the montec air 1000 light we're gonna get start with review going through the build section we'll talk about thermals thermals are the big thing here we didn't have a lot of complaints for the build or the build quality but we'll go through it all so starting off the air 1000 light is undeniably similar in appearance to corsair's 4000 d air flow that mostly applies to the front panel design though montag hasn't borrowed much more than that the metal front plate snaps into place at the top just like corsairs does but at the bottom it hooks in with metal tabs the fit is looser than on the 4000d but montex solution doesn't run the risk of damaging the bottom snaps when the plate is pulled off at an angle the air 1000s plate also appears less open than the 4000d airflow but will reserve judgment for that in the thermal section later we can say that the mesh diagram on the product page is somewhat misleading it says that the holes are one millimeter apart side by side and it implies that they're also one millimeter apart up and down which with the specified hole diameter of 1.2 millimeters would mean 46.7 percent open air instead our measurements indicate that it's about 27 open air this is why sometimes when a case has a bunch of holes perforated in the front of it it actually is still not that particularly open or good at airflow it can look like it without actually providing much access to air or at least much different than with a more traditional design the top magnetic filter is also likely inspired by corsair the mesh forms triangular patterns and the magnetic strips are color matched to the filter these are both small attention to detail things that we pointed out liking in the corsair 4000d and the rest of the x000d series we wish that montec had opted for a normal mesh here relatively few holes on the filter line up with the holes in the case and so they end up blocking each other this is also why we always say that double or triple stacking mesh and filters doesn't actually mean it's better also the top filter isn't color matched well with the chassis paint another common problem between typically chassis side panels montec captioned an illustration of this filter with quote the specialized dust filters not only effectively blocks dust and permit maximum airflow the geometric shapes not only looks cool it also provides extra structural strength well we believe the part about dust but that's about it the three fans installed in our sample are entirely white this is something that we've actually been looking for with corsair's case models where the one thing they don't really color match that much is the fans with the case so since the 4000d launched we've been seeking some of this color matching the air 1000 lights product page mentions to a high airflow fans the correct count at least based on what we received appears to actually be three and all three fans are identical all fans in the light model are three pin dc controlled and the range is around 1200 rpm plus or minus the usual 10 percent at the top speed the front filter is the air 1000 lights flashiest feature because pressing down on the filter pops it up and out of the case we've mentioned concerns about corsair's 4000 d and 5000 d filters potentially wrinkling or sagging over time but the air 1000 light avoids this with a sturdy frame and some crossbars the quick eject mechanism is entirely unnecessary but it works and it's hard to call it a waste of money when the entire case costs about 70 it does mean that running the case without the filter installed leaves a large gap in the top of the case which may be a downside for users who aren't concerned about dust the bottom filter is also sturdy but it ejects to the rear like the 4000d which is just harder to access and requires moving the case around when you want to get that filter out to clean it regularly the side panel is the same hinged glass style that we saw on the montek x3 this is almost the ideal balance of cost and convenience but again we'd like to see at least one screw hole for fastening down the panel during transport the fabric pull tab works well as a handle but it does stick out awkwardly at all times if you cut it or tuck it behind the panel there'd be no easy way to get it back open again it sort of eliminates the point anyway finally the reason we mentioned cost as a benefit of this design is that it allows montag to use a plain rectangle of glass without requiring drilling or shaping like we've seen in some of our glass factory tour videos even so the glass panel has chamfered edges and there was some damage to one corner of the panel on our case where the process chipped the glass the hard drive cage can fit two three and a half inch drives one inside a sled and one on top this isn't a hard drive friendly case though the dedicated sled doesn't have any vibration damping and there are no rubber washers in the accessory kit this used to be something we would think is cheap but these days we think it's probably more likely an oversight where manufacturers have forgotten that hard drives exist or how to use them when they're doing early prototyping it's not unusual these days but budget builds using this case because it is cheaper for what it is are likely to include at least one hard drive as cheap storage the cage can be mounted in two locations but with a typical 160 millimeter long atx power supply like the one we use for testing only the forward position is viable two and a half inch drives have four other possible mounting locations there's two sleds on the back of the motherboard tray this is so much standard and then two more mounts on the motherboard tray itself the forward hard drive cage position does limit the maximum length of a front radiator but we wouldn't suggest mounting a front radiator that extends below the power supply shroud anyway first of all the shroud cutout isn't large enough to mount a 360 millimeter radiator with the tubes down and secondly a 360 millimeter all-in-one cooler would cost more than this entire case anyway the top mount does just barely support a 280 radiator as advertised we were able to actually fit an alpha coil radiator up there with approximately two and a half centimeters of overhang at the end where the fittings would connect but anything more than that would have caused a problem montag has no reservations about filling up its front i o space it's not pursuing the again asinine minimalism design where we just sacrifice anything useful for purposes of making it plain and blank there are three type a ports here there's two 3.0 and one 2.0 they're two separate audio jacks at 3.5 millimeters of course there's no usbc but as we've reported usb type-c connections are not cheap and that's why they are often left out of cheap cases the light also retains the led control button from the premium case version which is an interesting choice because most budget manufacturers would just repurpose the reset button for led control but montec has included separate power reset and led buttons on all of the air 1000 cases the led button doesn't do anything out of the box on the lite version but there are third-party led controllers or even other case peripherals that could be controlled via the button so including it is still helpful and it's an extra step that again we commonly see skipped so we do like that cable management space is limited with about 2.4 centimeters of clearance but it's adequate as long as the hard drive cage is pushed forward to allow some storage space between the cage and the power supply we were happy to see several pre-installed velcro straps at this price point plus a couple more included in the accessory kit so it makes it easy to work with and ease of installation is the first thing that gets cut when a company tries to do cost savings the only notable difficulty we had with cable routing was with the front fan cables the cutouts for these cables are tiny and they're hidden behind the edge of the chassis so they're a little annoying to work with time to start talking about thermal testing that's really where this case will make it or not seeing as it's a thermally focused case we stuck to our usual set of thermal tests for this one but we decided to do a test with both the front plate the metal front plate and the front filter removed in addition to our usual no front panel test the main competitors we'll be talking about will be the corsair 4000d which is 80 for the airflow model and which the air 1000 clearly wants to be slightly less expensive then and we'll be looking at montec's own x3 the x3 is one of the cheapest airflow cases that we've seen in the past year and overall got a decent review from us the first of our thermal tests is a full system torture test with a combined 100 cpu and gpu workload the cpu averaged 52 degrees celsius above ambience in this test which dropped down to 48 degrees with the front panel removed indicating that it does at least partially obstruct airflow but so far the change isn't too big the air 1000 already contains a filter so the purposes of the metal plate are limited to protection and decoration it could have much larger holes like the 4000d airflow's front panel with really no downside removing the filter as well dropped cpu temperatures even further down to 45 degrees average really this filter should be the only meaningful obstruction to airflow and the plate should be designed so that it has a negligible effect seen as the point of the filter is to catch dust we don't need functionally double filters here it just ends up blocking more air than anything else compared to the rest of the results on the chart 52 degrees is not stellar it's not impressive against the 4000d airflow at least which managed 50 degrees stock and one of our reservations about that case is that it only comes with two 120 ml fans versus the air one thousands three fans corsair is doing more with less here because the design and the fans are both better the x3 managed a significantly better 47 degree average with its six stock fans and it shares the air 1000 the lights 70 msrp of course we'll have to look at noise normalized testing and we'll do that in a little bit for a more level ground comparison seen as the fan swaps between all these things influence the results in the same test the gpu averaged 62 degrees above ambient get used to that number because nothing we did had a huge impact on gpu thermals removing the front metal plate reduced the average to 60 degrees but removing the filter as well left it at 60 degrees both of the front fans are mounted fairly high on the case which puts them above the level of the gpu and limits their impact on gpu thermals the gpu is mostly stranded and left to its own devices here that explains the minimal change gpu thermals are on the absolute high end of our chart here which is disappointing the 4000d airflow and the x3 were tied at 52 degrees in this test a full 10 degrees below the air 1000 light because the gpu can down clock to protect itself it's rare to see temperatures get any higher than this under any circumstances even the non-airflow 4000d averaged to 56 degrees here the air 1000 premium with its three 140mm intake fans likely doesn't suffer from the same problem but gpu thermals with the stock layout on the air 1000 light just aren't good the average gpu temperature was 60 degrees during the fire strike extreme and stress test slightly cooler than baseline again that's at the warmest end of the charge the x3 averaged 55 degrees and the 4000d airflow managed a 51 degree average that's a huge difference especially for a gpu where we don't see quite as much swaying as we do with cpus it's possible that better fan coverage could solve this problem for the air 1000 light but we'll look at that in the standardized testing in a moment the first of our two blender tests uses the cpu to render a custom cut scene the cpu averaged 37 degrees here not unusually good or bad the 4000d tied it while the x3 was a couple degrees cooler at 35 average which is enough to put it among the best results on the more tightly packed chart rendering on the gpu instead resulted in an average gpu temperature of 31 degrees still among the worst few results for stock cases that are currently on this chart this is a real world workload and it doesn't produce much heat from the cpu or other components but the gpu thermals are still bad despite being basically an isolated work look we use a set of two 140 ml noctua intake fans and one 120 ml exhaust fan for the standardized fan test which we have a full separate video on explaining if you need to learn about the methodology this is configured with 140ml fans in the front and 120 in the rear if possible which it was in the air 1000 light average cpu temperature dropped to 46 degrees with an error of the result the stock fans managed with both the front panel and the filter removed good case bands obviously make a huge difference here it changes massively where the position is it's in the middle of the chart for cpu thermals with this set of fans but it's tied with the 4000d for once and significantly outperforms the x3s 51 degree average here the cpu temperatures were already at least acceptable though so the real test is gpu temperature that's where this one struggles the new average was 56 degrees with this set of fans not as dramatic a dip as we might have hoped for but it's still cooler than any of the tests we performed with stock vans this is where the x3 and the 4000 d pull ahead again with 52 and 50 degree averages respectively we positioned the intake fans low right above the level of the power splash route so this isn't purely a problem with fan positioning noise validation is next we use a heavily controlled and standardized approach for this where we test at 26 db noise floor and at a 20 inch distance with the noise meter with the case fans running at their maximum speed of about 1200 rpm we measured a noise level of 40.7 dba and we use controlled speeds for the other component fans reducing that to the 36dba threshold we use for noise normalized testing required reducing the fan speed for the case fans to 62 in bios or between 900 to 950 rpm cpu temperature increased moderately with the speed reduction up to 54 degrees now that's within error of the 4000 d air flows result and from a certain point of view it beats the x3 by default since all of the x3 stock fans are molex and they can't really be controlled unless you adapt them to something else the gpu average of 61 degrees in this test is within error of the original torture result as well again because the gp's ability to protect itself with down clocking and because of the fan positioning the temperatures don't get much higher than this unless something is severely wrong with the case it makes sense then that it tied as the worst performer on this chart with the o11 air mini overall then the biggest weakness here is obviously the gpu thermals it's struggled the most it's left to its own devices for the most part because of the fan positioning the fan strength in general and the huge amount of obstruction here the relatively low porosity as it were so the the hole to metal ratio is unfavorable in this montek case and that's those factors the fan positioning the power and the front panel are what contribute to poor thermal performance for the gpu and mix thermal performance for the cpu sometimes it's okay sometimes it's really not that good uh so it is not a strong performance thermally and that means that for how it looks or being named air it's just not really delivering what's been promised to us by marketing and by imagery so it gets a a losing mark there 70 and the appearance makes this thing look like it's a budget course here 4000d the thing is the corsair 4000d is already a budget 4000d because it's 80 so the 10 difference there's not really enough being shaved off there where corsair has done more with less in terms of the fan count and some of the design elements so torster's definitely in the the winning position here case for case if you're just strictly picking between the two with a light difference between them for alternatives we would recommend checking out montec's own ultra budget x3 if you want something that's cheaper the 1000 premium case the other version of this at 90 would probably do better thermally but at ninety dollars it's also competing with a really fierce set of competition other cases we'd strongly recommend looking at for budget or even the 100 range would be something like the landcool 215 the fantax p400a digital or you can check out our case review playlist uh or look at one of our roundups of some of the best cases including airflow cases for 2021 that we filmed earlier in the year and we're doing another one soon once we get through a couple more cases so that's it for this one really we don't we don't hate it from a build quality standpoint but it does not bring anything new to the table uh it's not particularly competitive there's other cases we would buy instead so this one the only reason we'd say to buy it is if you really like how it looks or something or if you really have no other options and all the other things that we've said we like in the same price class are available maybe in your your region or your country then it starts to make sense but if you have other options and the front is not that interesting to you or appealing to you versus the competition there's no reason to buy this and there's a lot of flaws in the design uh it's named air but it's basically error in name only it's not the worst thing we've seen but it's pretty closed off for something that tries to look as open as it tries to look so a lot of really basic mistakes on this one but that's it for this video thanks for watching subscribe for more you can go to store.gamertexas.net if you'd like to back order one of our toolkits they are finally back on back order so you can make sure you get one on the next run once they ship out or you go to patreon.comgamersnexus i've just posted a behind the scenes uh blog post update over there thanks for watching subscribe for more we'll see you all next time\n"