The BEST Compact Micro-ATX Case? (Aerocool CS-106 Review)

[@TechOverwrite]

Hey everyone, I enjoyed giving my thoughts of this compact mATX case. What did you think of it? 🧐

[@gordongekko9554]

Well done bro. excellent job.

[@TechOverwrite]

Thanks bro, I appreciate that :)

[@andrewvickers4487]

Enjoyed the laughs hehe, really nice useful watch as ever and I'm currently looking at MATX options and loving the SFF vs ATX. How important is having a full mesh style front for max air flow? Looking forward to the conclusion re cables.

[@TechOverwrite]

Thanks, glad you enjoyed it, I had fun reviewing it 😄 I think some level of mesh in the front is important for sure - a small number of SFF cases seem to disregard this a bit too much IMO, and I've always known this as critical for airflow. I'll definitely post a build video when it comes to it, and update this video. Hopefully I still have a good opinion of the case after attempting a full MATX build in it lol 😂

[@bob2sud]

Hi ! I was thinking about the fans. Does any 120mm fan do the job ? I have never set up a fan on a case and I don’t really know if the one on the back is enough for an Intel i5 configuration with built-in GPU

[@TechOverwrite]

Hi, yes any 120mm fan would be fine. I once had a PC build with 4 different makes of fan inside it. I have a separate video where I dive into case fans if you wanted to check that out - it discusses how to power them and any gotachas to be aware of 🙂

[@bob2sud]

@ Okay thank you 🙏 I’m going to watch it 😁

[@MASViper]

If the side panel fan mount is on the same height level as the rear fan mount, it might be a good place to mount a 120mm AIO

[@TechOverwrite]

Great point, yes I'm fairly sure that would work (I'm AFK currently but from memory it was at the same point). 🙂 The case does support an AIO in some form yes, although it is a bit of a tight squeeze.

[@KrisLevel]

Would a single fan 4060 fit in this

[@TechOverwrite]

Yes it should do - the case supports up to 286mm GPUs, and many 4060s are shorter than this.

[@KrisLevel]

@@TechOverwrite great thank you for your replie

[@kushy_TV]

you should look at ionz' kz-32v if you havent already. 15 litre matx with decent enough cooler and gpu clearance for just £25.

[@TechOverwrite]

Thanks for the suggestion, that does look like a smart case and it's another good budget one. 🙂 I like how the side air holes look like part of the design, instead of this CS-106 case where they stand out a bit too much.

[@kushy_TV]

@@TechOverwrite yeah its a pretty smart looking case, but i genuinely think the best part is simply how small it is, it's probably the smallest case that supports an matx board, atx psu and full height gpu up to 250mm

[@sinanfr]

You can't use that case for a nas with raid (0-1-5), only one disk space but very nice for proxmox with 1 or 2 nvme on the motherboard.

[@TechOverwrite]

That's a fair point, it's not a HDD case I agree. I actually have a 3x NVMe motherboard in this case, and I could always add an NVMe PCIe expansion if I wanted more too - so (as you say) something like Proxmox could definitely work well in it 🙂

[@sinanfr]

@@TechOverwrite Can you share the model of your motherboard ? Asrock B550 Steel Legend ?

[@TechOverwrite]

Very close, it's the ASRock B650M Pro RS (I went with Zen 5/DDR5 in the end for this build) 🙂

[@wilsonfuraque8039]

Chassis is from CS-104 hence the optical drive hole 👌

[@TechOverwrite]

Ahhh, TIL. Thanks for that - I assumed as much but I can see the resemblance now (to the CS-104). Good to know :)