Montech Ten. The mighty box.
TLDR:
AMD Ryzen 7 9700X
Sapphire Pulse Radeon RX9070XT
2 x 16GB DDR5 Kingston Fury
1TB & 2TB WD SN770
MSI MAG B850m Mortar
Corsair SF1000
Montech Hyperflow Silent 360 AIO
3 x Phanteks T30
It's an awesome case and I like it a lot. Hardware seem to be feeling comfortable inside of it and Montech is in my top three brands now along Fractal and Jonsbo. It has a couple of small things I'd address, such as tight clearance between AIO radiator and motherboard (see photos), but it's a very small complaint and overall you get way more than what you pay for. Waaaay more.
Story time:
In the beginning of May I suddenly got an itch to swap my Jonsbo Z20 case for something else. Nothing wrong with the Z20 by the way, I'm going to re-use that for my other build. But, after slight room rearrangements my computer sits on the left from me now and this probably was the main reason that prompted me to start looking what's out there in terms of PC cases for the "left oriented" users.
Sure enough, there are not that many inverted cases and at first I thought I'd just put my white Fractal North on it's side and let my PC sit horizontally. It looked well at first, but at the same time it was slightly "meh". On top of that, this way would bring some complications in the near future when I'd upgrade (hopefully) to R7 9800x3d and liquid cooling solution would need to be introduced (as long as prices ain't going to go completely crazy by Christmas, yeah).
So, horizontal Fractal North wasn't appealing. Then, I've found Cooler Master Qube 540 in what CoolerMaster calls "Silver". In person, the color looks way off than what you see in adverts. It's rather creamy white, which I didn't like, so decided to order the "Black" gunmetal grey instead. It looked amazing, albeit a bit too bulky for its capacity. As I started building it, I remember facing major obstruction in installing AIO cooler: there simply wasn't enough clearance between the motherboard and radiator in inverted position. Plus, lack of fan mounting on the front panel, which is mainly taken over by the PSU made horizontally-oriented setup not ideal to me, so the Qube gone back also.
At this stage, I nearly gave up on the idea until I came across Montech Ten pre-order page on Scan UK website. £60 for what looks to be a well-engineered case? Interesting.
I didn't keep my expectations too high though as from my previous experience only Jonsbo's Z20 managed to pleasantly surprise me with the quality it's quality while costing way less than £100. I wouldn't even consider cases cheaper than that just a year ago, but it changed my perceptions about how much a quality case should cost.
A couple of review articles + Jayztwocents' review convinced me enough to get it and see what it's like.
When the case came through the door and got unpacked, I knew this case is not going back. It may not look unique by any means it's just a black box full of holes, but once you see it in-person, it looks like an expensive piece of a professional equipment. Must be the fine mesh and that satin steel cage finish.
It surely punches above its weight in terms of quality and layout flexibility. You can read all about the layouts on Montech's website if you want to. The layout I've gone for is M2 (liquid elite I think). It's pretty much the only layout you can go if you want the case internals facing you from the left hand side. Not that it matters in this particular case (pun?) as all panels hide most of the internals behind the mesh.
I'm no PC building expert, I've built maybe 20 - 25 PCs in total since I began tinkering with technology, but this build was one of the most challenging ones I've experienced. Sure, the odd layout doesn't help. It requires quite a bit of planning ahead. Most of the internals were transferred from Z20, but this time I decided to "cool things up" with an AIO cooler, which is a first for me as I always swore by air cooling. This added some complexity to the build too.
It took me three evening sessions to finish the build, so about 7 - 8 hours in total. Some of that time was spent experimenting with the PSU and AIO layouts, as I planned to install the PSU alongside the motherboard at first.
What one should know is that not every AIO with large pump block is going to fit in this particular layout and front panel cables for USB-A ports have no chance of fitting between the mobo and cooling radiator regardless of its' size, unless you use a flexible USB header extension. Even offset brackets don't help much, although without them the whole idea of M2 layout build would fall apart in opinion.
Even though I managed to install 360 AIO cooler in this case for futureproofing reasons (and I know is a complete overkill for R7 9700X), I have a feeling a 240mm would make my life much easier, although front panel + power button clearance issues would still remain. The USB port cabling solution was easily fixed by getting a USB header extension cable as mentioned above, which is way more flexible and fits inbetween the radiator and motherboard, while the power button connections were left as they are, albeit slightly bent. I've checked the pins after test fitting and they seem to be straight, so it's just the plastic housing of the power pins that seem to be flexing under the bit of pressure. Absolutely no drama there, but maybe Montech will address this in the future revisions.
I'm yet to do any stress test temperature measurements. To be honest, I hardly care about them anyway. During the 2-hour Wreckfest 2 session at 3440x1440 capped at 144fps, I could barely hear fans working. I actually had to look at the GPU to see if the fans were spinning, because at times the GPU's coil whine was the only audible thing coming from the computer. Right after I closed the game, AIDA sensors shown around 60 degrees for the CPU and 50 for the GPU, so I didn't bother looking further. Maybe one evening I'll run the OCCT and see what the temps are like under the stress.
PC specs:
MSI MAG B850m: Even in 2026, it's still probably the best choice in terms of quality/price/functions mATX board for AMD processors. At first I was slightly bothered by those bright yellow/greenish accents, but you can hardly see them. Nice.
AMD Ryzen 7 9700X: Very efficient and powerful CPU for my needs. Chose it originally for what I thought would be a tight cooling space of the Z20. With Montech case I'm hoping to get a R7 9800X3D soon.
Sapphire AMD Radeon RX9070XT: my first ever flagship card if you can call it this way and surely my most favourite one. Runs everything I want without breaking a sweat.
2 x 16GB Kingston Fury DDR5 CL30: Managed to snatch these in January just before their price crossed £250 mark. Not the best deal, but at the time of writing this, these go for double that.
1TB & 2TB WD SN770 drives: 1TB for OS and 2TB for games. Fast, reliable, don't require separate cooling loop like Gen 5 drives.
Corsair SF1000 (1000W) PSU: tiny, mighty and quiet. Can't go wrong with it.
Montech Hyperflow 360 Silent AIO: Might as well put the 9700X in the fridge, yeah.
My first AIO choice was Corsair Nautilus RS 360. But, the pump block wouldn't allow me to fit the GPU. Workaround was to keep the cap off, but this was an RGB version (which was oddly enough priced £15 less than non-RGB version during the Prime sale), so without a cap it didn't look quite right, let alone super bright as well. Being impressed by Montech, I saw this AIO on sale for nearly £20 less as well, so thought why not. Looks great and pump block leaves a bit of space between the GPU too. Win-win.
3 x Phanteks T30: This was a gift. I've been Arctic guy for many years now, but when I was given these, I knew I had to find a place for them. And sure enough, they've gone onto the AIO (sorry, Montech!), while Montech fans are playing the support role at the bottom of the case. Mega quiet and super efficient.
So?
Overall, I'm happy I came across this case. Montech really impressed me with their price/quality ratio and I hope they'll keep on doing great job for many years to come. As for me, when the next upgrade itch comes, Montech will surely be one of the very first brands to check out for their new stuff.