At $109.99, Montech’s King 15 Pro offers a solid set of midrange features for about $20 to $30 less than most midrange PC cases it resembles. With this MicroATX chassis, you get the appearance of brushed aluminum against its darkly tinted side and curved-glass face, a bottom filled with reverse-flow intake fans, an ARGB strip up the side to match, and even an integrated ARGB controller with a powered fan hub. All that puts the humbly priced King 15 Pro in a higher-rent neighborhood than its price would suggest. Also available in a non-“Pro” version for $20 less, the King 15 Pro is a reasonable value from this maker known for decent-value gear, but for one key problem: power supply fitment. You’ll want to pick a power supply with certain connector traits before you think about pledging fealty to either King. If that's not an option, our favorite MicroATX case remains Lian Li's budget-minded DAN A3-mATX.

Design: A Case Full of Twists

Montech here pulls off an effective illusion: The King 15 Pro looks like aluminum, but it is all done in plastic. Beautifully manufactured with a cast finish on the bottom and a brushed finish running up the side of the face panel, it’ll fool anyone who doesn’t touch it. The curved tempered glass thus becomes the King 15 Pro’s priciest feature, followed by its front-panel port section and the inclusion of ARGB lighting.

That front-panel section includes a power button with a light-up logo, a mode selector for the integrated ARGB controller, a four-pole headset combo jack (designed to serve a headphone and microphone), two USB 3.x Type-A ports, and a Gen 2x2 Type-C port.

(Credit: Thomas Soderstrom)

Another twist: The included ARGB intake fans, lined across the bottom panel, are angled away from the motherboard and toward the left glass, to help get air past the top edge of a graphics card. (It also makes them more visible.) Also, they are reverse-flow fans: Appearance factors might also why Montech chose to use special intake fans that blow out the fan’s front side rather than the frame side. It wanted these spinners to blow upward without you noticing the frame.

(Credit: Thomas Soderstrom)

Since we’re talking about the inclined lower fan mount area, we might as well mention that it’s covered from beneath with a rigidly framed dust filter. Boxed at its corners to prevent it from sliding out of position, the filter has permanent magnets to hold it close to its fans.

(Credit: Thomas Soderstrom)

The back of the King 15 Pro also has a 120mm ARGB fan, but its blades are of the standard blow-out-the-back variety. The rear fan mount is slotted so you can adjust the fan’s vertical position, and it has a second set of mounting slots to support 140mm fans.

We also see five PCI Express expansion slots, which should allow someone to install a double-slot card in the bottom slot of a MicroATX motherboard. What we don’t see is the power supply mount: It’s hidden inside, behind the right side panel’s vented section.

(Credit: Thomas Soderstrom)

And now we see the power supply bay, boxed in behind the front panel. Behind it is a two-drive mounting tray, and above that the ARGB controller with its powered fan hub.

(Credit: Thomas Soderstrom)

The power supply’s mounting flange screws onto a removable bracket that hangs from four sliding hooks and is locked into place via two knurled screws. 

Mounting slots on the opposite side of the top panel hold up to three 120mm or two 140mm fans and/or a radiator up to 435mm long.

(Credit: Thomas Soderstrom)

Install your power supply with its mounting flange pointed upward, and Montech says that there’s 180mm of space for the supply here. We measured 190mm between the mounting flange and the drive tray’s mounting tab. 

Nearby is the hinged-panel drive mount. Designed to hold two drives in either the 2.5-inch or 3.5-inch internal drive form factors, the drive tray can be lifted off its hinge pins after opening.

(Credit: Thomas Soderstrom)

The integrated ARGB controller/fan hub could potentially support six ARGB fans, but the King 15 Pro’s integrated ARGB light bar takes up one of its headers. With four ARGB fans installed, the device has one ARGB and two PWM headers available.

(Credit: Thomas Soderstrom)

One of our PC-case pet peeves is a gap above the PCI Express card mounting area that isn't big enough for easy card installation. Here, a swinging cover plate improves upon the subpar idea of putting the card tab holder on the outside of the case. The design forces builders to manipulate and angle the tab sticking out the other end of their card to clear certain onboard devices. You need an opening at least 19mm high to ensure compatibility with certain motherboards. The King 15 Pro’s card bracket opening is a far more generous 24mm.

(Credit: Thomas Soderstrom)

Now that you’ve seen where the power supply fits, that giant box at the front of the motherboard compartment makes more sense...

(Credit: Thomas Soderstrom)

It may not support a full ATX motherboard, but the King 15 Pro’s MicroATX tray offers extra features, including a full set of cutouts for reverse-facing Asus BTF/MSI Project Zero motherboard headers and connectors. Cable passages angle toward the top of the board from above, and we see a small video-card brace taking up a bit of space in front of the motherboard’s mounting area.

(Credit: Thomas Soderstrom)

Building With Montech’s King 15 Pro

The King 15 Pro ships with a printed manual, a box organizer filled with hardware, an ATX-to-SFX power-supply adapter plate, and a set of power-supply screws for attaching an SFX power supply to that adapter plate.

Inside the organizer are five zip ties, two replacement snaps for the snap-on panels, a #2 Phillips-to-standoff hex adapter socket, six power supply screws, 18 #6-32 panhead screws for motherboard standoffs and 3.5-inch drive mounting, three extra standoffs, and nine M3 screws for 2.5-inch drives.

(Credit: Thomas Soderstrom)

Case cables include a nine-pin combined connector with four wires connecting the power button and power-on indicator LED, an HD Audio cable for the headset combo jack, a 19-pin USB 3.x Gen 1 connector for the King 15 Pro’s front Type-A connectors, and a Gen 2x2 cable for its Type-C connector. The ARGB controller and its powered fan hub use a PWM fan cable to accept RPM control from the motherboard, an ARGB cable to accept those signals from the motherboard, and a power input that connects to one of our power supply’s SATA leads.

(Credit: Thomas Soderstrom)

We started our build with the power supply. Our first step should have been to make sure that our power supply fit. That starts with unscrewing the two knurled screws and sliding the bracket off its tabs.

(Credit: Thomas Soderstrom)

Unfortunately, we found out that our power supply’s connector was too close to the top panel’s outer rail to fit the King 15 Pro’s internal power cable. (That cable goes from the PSU to the power socket on the back of the case.)

(Credit: Thomas Soderstrom)

(Credit: Thomas Soderstrom)

Could this be an orientation problem? Had our power connector faced the other way, we could have at least relied on unused fan space to manipulate the King 15 Pro’s internal extension cable. We checked all of our full-size power supplies on hand from major brands like Be Quiet, Corsair, FSP, Sparkle Power, and Thermaltake, as well as several Cooler Master parts we had on hand. None of these would work with this cable, in this case, so we started trying our SFX units.

Do you see how the cable’s insulation is turning white with strain using this Cooler Master SFX unit? It fit, but we don’t know what this tight bend was doing to the insulation of the wires beneath. Even our SFX units were facing the same mounting issue. Montech could have addressed this by using an offset adapter plate...but it didn’t.

(Credit: Thomas Soderstrom)

Having already photographed the case and spent most of the day trying to solve this issue, I chose the “sunk cost theory” and began looking for any and all ways to avoid abandoning this review. That’s when I discovered the 80 Plus Platinum-certified, 1,050W-rated InWin P105II.

(Credit: Thomas Soderstrom)

Please remember what we said about none of our Be Quiet, Cooler Master, Corsair, FSP, SPI, or Thermaltake power supplies fitting before rushing out to buy this case! You'll need to examine the power socket placement on any PSU you buy to complement this chassis.

(Credit: Thomas Soderstrom)

The one problem remaining is that even though Montech made the rear-facing-connector holes large enough to pass cables for front connectors, they weren’t large enough for the fittings of our front connectors. We had to unscrew the board to get our 24-pin cable through, and the process required removing and reinstalling the graphics card. Had Montech extended the opening just 5mm or 6mm farther forward, we’d have nothing to discuss here.

(Credit: Thomas Soderstrom)

The finished build almost looks good enough to forgive Montech the extra effort it took to complete.

(Credit: Thomas Soderstrom)

Testing the Montech King Pro 15

Apart from the necessary power-supply switcheroo, we’re using our most recent standardized case-testing kit to evaluate the King 15 Pro.

Falling right in the middle among competing brands, the King 15 Pro’s CPU and voltage regulator temperatures are a dead match to the company’s previously tested (and also MicroATX) Heritage Pro. While it holds a similar competitive position in our GPU test, the Heritage Pro came out ahead.

If you like sitting on the left side of your machine, the King 15 Pro will sound slightly quieter than its competitors. On the other hand, if you prefer your machine to sit to the left of you, all bets are off.