Corner Display Window Montech SKY TWO Chassis Unboxing Test

At the end of 2022, Montech launched a new SKY series "SKY TWO" case, both the chassis structure and design are very different from the previous SKY ONE series, let's take a look at what's so special about the SKY TWO!

 Montech SKY TWO Unboxing

SKY TWO is available in three colors: "Classic Black", "Snow White" and "Moroccan Blue". The chassis itself has a circumference of 43 x 21.5 x 49 cm, which is relatively tall and thin and belongs to the mid-tower size specification, and the one that I have unboxed this time is the most special "Moroccan Blue" model, which is the first time for Montech to adopt such a special color, and it is expected that it will be used in the future. This is the first time Montech has used such a special color, and it is expected to be used continuously in the future.

∆ This time, I got my hands on the Moroccan Blue colorway.

The front panel is made of fully transparent tempered glass, through which you can directly see the rear fan and PCIe slots.

∆ Front Panel Visual Effects.

The full-transparency tempered glass and steel side panels are removed in a different way than the previous generation, using the common rearward extraction removal method, which is rather unfortunate for the refrigerator door design of the side panels, which has always been one of the features of the Monarch chassis that the author found to be quite a good product.

After removing the fixed handle at the back of the glass pane, you can pull out the side panels on both sides. The structure of the chassis underneath the power compartment extends outward to provide anti-drop support for the bottom of the glass pane, but the scratch-resistant film of the glass pane is also affixed with warning labels, and it is recommended to place the main unit flat on its back when removing the glass pane.

∆ Full transparency tempered glass side panels.

A 12cm AX120 PWM fan is pre-installed at the rear for internal cooling. The SKY TWO only supports 12cm fans and water cooling at the rear, and the SKY TWO adopts the current mainstream down-mounted power supply mounting structure, with seven slots for PCI-E expansion mounting at the rear, and a horizontal bar-less setup with a reusable PCI-E board.

There is no graphics card mounting position, if you need to have the graphics card mounting function, you can purchase Montech's own VGM Vertical Graphics Card Kit, which will be unboxed a little bit later on.

∆Rear support for 12cm fan and water cooling.

The I/O interface of the chassis is located on the right side of the top cover. The I/O interface provides HDD and power indicator, ARGB lighting control key, two USB 3.0, USB 3.2 Gen2 Type-C, HD AUDIO, MIC, etc. The I/O interface is located on the right side of the top cover.

∆ Chassis top I/O provides ARGB lighting controls, two USB 3.0, USB 3.2 Gen2 x2 Type-C, HD AUDIO, MIC and more.

The top of the chassis supports three 12cm or two 14cm fans, while the water cooling support allows for 120/140/280/360mm water cooling. In order to provide sufficient cooling performance, SKY TWO adopts the same diameter mesh as the magnetic dust mesh on the top cover to achieve the concept of both dust prevention and heat dissipation at the same time, and there is no need for an additional black magnetic dust mesh.

∆ Mesh cover.

∆ Both the top and side covers are secured by rear anti-fall hand screws and can be washed and cleaned separately after removal.’

A water cooler of up to 280/360 mm can be installed on top of the ∆.

 Montech SKY TWO Internal Hardware Installation Space Overview

SKY TWO comes with two RX120 intake fans on the side and one AX120 cooling fan at the back, but there is also an uninstalled RX120 tied to the power compartment, so users can decide whether or not they want to install it based on their actual usage, meaning there are a total of three reverse bladed RX120s and one AX120, for a total of four fans.

The three colors also use the same paint color in the core hardware mounting space, supporting ATX, Micro-ATX, Mini-ITX size motherboard mounting, up to 168mm air-cooled tower mounting height, and up to 400mm graphics card mounting space, making it compatible with both high-end and mainstream hardware.

The chassis itself adopts a side-vented structure, with two pre-installed reverse bladed RX120 intake fans on the side. In addition to dedicated cable routing slots and aesthetic rubber sheets, there is also a Montech Faith metal nameplate on the top of the chassis, and the side of the chassis also supports water cooling of up to 240mm, however, after installing water cooling at this location, the length of the graphics card in the direct mode will be limited to 18cm, which can be avoided by installing the graphics card upright through the VGM Vertical Graphics Card Kit mentioned just now. This conflict can be avoided by mounting the graphics card in the upright position with the VGM Vertical Graphics Card Kit mentioned earlier.

∆ Core hardware installation space at a glance.

∆ Water cooling installation space above the chassis.

There is about 2cm of cable space on the back, and the I/O interface and fan cables have been pre-wired in advance. An ARGB fan hub is included, which provides six slots for 5V 3-Pin ARGB and PWM 4-Pin fans, thus supporting up to six ARGB fan installations, and the three pre-installed fans from the factory already take up three spaces, so three more can be added. It is also important to note that the controller requires a SATA power supply and provides ARGB and PWM cables to connect to the motherboard, which allows gamers to control the software lighting and fan speed curve settings.

The entire space on the back of the ∆ has a depth of 2cm.

∆ Hub with six 5V ARGB and PWM fan slots.

The storage unit offers a total of three 2.5" and two 3.5" hard drive expansion mounts, with two hand-screwed wall-mounted 2.5" mounting brackets on the back of the motherboard, a three-tier mounting structure for the hard drive bays in the lower power compartment, with the lower two tiers supporting only two 3.5" hard drive installations, which are rail mounted and secured with screws on the sides, and the top tier using a top-floor addition to support a single 2.5" drive installation. The top level supports a single 2.5-inch hard drive using a top floor cover.

∆ There are two wall-mounted 2.5" hard disk mounting brackets on the back of the motherboard.

∆ Supports 21cm power supply mounting in pre-installed mode, and 23cm long power supply mounting when the drive cage is removed.

Chassis accessories and screw sets are organized in the hard drive cage. Accessories include devil's felt cable ties, disposable cable ties, long screws for the power compartment fan, buzzer, motherboard brass post sleeves, I/O interface dust plugs, and a variety of screws, all of which are separated into separate pockets and clearly labeled, making it a lot friendlier for the novice installer.

∆ Chassis accessories and screws are listed, individually bagged and clearly labeled.

Montech VGM Riser Graphics Card Unboxing

With the launch of SKY TWO, Montech has also introduced the vertical graphic card mounting kit, simply called VGM, a universal design that can be installed as long as your chassis PCIe slot does not have a crossbar, and the retrofit requires a seven-slot PCIe slot with a 220mm PCIe Gen 4 x16 90° extension cable to use. Gen 4 x16 90° extension cable.

∆ Montech VGM Vertical Display Card.

∆ List of contents.

The ∆ is shipped in a disassembled condition, and the driver is provided in the accessories for players to assemble by themselves.

∆ Installing MSI GTX 1070 Quick Silver 8G OC, the upright base has two thick foam support bases to prevent the upright kit from bending due to the graphics card.

∆ Supports three-slot thickness display card installation.

Montech SKY TWO Installation and Cooling Performance Test

This time, I didn't test it with a graphics card stand because I wanted to test it with the DT24 Premium air-cooled tower cooler, which is also a new product, but air-cooling is very hard on the width of the card if you want to use it with a graphics card stand, but nowadays the cooling modules of non-public cards are basically over-the-shoulder, so it's impossible to use it with my 1070. Therefore, if you want to use the card upright, it is recommended to use it with an all-in-one water cooler, and I am looking forward to Montech releasing an all-in-one water cooler in the future.

Testing Platform
Processor: Intel Core i9-13900K
Cooler: Montech METAL DT24 Premium
Motherboard: MSI MPG Z790 CARBON WIFI
Memory: Kingston FURY Renegade RGB 6000mt/s 16GBx2
Display Card: MSI GTX 1070 Quick Silver 8G OC
Power : Montech Century 850W Gold
Hard Drive : Micron Crucial P3 Plus 1TB Gen4 NVMe SSD
Case: Montech SKY TWO
Operating System: Windows 11 Home Edition 21H2

∆ Actual installation results are shown.

∆ Internal installation effect.

∆ Front panel effect.

The chassis thermal performance test section uses the default Intel Core i9-13900K processor, with no additional settings on the motherboard, and uses AIDA64 CPU and Furmark to simulate the temperature data under extreme conditions, and Fire strike in 3D Mark to simulate the gaming environment, while the data collection uses HWiFO64 to collect and record the maximum temperature and power consumption. HWiFO64 is used to collect and record the maximum temperature and power consumption.

In the AIDA CPU program, the i9-13900K consumed up to 248W and reached a maximum temperature of 112°C after unlocking the motherboard's temperature cap setting. In the separate Furmark graphics test, the 1070 did not have enough air intake in the chassis to burn in the graphics card due to the low processor temperatures and the motherboard did not increase the fan speed to a high level. The Furmark graphics card tested at a relatively high 74°C, while the i9-13900K in the Fire strike, which simulates a gaming environment, tested at 97°C with a maximum power consumption of 222W, while the graphics card temperature peaked at 65.9°C. The 1070's graphics card tested at a high 74°C because the processor temperature was not high, and the motherboard did not pull the fan speed up, resulting in insufficient air intake in the chassis during the standalone graphics card burn-in test.

∆ SKY TWO chassis thermal performance test chart.

 Summary & Insights

For this SKY TWO temperature test, we used the DT24 Premium tower cooler with dual towers and six heat pipes to test with the latest Intel 13900k. However, the DT24 Premium is only a dual-tower air-cooler, so it's not really fair to use it to suppress the 13900k, so it's just good to refer to the processor temperature for reference in this test, and the SKY TWO can also bring sufficient cooling performance to the graphics card without the fan on the power supply compartment. For the graphics card, the SKY TWO is able to bring enough cooling performance to the graphics card even if there is no fan installed on the power supply compartment.

SKY TWO is available in Classic Black / Snow White / Moroccan Blue colors, with prices of 2390 / 2490 / 2790, and an additional VGM graphics card kit of 1690, so if you want to set yourself apart from the rest, check it out.