GAMDIAS Athena M6 White PC Case Review

Oct 25, 2023

The Definitive Review of GAMDIAS Athena M6 White PC Case - including unboxing, testing, PC Build, and final verdict to help you make decision.

GAMDIAS Athena M6 White Review Summary

The GAMDIAS Athena M6 White offers a solid set of features in this price range with some stunning A-RGB light show from the fans and the strips at the base. The case has unrestricted airflow and offers a spacious layout for your build requirements. It comes recommended by us.

Pros

Cons

GAMDIAS has introduced new PC Cases. We have received the Athena M6 White edition for testing. The new PC cases are expected to be available soon in their respective markets. GAMDIAS has focused on airflow and RGB lighting in particular for the Athena M6 series cases. This case will be available in the black and white edition. It is a mid-tower case that is still spacious enough thanks to a much wider depth.

The salient features of Athena M6 include:

The chassis is shipped inside a standard brown color cardboard box.

The case supports a graphics card up to a length of 300mm. There is a mesh panel on the front. GAMDIAS has provided 3x A-RGB LEDs under the case for the under-glow effect.

There is a picture showing a tear-down case. A warning label is indicating the provision of a Tempered Glass panel.

The case is tucked between two white color Styrofoam pads.

GAMDIAS has provided 5x black color cable ties and a variety of screws and standoffs. The case comes with only 6 standoffs pre-installed.

The user is required to install the 3x more standoffs for the ATX size motherboard. The only caveat is that there is no socket wrench provided for this purpose which should have been there or the case should have come with all 9x standoffs pre-installed.

Let's start with taking a look at what GAMDIAS is saying about the chassis, "Available in Black and White Editions. The ATHENA M6 WH is a perforated mid-tower case focusing on creating great airflow and lighting. The case features four built-in 120mm ARGB PWM fans, a panoramic mesh front panel, and triple-sided RGB light strips to provide superior airflow and intrinsic under-glow lighting."

The GAMDIAS Athena M6 is a compact mid-tower case available in black and white colors. It has a dimension of 410x230x477mm (LxWxH). It is made of steel, plastic (SPCC, ABS), and tempered glass. The chassis has a net weight of 5.89g.

Let's start by taking a closer look at the exterior of the chassis.

The front panel is completely perforated making it an excellent choice for airflow consideration. The front panel is designed to be in pillared-shape panoramic view. There is a GAMDIAS branded metal logo below halfway down the panel. The overall outlook on the front is quite eye-catching. There is a slotted area at the base of the front panel. It is not perforated.

Both sides of the front panel have ingress and they are slotted with perforation underneath. In other words, GAMDIAS has focused on unrestrictive airflow at the front of the case.

The front panel can be removed by placing a hand at the base of the case and pulling the panel out. The mesh perforation can now clearly be seen in its entirety. According to the GAMDIAS, this perforation also acts like a dust filter though our opinion differs.

After removing the front panel, we can spot 3x 120mm A-RGB fans pre-installed on the front. These are PWM fans that are compatible with the AEOLUS box. Each fan has 7x translucent blades. The A-RGB LEDs are housed in the center of the fan. There is a single cable coming out of each fan as these are using GAMDIAS proprietary connectors for which there is a hub provided at the rear of the case. We have mounting provisions for 120mm and 140mm fans/radiators at the front.

The GAMDIAS Athena M6 comes with a tempered glass panel on one side. This panel is not hinged. One has to slide it back till it is released from the lock and pull it out. Thankfully the glass is not tinted. The glass panel is covering the top chamber. It is rested on top of the PSU side cover which is a wise implementation as we will look at it shortly.

We have a standard layout on the rear. There is a cutout for the IO shield of the motherboard. On its right, there is a vented area for the 120mm/140 fan mount. One A-RGB 120mm fan is preinstalled. There is no height adjustment for the fan.

We have7 PCIe slot covers with no vertical slots. The covers are vented and reusable which is a plus. These slots are implemented with raised ends outside of the chassis.

There is a PCIe cover secured using a 1x thumb screw. You would need to lose the cover to install/remove the PCIe devices.

The non-glass side panel is secured using 2x thumb screws which are not captive. There is an ATX PSU mount on the bottom.

There is a removable non-magnetic dust filter under the PSU vented portion. One of the key highlights of this case is under-glow. GAMDIAS has installed 3x A-RGB LED strips under the diffusers. Each diffuser is secured using 2x screws. Notice the opening on the far right side. This is there so that the user can place hands through it and pull the front panel.

The HDD cage is secured with the frame using 2x screws. In my opinion, the HDD cage screws should be provided in the bottom chamber for easy removal and installation.

The feet provide approximately 30mm of lift to the case from the surface which is needed for two reasons; sufficient airflow and enough space for the full-scale under-glow effect.

Looking at the top side, there is a vented portion on the right side with a magnetic dust filter. We have 120mm/140mm fan mounts (rail system for placement adjustment) here. The front IO panel is also located in the top section. One good aspect is that GAMDIAS has implemented the top mounting in an offset design making more room for the motherboard tray. This will give more RAM height clearance.

I/O panel is located on the top frame of the chassis. The following connectivity options are on the I/O panel.

The side panel is made of steel. It is finished in black color.

Let's take a look at the interior of the chassis.

The above picture shows the case after removing the side panel. The two-chamber design is apparent here. The PSU has a side cover as well. This side cover is removable which is a wise implementation. The cover is a bit protruding towards the exterior. This design has provided a resting area on which the tempered glass panel is rested. Overall tooling seems pretty much standard. In fact, it is almost similar to Apollo E2 Elite.

I will start with a complaint that only 6x standoffs are pre-installed. To make things more complicated, GAMDIAS has not provided a socket wrench in the accessory box to install the remaining 3x standoffs for ATX size motherboards. The case can souse mini-ITX, micro-ATX, and ATX size motherboards.

We have a large size cutout to install the CPU cooler conveniently. There are two cutouts on the top to pass the EPS and other cables. Then there are 2x cutouts in a vertical layout on the right side of the motherboard tray. The far right area is not usable from this side as 2.5" drives can be installed on this area but from the backside.

There is a 35mm gap between the top of the chassis frame and the motherboard's top. Similarly, there is a displacement of 45mm from the fan/radiator mount to the side of the chassis. This displacement shows the compatibility with respect to the RAM height. The case has support for 240mm and 280mm on the top.

The PSU shroud is vented from the top. We can see 120 and 140mm fan mounting holes. This is yet another factor giving a hint of standard tooling. We have two cutouts near the motherboard tray to pass the cables through. The side cover is secured with the frame using 2x screws. There is what seems to be a cable tie point on the side cover. The lower frame of the side panel is held by this point.

The above picture shows the 2x 120mm fans placed on the PSU vented cover. The user can also install 2x 140mm fans. Keep in mind that using a standard 25mm thick fan will restrict the bottom connectivity of the motherboard. If you are going this route, better use slim fan(s).

The above picture shows the PSU area after removing the side panel. There is an 11mm gap between the PSU cover and the frame side of the case. Notice the cutout on the far right side. The user can utilize this space for any cable management as well.

There is a black color A-RGB 120mm PWM fan on the rear. All the 4x pre-installed fans have proprietary connectors.

The case has a 7 PCIe slot design. The covers are vented and reusable. The inside view of the covers shows that they sit in line with the frame of the case. This is why we have protruded angled slots on the rear of the case.

The above picture shows the PCIe cover slided so that the PCIe device can be installed.

The above picture shows the PCIe cover slided from the rear of the case.

The above picture shows the close-up of the front fan mount provision. We have a rail mount system for the radiator/fan there. The pre-installed A-RGB 120mm fans are installed on the front of the rail. This gives us a good clearance from the components layout in the main area.

There is a 39mm gap on the PSU shroud up front. The 360mm radiator mount would be convenient for using this gap. Though we have tight space constraints in the lower chamber where the PSU mount and HDD cage are. Since the cage can't be relocated so this gap is definitely for the radiator only.

Following is the support for the cooling in this case:

Let's take a look at the other side of the case.

The GAMDIAS APOLLO E2 ELITE is a compact mid-tower chassis. The above picture shows the side after opening for the first time. The cables are tucked and secured on the cable tie points. We have roughly 14mm cable management space. We clearly have less space to work around for the cables. We have a total of 11 cable tie points. The user can install up to 3x 2.5" drives. This is a dual chamber layout.

The lower chamber has an HDD cage and a PSU mount. We have the following clearance for the PSU with the cables:

There is no tool-less mounting in the HDD Cage as there is no caddy provided. The user can install 1x 3.5" drive and 1x 2.5" drive (on top) or 2x 3.5" drives in the HDD cage.

There are two raised surfaces on both sides with black color anti-vibration pads. The PSU is placed over these surfaces and PSU is slided from the side for its installation.

We have the following cables coming out of the front IO panel:

System panel connectors.

There is a Fan hub pre-installed on the backside of the motherboard tray. It can house up to 6x fans. 4x pre-installed fans are already connected to the hub.

The hub is SATA powered. There is a 4-pin PWM connector that will control the speed of all connected fans to the hub.

There is a 3-pin A-RGB, 5V standard connector which can be used to sync the lighting of the fans and the underside strips to the motherboard. GAMDIAS has provided a 3-pin connector for older GIGABYTE boards as well.

We started with installing 3x standoffs. Thankfully, we are equipped with the proper tools. GAMDIAS has not provided any socket wrench for the standoff installation which is required. The third standoff could not be installed properly due to high resistance from the hole. We ended up disregarding that standoff. Gamdias need to address this issue.

Then the motherboard was installed. This was an easy task and the rear fan did not obstruct the motherboard's rear I/O panel's shroud. We installed the DeepCool AK400 white cooler and the Sabrent Rocket DDR5 RAM out of the case.

One of the key points is the EPS cable. Since we have installed the cooler out of the case, it restricts the space available to connect the EPS connector. But we did not face any serious restrictions here and were able to connect the EPS connector with the motherboard.

Next, we connected the 24-pin ATX cable to the motherboard.

The above picture shows the two 4-pin PWM connectors attached to the CPU_FAN and CPU_OPT fan headers on the motherboard. The white color connector is for the air cooler and the black color is for the 4x pre-installed 120mm fans and it comes from the hub.

The front panel connectors were installed followed by the USB 2.0 and HD Audio connectors. The HD Audio and USB 2.0 cables were routed from the left-most cutout on the PSU shroud. PSY did not obstruct these cables. We connected the cables before installing the cables. Next, the PSU was installed.

Next, the GIGABYTE GeForce RTX 3060 VISION OC 12G was installed. The card is sagging despite being low weight and a 2-slot design.

Next, the power cable was connected to the graphics card.

PSU was an easy installation. The cables were routed easily as well though we may run into tight space for the extra cables particularly when the PSU is not modular. We did a basic cable management job here to see if the side panel can be put back on easily. It was a success.

Here are lots of pictures for our readers of the Build. If you copy these images, make sure to credit Tech4Gamers.

The following test build has been used for thermal testing:

We used the Noctua NT-H1 thermal paste. The AIDA64 Engineers edition was used to stress the CPU using FPU and the graphics card at the same time. The following configurations have been tested and reported in the graph:

There was no RPM reading in the UEFI/BIOS for the pre-installed 120mm fans and they were running at full speed. The fan on the air cooler was set to run at full speed as well.

Let's take a look at the results.

We have reported absolute temperature. The average of the CPU cores‘ temperature values was taken. The difference in the CPU temperature with and without the front panel is less than 1°C for the CPU and exactly 1°C for the graphics card which is well within the acceptable margin.

The pre-installed 120mm A-RGB fans are quite noisy at full speed.

GAMDIAS is releasing new PC cases in the market. We got the opportunity to test their Athena M6 PC case. We have earlier tested their APOLLO E2 ELITE case as well. The Athena M6 is available in black and white colors. The chassis has a dimension of 410x230x477mm. It is made of steel, plastic, and tempered glass (SPCC and ABS). The chassis has a net weight of 5.89Kg. The chassis supports the motherboard up to standard ATX size with some good provisions for the cooling gear and the storage. One of the key highlights is the tempered glass on the side to showcase your build. Another feature is the provision of 4x A-RGB 120mm fans on the front and rear. The next keynote is the under-glow effect for which there are 3x A-RGB LED strips installed on the underside of the bottom of the case. The front panel is perforated for unrestricted airflow.

Following are the fan mounting possibilities:

Following is the radiator mounting support:

Storage provision is:

In terms of filtration, we have a magnetic dust filter on the top and a non-magnetic dust filter on the bottom. There is no dust filter on the front. GAMDIAS has stated that the perforated mesh front panel also acts as a dust filter. The PCIe slots are in a 7 configuration. The slot covers are reusable which is a plus. The front rail and the top mounting rails are not fragile. The overall build quality is better.

The PSU has a vented top with up to 2x140mm fan mounts. The side panel of the PSU serves to conceal the cable passing by the PSU shroud side and it also is a resting place for the tempered glass panel. All 4x pre-installed fans are 120mm and feature A-RGB lighting and a PWM control. GAMDIAS is using proprietary connectors for the fans for which there is a hub provided on the backside of the motherboard tray. There is a single 4-pin PWM cable and a standard 3-pin 5V A-RGB connector coming out of the hub which allows the user to connect the fans and the A-RGB LED strips with the motherboard. This way we can control the speed of the fans as well as their A-RGB lighting.

The overall build experience is good other than installing 3x standoffs. GAMDIAS did not provide a socket wrench in the accessories for this installation and a 1x standoff could not be installed. Cable management can be made effective by spending some time. We did basic cable management and the case has actually provided good support for that.

The MSRP of GAMDIAS Athena M6 White is USD 89.90. This is a good price point for the features set offered by the case. Unlike the Apollo Elite E2, this case has reusable PCIe slot covers, 4x 120mm A-RGB fans, unrestricted airflow, and the under-glow effect. This chassis would serve its purpose in quite a style. We have employed a budget cooler on the hot running i7 12700k. Our main purpose was the overall thermal performance of the case. The case has enough ventilation for better thermals.

We are grateful to GAMDIAS for the provision of Athena M6 White. We are also grateful to GIGABYTE and DeepCool for the provision of the hardware.

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