You can’t fight physics, but why not try? Of late, PC case designers have been flexing their creative muscles to shrink modern mid-towers to the under-19-inch heights that once prevailed, without giving up the radiator space that caused them to shoot up in size in the first place. This downward squeeze usually involves moving the power supply somewhere atypical: Since dual-chamber cases like Lian Li’s classic O11 Dynamic Evo hardly speak to buyers who seek classic PC-case scale, those creative efforts have instead focused on pushing the power supply up front, rather than side-by-side with the motherboard. Take Geometric Future’s Model 5 Vent: This $149.99 case from the rising chassis maker builds off the PSU-forward standard set by its predecessor, with a twist of a recent competitor for good measure. The combination is a very solid-value ATX chassis that performs well and looks great if you outfit it with well-chosen parts.
The Design: As Venti as You’d Like
It’s important for us to first differentiate this as the “Vent” variant of the Geometric Future Model 5 (aka M5). A piece of tempered glass replaces both the meshed and the logoed lower portions of this case in the “standard” non-Vent version. Now, The Venti being the Roman gods of wind, the M5 Vent worships at that altar with a giant fan mount behind its airflow-minded front panel. And you thought we were about to make a Starbucks crack! [Be frappe we didn’t. It’s a bit latte for that, after all; we’re just trying to grind out this review. –Ed.]
The M5 Vent features a headset jack (a four-pole headphone/microphone combo), a reset button, a hard-drive-activity LED (which most boards also power during M.2 activity), a power-on LED, a power button, two USB 3.x Type-A ports, and a Gen 2×2 Type-C port on a front-panel-connector section that, refreshingly, is actually on the front panel. Also shown in this photo is the unit’s sole dust filter, which covers the entire bottom panel and slides out from either side.
(Credit: Thomas Soderstrom)
The M5’s right-side panel features a solid stripe across its center, with a grid pattern of round holes above and below. The rear panel has a grid pattern of larger square holes on which the following reside: a power plug, a 140mm/120mm dual-format fan mount (with a factory-installed 140mm fan), the I/O plate hole, and a removable seven-slot expansion panel.
(Credit: Thomas Soderstrom)
The removable card-slot panel is designed to support both horizontal (standard-orientation) and vertical (via riser cable) GPU installations. It has reusable slot covers, but the portion that covers the screws cannot be removed from the portion that the screws go into. After making sure that the panel is installed in the correct (horizontal or vertical) orientation, users must instead unscrew the slot covers by running the tip of a #2 Phillips screwdriver through a corresponding access hole, before installing the card and replacing the screw through that same access hole. Leave your quarter-inch bit driver on the shelf; it won’t fit through those access holes. And make sure that your standard screwdriver has a magnetic tip, since you don’t want to drop any of those screws.
(Credit: Thomas Soderstrom)
A mysterious box at the front of the case blocks the case from supporting motherboards that are more than 12 inches deep, and Geometric Future further defines a theoretical motherboard depth limit of 11 inches, even though the full spec of EATX is 13 inches: That doesn’t prevent the manufacturer from calling the case “EATX” despite the fact that some EATX boards will be too big to fit. (The target market for this case is only likely to consider boards that are less than 11 inches deep.) Hewing to the 11-inch limit leaves an inch of space to run cables through the two access holes seen at the front of the motherboard tray.
(Credit: Thomas Soderstrom)
This $149.99 version of the M5 Vent includes five ARGB-trimmed 140mm fans, while a fanless version of this case is available for $40 less. Those bottom fans cover a fan mount that, like the top panel, holds up to three fans in either 140mm or 120mm format or radiators up to 464mm long. If you install any top or bottom radiators, know that they will eat into the front-panel radiator space, which the factory-installed bottom fans have already reduced from 410mm to 384mm.
(Credit: Thomas Soderstrom)
An adjustable-depth shelf rests above the right side’s 140mm fan, and a height-adjustable graphics card support bracket is installed beneath it. A row of holes visible to the left of the side fan are the attachment points for that card brace, whereas the brace itself has a screw slot that’s just long enough to adjust to various heights in between the attachment-point distances.
As for the shelf, those who would like to install a radiator up front will need to remove the shelf entirely, as its forward edge is only a fraction of an inch behind the front fan bracket. The shelf itself serves no specific purpose, though we suppose you could pose your favorite anime figurine, sentimental keepsake, or pet rock in the space. In theory, a water pump or other liquid cooling component could reside here for a custom liquid cooling loop, but the shelf has no slots or holes to install anything on; you’d have to mod up a stable mounting scheme.
(Credit: Thomas Soderstrom)
The opposite side of the case, behind the right panel, features a power-supply bay at the upper front corner, a 120mm/140mm/160mm fan mount beneath it, two hard drive trays to the rear of that, and two 120mm fan mounts above the hard drive trays. These unusual fan mounts are intended to allow users to blow air over the tops of their motherboards…in a flow direction different from case’s top- or rear-panel fan mounts.
(Credit: Thomas Soderstrom)
The power-supply mount is cut into a removable tray that is visibly distant from the front panel: That small distance accounts for the pin slides at the front. Once you mount the power supply onto the tray, you slide the whole works backward to lock the front edge in place, while the back is secured with the knurled screw also shown in this photo. (More on that in our installation discussion below.)
(Credit: Thomas Soderstrom)
The M5 Vent’s two drive trays have multiple mounting holes to fit 3.5-inch drives with their interfaces pointing upward or downward, or 2.5-inch drives with their interfaces pointing upward, downward, forward, or backward.
(Credit: Thomas Soderstrom)
Building With the Geometric Future Model 5 Vent
Our Model 5 Vent arrived with a user guide, a bag of threaded hardware, two replacement sockets for panel snaps, and eight Velcro-style cable ties. The bag contains four plastic-thread fan screws, a dozen #6-32 panhead screws, four extra-long #6-32 screws for attaching fans to threaded holes, three spare motherboard standoffs with #6-32 male and M3 female threads, a Phillips #2-to-hex adapter socket for standoffs, and 17 flange-head M3 screws.
(Credit: Thomas Soderstrom)
Cables include a front-panel button and indicator LED group, the usual HD Audio for the headset combo jack, a 19-pin USB 3.x for the two front-panel Type-A ports, a Gen 2×2 (Type-E) cable for the front-panel Type-C port, and an extension cable to direct power from the back panel to a front-mounted power supply.
Fan cables (not shown) for the installed fans have pass-through connections to allow the right and bottom fans to be connected in a chain. Note that the rear fan is too far away to join the chain, and the ARGB cables used here are proprietary. Because of this, the case also includes standard-to-proprietary ARGB adapter/splitter and PWM fan splitter/extension cables.
(Credit: Thomas Soderstrom)
Here’s how our power supply looks when installed: Geometric Future’s maximum stated length of 160mm provides just enough room within the bay’s 200mm depth to maneuver cables.
(Credit: Thomas Soderstrom)
All that chaos on the back side enables the clean appearance of the show side, where we can see how the space ahead of our ATX motherboard’s 9.6-inch depth would have allowed one of those somewhat-common 10.5-to-10.8-inch high-spec gaming motherboards to fit into the same space just fine.
(Credit: Thomas Soderstrom)
Most glass-sided black cases have tinted side panels, but the M5 Vent’s lack of tint gives us a clear view of our components’ aesthetics, so choose your parts wisely. (Yeah, perhaps I should have gone with silver-sided DIMMs.)
(Credit: Thomas Soderstrom)
A note to those hoping to maximize radiator area inside the M5: Because radiators have tubes that run into and out of one end (and the water needs to change direction at the other end), end caps extend the total length of a typical radiator by 31mm to 46mm. With only 384mm of space between the bottom fans and the inner top panel of this M5 Vent, we’d have to remove the forwardmost bottom fan, as well as the case’s adjustable center shelf, simply to add a 360mm radiator to the front panel. The maximum theoretical radiator area we could come up with for the M5 Vent would be a pair of 38mm-thick 420mm-format radiators on top and bottom, which, after subtracting another 51mm for their fans, would leave a mere 282mm of space to front mount a pair of 140mm front fans. Not bad considering the size of this case, for sure, but more than one radiator, or even one long one, may require some forethought and math.
Testing the Geometric Future Model 5 Vent
So, here’s a recap of our standard test kit for testing ATX cases…
The Geometric Future Model 5 Vent surprised us with a first-place finish in CPU cooling against similarly shaped cases, only to fall to third place in voltage-regulator and graphics core temperatures. Then again, third place isn’t a bad place to be when it’s in a tight finish among some of the market’s best performers.
As for acoustic performance, the M5 Vent is at the rear of the pack with the bare-budget Montech Air 903 Base for noise control, by a couple of decibels versus the best in the pack. Having five fans like it does, of course, will have an impact considering most of the other cases here come in stock configuration with less. So it’s hard to ding the M5 Vent for being too well-endowed that way.
Verdict: In This Case, Geometric Means Value
So, should you buy it? Well, if your power supply is more than 200mm deep, or your motherboard more than 12 inches deep, those parts simply won’t fit. And if your power supply is more than 160mm deep, or your motherboard more than 11 inches deep, chances are that your cables won’t fit. While both of those problems are rare, the excessive power supply depth is the more common of the two by far. So pay special attention to those two parts.
But for everyone else, the M5 Vent offers great performance at a sensible size in an aesthetically pleasing package. Geometric Future is starting to distinguish itself as one of the more daring and distinctive “new generation” case makers out there.
Geometric Future Model 5 Vent
Pros
Cons
The Bottom Line
Big liquid cooling can fit into a shorter, more traditional mid-tower with Geometric Future’s Model 5 Vent, a striking and innovative PC case that also affords great interior visibility.
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About Thomas Soderstrom
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