Assembly

Installing our BTF equipped microATX board went without a hitch. All the ports sit right in the openings, but we did have to install two additional spacers which Gamdias does not do out of the factory, which then allowed us to secure it with the supplied screws. While BTF will really make a huge difference, those employing classic microATX variants will find compact cable routing openings around all three sides. Only the one on the side of the board may be a bit of a tight fit for the bend radius of your 24-pin cable.


To add storage, you have to detach the mounting tray by removing two screws holding it in place. Drives are secured using screws as well and the connectors of those drives face downward when placed back into the chassis.


We had to diverge a little bit from our usual review components for case reviews, as all of our power supplies are 160 mm long and did not actually fit. That said, we still packed a 1200 W unit into the chassis for good measure, which fit just fine. As you can see the cable mess can be grouped in the area below it, so that little cover will come in handy. We did try to keep any cables away from view, as the cable management openings do not have any grommets.


In the ceiling there is plenty of space for that 360 mm AIO. You have to insert it at an angle but all the pre-installed fans stay clear of it as well. The same goes for the motherboard components and memory, but if you are using a classic microATX board you will want to pre-connect all the wiring at the top edge of the board if yours has a large heatsink there, like ours does.


Adding a GPU to the system is no problem either. The large and beefy Zotac RTX 5070 Ti has lots of room, which also means you should be able to throw anything you want into the Athena M4M and it will fit. The GPU support does its job flawlessly as well, and we were able to route the power cable in the best possible way to keep things tidy.


With everything installed, the Gamdias Athena M4M's interior is immaculate when you look in from the side. This is mostly due to the BTF equipped board and the fact that the AIO hides its own wires well. But it is the result that matters! On the backside quite a bit of time was spent to cable manage everything. It had to be done in stages, which is why you see some areas zip tied twice. For the first stage, we rotated the PCB and cable managed the three fans and the ARGB element. The second round was done after the board was installed and included the power wiring. Lastly another round was done to wire up the AIO its fans and ARGB element.

Finished Looks

With the system turned on, the ARGB of the rear fan and the built-in strip in the front light up nicely, which really makes the case pop. At this point you may even be able to look past the somewhat fragile construction, because the Gamdias Athena M4M does look the part.


Looking through the front, that strip looks just as good, and the fans are nice and quiet in idle as well. In the rear, we took advantage of the hooks and secured the power cable to the exterior. Naturally, you should include any wires connected to the motherboard backplate or GPU in this as well.


Looking into the chassis through the glass, you can clearly see all the parts of your build thanks to the fact that the glass is only tinted very gently. On the opposite side, you can see the metal of the 3.5" shine through the vented section on the left, while the PSU pulls in outside air from the one on the right.

The built-in controller allows for plenty of single and multicolor animations to cycle through. On top of that, you can pick from seven solid colors which are shown below. The AIO ARGB component was also connected to the PCB, as such it was in sync with our color choices.