JonsBo C6 (Handle version)

65 USD + shipping from Amazon.

I dislike big cases. The last time I had a mid tower (for a ATX motherboard) was more than two decades ago. A big PC case is a waste of space. You can achieve exactly the same performance while making it smaller. I used to prefer ITX. However, when manufacturers began to put “ITX tax”, I moved away from ITX to mATX.

Here is the thing about ITX and mATX cases. A large ITX case where you can fit a stupidly expensive GPU is as large as a small mATX case. A carefully designed ITX case will be smaller but only marginally. Given a rather large price differences between ITX and mATX, mATX is just better.

I mean, let me give you an example. A decent AM5 ITX mobo costs around 430 CAD. A decent AM5 mATX mobo costs 180 CAD. It’s more than twice while getting less. Sure, in electronics, going smaller means you pay more, but ITX motherboards used to be the cheapest compared to mATX and ATX. So, that argumentdoesn’t stand a leg in my book.

Enter Jonsbo C6, a mATX case that is about the size of a mid-large ITX case. It can fit a mATX but I recommend those with two RAM slots. This case is basically smaller than some of the largest ITX cases. The major benefit of this case is that you don’t need to pay over the odds for an ITX motherboard.

The height of this case is 30cm. Its width is 20cm and the depth is 26.5cm.

I strongly recommend a SFX PSU for this case as it will free up a lot of space. It’s not just the PSU size. It’s the length of cables as well. SFX PSUs have inherently shorter cables. Now, this won’t help with cable management here but the longer cables won’t take up the room in this already small PC case.

Also, the four panels are toolless. You can pop them out easily with just your fingers. Optimally, you do have a trigger to pop out the top panel, but I learned that you can pop out other panels with just fingers. Of course, if you have chubby or big fingers, you will need to pop out the top panel first and pop out other panels from there on.

Just a quick note on the spec.

CPU: Ryzen 7900 (Non-X)
Motherboard: ASRock B650M-HDV/M.2
GPU: Geforce 4060 Low profile

If I used a regular PSU here, it would have covered over half of the CPU cooler, leaving very little room for cables. The shorter motherboard helps immensely here as well. Just look at the location of motherboard main power cable location. If it was a full length mATX motherboard, the front 120mm fan was going to get in the way. It would be workable but wouldn’t have been pretty, either.
The low profile 4060 also helps to free up even more space within the case, helping overall airflow. Your GPU choice is limited in this case, given the lack of length of the case which is 26.5cm. Geforce 4070-ish is probably the highest you can go. Even then you would need to chose a GPU that is specifically shorter.

I am not a big fan of RGB but I do appreciate the ring effect for the front. That’s the only RGB in this case. My final advices for this case is that you should absolutely use a SFX PSU. Full-height GPU is unavoidable if you want something better than a 4060, but the SFX PSU is absolutely needed in this case.
Additionally, you should have the front fan blow air out of the case. Do not use it as an intake fan. Because, in this case, you will need to use a blow-down CPU cooler. The front fan is too close to the CPU area that an intake fan conflicts with the CPU fan airflow. Basically, an intake fan won’t do anything other than preventing CPU fan from blowing air out. Thus, an outtake front fan works so much better.
You may also want a fan on top but it’s not necessary because, again, the CPU fan will do the job.

The bottom line is that I don’t feel this case needs any extra fans other than CPU and GPU fans. It is basically an open case where all four sides are heavily meshed for air to flow in and out freely. So, let them move freely.

Now, if my recommendation matters to you at all, I will give one. Because you can pop out all four panels with ease, building a PC inside of it provided a nominal pain although I have probably grown immune to such pains since I’ve been dealing with SFF builds for a long time. Still, even by SFF standards, this case was easier to work with. That’s something.