I did not know much about Montech before I started working on this review admittedly. I had seen my colleagues review the brand's cases and coolers and they seemed decent, but not enough to get me opening my wallet necessarily. I did not even know this was an in-house brand of a company that has over three decades of experiences in this very market, and now I know why. The Montech AX120 PWM is a fan that by the numbers alone won't change the world, but it still manages to be impressive once we get the pricing into the equation.

I had teased on the first page how Montech aims to put forth products offering good value for money, and arguably there is no better example than the AX120 PWM RGB fans. I've tested a lot of RGB fans recently with pretty much everything costing north of $20/fan, and many hitting the $30-35/fan price too. Some aim to offset this by selling multi-fan SKUs, others throw in a fan controller or have features/gimmicks to help with the purchase decision. There are daisy-chained fans, those with infinity mirror effects, some even with reversible fan blades! The latter reminded me of the Montech AX120 PWM and RX120 PWM fans with the latter going for a reversed fan blade configuration as seen on page three. The subject of this review, however, is the AX120 PWM which goes with a standard-sized rotor and blade spacing so as to not be compromised in this regard by RGB LEDs in the hub. Instead, we have a diffuser plastic ring built into the frame itself.

The RGB effects may not be the most impressive thus, but you do get enough of it and the standard connectors also help. The performance loss seen in the tests is due to a combination of different factors including the rounded frame as well as the rotor design itself. This is a fan that does feel more suited for use as a case fan rather than a radiator fan, as with many such RGB fans tested recently. That said, the Montech AX120 PWM still fares relatively worse in both a pure performance basis as well as when considering performance/noise compared to other RGB fans, so it's not going to be a recommendation from a watercooling stand point. The relative low RPM range of control also matters here, especially when you need to be closer to max speed to get decent air through a radiator. But if you are mostly looking for a case or air cooler fan then it's hard to go wrong with these for the asking price. The two color options further sweeten the deal to help Montech win an award here—a conditional one, but an award nonetheless.