FOIFKIN F1 ATX case mid-tower tempered glass Review UK (2026) - Build Tested

I've built in a lot of cases over the years. Some have been genuinely brilliant, others have left me with cut fingers, cable chaos, and a mild hatred of whoever designed the PSU shroud. The thing is, most people focus on the GPU or the CPU when budgeting a build, and the case becomes an afterthought. But spend an afternoon wrestling with a chassis that has 2mm of cable routing clearance behind the motherboard tray, a front panel that blocks every scrap of intake air, and edges sharp enough to draw blood, and you'll quickly understand why the case matters just as much as anything else inside it.

The FOIFKIN F1 ATX case mid-tower tempered glass is one of those budget options that keeps popping up on Amazon UK. It's sitting in a competitive price bracket, it comes with six pre-installed PWM ARGB fans, and that 270-degree panoramic tempered glass look is clearly aimed at builders who want their system to be seen. I spent several weeks building a full system inside it, living with it, and pulling it apart again to see whether the spec sheet holds up in practice. The short version: it's more capable than the price suggests, but there are some real trade-offs you need to know about before you buy.

So let's get into the specifics. Clearances, airflow, cable routing, build quality. The stuff that actually matters when you're elbow-deep in a build at 11pm trying to route a 24-pin around a poorly placed standoff.

The case supports ATX, Micro-ATX, and Mini-ITX motherboards. It ships with six 120mm PWM ARGB fans pre-installed, three in the front as intake and three in the rear and top as exhaust. The steel used throughout is 0.6mm SPCC, which is standard for this price tier. The tempered glass panels are 4mm thick on the side and front, which is decent for the money. Weight comes in around 6.5kg without components, which is reasonable given the amount of glass involved.

Drive support includes two 3.5-inch bays and two 2.5-inch dedicated SSD mounts, plus additional 2.5-inch mounting positions on the back of the motherboard tray. Radiator support is listed at 360mm front, 240mm top, and 120mm rear. The front I/O includes USB 3.0 Type-A, USB 3.1 Type-C, and a combined audio jack. PSU clearance is listed at up to 200mm with the drive cage in place, and up to 220mm with it removed. Here's the full spec breakdown:

The 450mm depth is also worth flagging. Most standard desks handle this fine, but if you're working with a shallow shelf or a compact desk, measure twice. The tempered glass front panel adds a few millimetres to the visual footprint too, and the overall silhouette is quite tall and boxy. It's not a sleek, understated design. This is a case that wants to be noticed, and the 270-degree glass wrap makes sure of that. Whether that's a good thing depends entirely on your taste.

On a standard ATX desk build, the footprint is manageable. I had it sitting on a mid-depth desk without any issues, and the rubber feet are decent enough that it doesn't slide around when you're plugging in cables. The top panel has ventilation cutouts which are fine for exhaust, but there's no dust filter up there, which I'll come back to. The overall chassis feels like it's been designed to look impressive on a desk rather than to minimise its physical presence, and if that's what you're after, it delivers.

One thing to check before you buy: the F1 does not support E-ATX. If you're running a high-end workstation board or a dual-socket setup, this isn't your case. For the vast majority of gaming and productivity builds though, ATX support is all you need, and the fit here is solid. The I/O shield area is clean, the PCI-E slot covers are tool-free (more on that later), and the overall tray quality is what you'd expect from a budget chassis.

The pre-drilled standoff positions are accurate, which sounds like a low bar but genuinely isn't. I've built in budget cases where the standoff holes were slightly off-centre, causing the board to sit at a slight angle and making I/O alignment a nightmare. The F1 doesn't have that problem. The tray is flat, the holes are where they should be, and the board drops in without drama. For a budget build, that's exactly what you want.

Width clearance is also fine. Three-slot GPUs fit without touching the side panel, and there's enough vertical clearance that even chunky triple-fan designs with thick heatsinks don't feel cramped. I tested with a 336mm triple-fan card and had roughly 40mm of clearance to the front fan bracket, which is comfortable. If you're planning to install a 360mm radiator in the front at the same time as a long GPU, that's where things get tighter, and you may need to check the specific radiator thickness against the GPU length to make sure they don't conflict.

There's no vertical GPU mount option on the F1, which is a shame given the panoramic glass design. If showing off your GPU is part of the appeal of this case (and given the aesthetics, it probably is for many buyers), the lack of a riser cable slot and vertical bracket is a missed opportunity. It's not unusual at this price point, but worth knowing. The GPU sits in the standard horizontal orientation, which is fine functionally, and the tempered glass side panel still gives a good view of it.

For AIO liquid cooling, the front mount supports up to 360mm radiators, which is the main event for most AIO builds. The top supports up to 240mm. The rear takes a single 120mm fan or a slim 120mm radiator. I fitted a 240mm AIO to the top during testing and had no issues with RAM clearance, though tall RAM with large heatspreaders (anything over about 40mm) could be tight depending on the specific radiator fan thickness. Standard-height DDR4 and DDR5 sticks are fine.

The pump head clearance on the front mount is generous. With a 360mm radiator installed at the front, there's still adequate space for the pump head to sit without fouling on the motherboard VRM heatsinks or the front panel connectors. This is one area where the slightly larger footprint of the F1 pays dividends. Tighter cases can make front-mounted AIO installation a real puzzle, especially with larger boards. Here it's relatively straightforward.

The drive cage is removable, which is worth knowing for two reasons. First, removing it gives you that extra 20mm of PSU clearance mentioned in the specs. Second, it opens up the bottom of the case for better airflow if you're not using HDDs. If you're running a purely NVMe build, pulling the cage out is a sensible move. The cage itself uses rubber-dampened trays for the 3.5-inch bays, which helps with vibration noise from spinning drives. It's a small detail but a good one.

The 2.5-inch mounts on the back of the tray are tool-free with thumbscrews, and they're positioned sensibly so they don't interfere with cable routing. I had two SSDs mounted back there during testing and they sat cleanly without adding to the cable clutter. The only mild gripe is that the tray-side SSD mounts are a bit fiddly to align when you're working in the confined rear panel space, but once they're in, they're secure. Not a dealbreaker, just something to be aware of.

There are cable routing holes with rubber grommets on the motherboard tray, which is a good sign. The grommets are a bit thin and don't grip cables particularly firmly, but they do the job of keeping things tidy and preventing sharp edges from damaging cable insulation. Velcro straps are included, which is something I always appreciate. Not every budget case bothers. There are four or five anchor points for the straps, enough to bundle the main cable runs neatly.

The PSU shroud covers the bottom of the case and hides most of the PSU cables and drive connections. It's a solid panel rather than a mesh design, so it doesn't contribute to airflow, but it does make the visible interior look much cleaner. The cutout in the shroud for the PSU cables is reasonably sized. I used a modular PSU during testing, which always makes cable management easier, but even with a non-modular unit, the shroud would hide the worst of the cable mess. The 24-pin routing channel runs along the right side of the motherboard tray and is wide enough for even thick braided cables.

In practice, I measured CPU temperatures under sustained load (Cinebench R23 multi-core, 10-minute run) at around 4-6 degrees Celsius higher than in a comparable mesh-front case with the same cooler and ambient conditions. That's not catastrophic, and for most gaming builds it won't cause throttling, but it's a real thermal cost of the glass aesthetic. The six included fans are 120mm PWM ARGB units, and they're decent for the price. They're not going to outperform a set of Noctua NF-A12x25 fans, but they spin up reliably, the PWM control works properly, and the ARGB lighting is bright and consistent across all six. They connect to a small hub that uses a single PWM header and a single ARGB header from your motherboard, which keeps things tidy.

The top panel has a mesh section for exhaust, and the rear 120mm fan position is standard. The overall airflow configuration with three front intakes and three exhaust (two top, one rear) gives you a positive pressure bias, which is generally good for dust management. There's a magnetic dust filter on the bottom for the PSU intake, which is a proper filter rather than just a mesh. The front and top don't have dedicated filters, which is a bit of an oversight. Dust will accumulate on the front fans over time, and cleaning them requires removing the glass panel. Not a huge deal, but worth factoring into your maintenance routine. For more on computer cooling principles and how airflow configuration affects thermals, it's worth understanding the basics of positive versus negative pressure setups.

The USB Type-C port is a genuine selling point at this price. A lot of budget cases still ship without Type-C on the front panel, and given that most modern peripherals and phones use Type-C, having it on the front is genuinely useful. The internal connector is a USB 3.1 Gen 1 header, so you're getting 5Gbps throughput rather than the 10Gbps of Gen 2. For charging and data transfer with most devices, that's perfectly adequate. The USB Implementers Forum defines the Gen 1 standard at 5Gbps, and for front panel use, that's more than enough for the vast majority of tasks.

The combined audio jack works fine with standard headsets. If you're using separate headphone and microphone connections, you'll need a TRRS splitter, which is a minor inconvenience. The cable routing for the front I/O headers is pre-sleeved and long enough to reach headers on most ATX boards without strain. The USB 3.0 header cable is the standard 20-pin internal connector, and the Type-C cable uses the 20-pin USB 3.1 internal header. Both are labelled clearly, which helps during the build. Overall, the I/O selection is solid for a budget case and the Type-C inclusion is a genuine differentiator.

The tempered glass panels are 4mm thick, which is a decent spec. They're held in place by thumbscrews rather than a tool-free latch system, which is a minor inconvenience when you're doing a lot of component swapping. The glass itself is clear and scratch-free out of the box, and the tinted finish (it's a slight smoke tint rather than fully clear) looks good with ARGB lighting. I didn't find any sharp edges on the glass panels themselves, but there are a couple of spots on the steel chassis interior, particularly around the drive cage area, where the metal edges could do with a bit more deburring. Nothing that drew blood, but worth wearing gloves during the initial build.

The PCIe slot covers are tool-free, using a push-in retention bracket rather than individual screws. This works well and makes GPU installation and removal much easier. The thumbscrews throughout the case are standard Phillips head, and they're not particularly prone to stripping. The rubber feet are firm and grippy. The overall finish is a matte black powder coat that looks clean and doesn't show fingerprints too badly. For a budget chassis, the build quality is genuinely above average. It's not going to compete with premium options on rigidity or finish, but it doesn't feel cheap in the way some budget cases do.

The DeepCool CC560 is another strong competitor. It ships with four pre-installed fans rather than six, but they're generally considered slightly higher quality than the fans bundled with the F1. The CC560 also has a mesh front option, and its cable management space behind the tray is around 20-22mm, comparable to the F1. Where the F1 wins is on the visual impact of that 270-degree glass wrap and the sheer number of included fans. If aesthetics and out-of-the-box lighting are priorities, the F1 makes a strong case. If thermals are the primary concern, the mesh-front alternatives have a clear edge.

It's also worth comparing the F1 against the Phanteks Eclipse P300A, which is a slightly older budget option but still widely available. The P300A has a mesh front and excellent airflow for the price, but it only includes one pre-installed fan and lacks a front USB Type-C port. For a builder who wants a complete, ready-to-light setup without buying additional fans, the F1's six-fan bundle represents real value. The Type-C front port is also a genuine advantage over the P300A. Here's how the three cases stack up:

The thermal trade-off is real though. That glass front restricts intake airflow, and if you're building a system with a high-TDP CPU or a power-hungry GPU and you're pushing it hard for extended periods, you'll see higher temperatures than you would in a comparable mesh-front case. For a mid-range gaming build running something like a Ryzen 5 7600X and an RTX 4070, the thermal impact is manageable. For a Ryzen 9 7950X or an RTX 4090, I'd be looking at a mesh-front alternative. Understanding thermal design power and how it relates to case airflow requirements is genuinely useful when making this call.

Build quality is above average for the price. The panel alignment is good, the glass is proper 4mm tempered, and the tool-free PCIe covers and drive trays make the build process easier than many budget competitors. Cable management is workable with the 18-20mm rear clearance and the included Velcro straps. The storage options are adequate for most modern builds. And the front I/O is genuinely well-specified. If you're building a system where the look of the finished build matters, you're on a tight budget, and you're not running extreme thermal loads, the F1 is a solid choice. It's not perfect, but at this price, it's hard to argue with what you're getting.

Rating: 7 out of 10. Good value for an aesthetics-first budget build, with real thermal compromises to be aware of.