MSI MPG GUNGNIR 110R Review UK (2026), Best Computer Cases Tested

I've built in a lot of cases over the past twelve years. Budget tins that flex when you look at them sideways, premium glass boxes that look gorgeous on a shelf but turn your CPU into a furnace, and everything in between. The mid-range bracket around the £100 mark is where things get genuinely interesting, because that's where manufacturers actually have to make real decisions about what matters. You can't just throw money at the problem. So when the MSI MPG GUNGNIR 110R landed on my bench, I was curious whether MSI had made the right calls.

The mid-range case market in 2026 is properly competitive. You've got the Corsair 4000D Airflow sitting there as the default recommendation for good reason, the Fractal Design Pop Air doing its clean Scandinavian thing, and a dozen other options all fighting for the same wallet. The Gungnir 110R needs to justify itself against those alternatives, not just on specs, but on the actual experience of building inside it. I spent three weeks with this case, built a full system in it, swapped components around, and generally poked at every corner of it. Here's what I found.

The MSI MPG GUNGNIR 110R Review UK (2026) is a mid-tower ATX case with a mesh front panel, tempered glass side panel, and four pre-installed 120mm ARGB fans. On paper that sounds like every other case in this bracket. Whether it actually delivers is what we're here to find out.

Fan support is generous. You get three 120mm mounts up front, two on top (supporting up to 240mm radiators), and one at the rear. The case ships with four 120mm ARGB fans already installed, three at the front and one at the rear, which is a decent starting point. Radiator support goes up to 360mm at the front and 240mm on top, which covers most AIO options you'd pair with a build in this price range. Drive storage includes two 3.5-inch bays and two 2.5-inch dedicated mounts, plus additional 2.5-inch mounting points on the PSU shroud.

The front I/O sits on the top of the case and includes two USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-A ports, one USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-C port, a combined audio jack, and the standard power and reset buttons. The Type-C inclusion is good to see at this price point. MSI also bundles in an ARGB and fan hub, which saves you needing a separate controller if your motherboard is short on headers.

The front panel is mesh, which is the right call for a case in this bracket. It's a fine mesh rather than the chunky honeycomb you see on some cheaper options, and it's held on with magnets. That last bit matters more than people give it credit for. Magnetic front panels mean you can pull the filter off for cleaning without tools and without the panel flexing or cracking. I've seen enough snapped plastic clips on budget cases to genuinely appreciate this. The mesh itself feels reasonably sturdy, not flimsy, though I wouldn't call it premium either.

The tempered glass side panel is 4mm thick and hinges open rather than sliding. Hinge mechanisms on cases are a bit hit and miss in my experience. Some feel solid, some feel like they're about to snap off after ten openings. The Gungnir's hinge is on the better end of the spectrum. It opens smoothly and stays open while you're working inside, which sounds basic but genuinely helps when you're trying to route cables with both hands. The opposite side panel is a plain steel panel with a thumbscrew, nothing fancy, but it's got enough clearance behind it for cable routing without being a fight to close.

For a standard ATX build, the fit is good. There's reasonable clearance around the motherboard tray, and the cutout behind the CPU socket is large enough to accommodate most aftermarket cooler backplates without removing the motherboard. I tested this with a Noctua NH-D15 backplate and it cleared without issue. The cutout itself is a decent size, roughly 170mm diameter, which covers the vast majority of current cooler mounting hardware.

Cable routing holes around the motherboard tray are rubber-grommeted, which keeps things looking tidy and stops cables from rattling against metal edges. There are six of them positioned sensibly around the tray. The 24-pin ATX cable hole sits at the right side of the board as you'd expect, the CPU power hole is up top near the left edge, and there are additional holes for GPU power and front panel connectors. The layout is logical and I didn't find myself fighting the routing at any point, which isn't always the case (no pun intended) in this price bracket.

The more relevant limitation is what happens when you install a front radiator. Drop a 360mm AIO in the front and your GPU clearance drops noticeably. With a 360mm radiator and 25mm thick fans installed, you're looking at closer to 280-290mm of usable GPU space. That's still enough for most mid-range cards, but it rules out the longer flagship options. If you're planning a high-end GPU paired with a front-mounted 360mm AIO, this case will make you choose one or the other. Worth being honest about that.

There's no vertical GPU mount option included in the box, and MSI doesn't offer an official bracket for the Gungnir 110R as far as I can tell. Third-party PCIe riser cables will work if you want to go that route, but you'll need to check clearance between a vertically mounted card and the tempered glass panel. The glass sits close enough to the motherboard that a three-slot card mounted vertically could be tight. Horizontal mounting is the intended configuration here, and that's fine for the vast majority of builds.

AIO radiator support is solid. Front mounting takes up to a 360mm radiator, which is the main event for most people considering an AIO. Top mounting supports up to 240mm. Rear takes a single 120mm fan or a slim 120mm radiator if you're feeling adventurous, though I wouldn't bother with a rear-mounted AIO in a case this size. The front 360mm mount is the obvious choice and it works well. I ran a 360mm Corsair H150i in the front during part of my testing period and installation was straightforward.

One thing to watch with top-mounted radiators is RAM clearance. With a 240mm radiator on top and 25mm fans, you're eating into the space above the motherboard. High-profile RAM with tall heatspreaders can conflict with top-mounted radiators in some cases. I tested with Corsair Vengeance DDR5 (44mm tall heatspreaders) and a 240mm top radiator, and it was tight but workable. If you're running particularly tall RAM, front mounting your AIO is the safer option regardless.

The 3.5-inch cage uses tool-free mounting with plastic rails. I have mixed feelings about tool-free drive mounting in general. The rails on the Gungnir 110R are reasonably solid and the drives don't rattle once installed, but I've seen these plastic rail systems crack over time if you're swapping drives frequently. For a build where the drives go in and stay in, it's fine. If you're regularly hot-swapping mechanical drives, you might prefer a screwed mount. The 2.5-inch mounts are screw-based, which I actually prefer for SSDs since they're lighter and the screws aren't going anywhere.

For a modern build that's primarily NVMe with maybe one or two SATA SSDs, the storage situation is perfectly adequate. If you're building a NAS-adjacent system with four or more mechanical drives, this isn't the right case. But honestly, if you're doing that, you're probably not looking at a mid-tower gaming case anyway. The two 3.5-inch bays cover the typical use case of one or two spinning disks for bulk storage alongside NVMe boot drives, and that's the realistic target audience here.

Behind the motherboard tray there's around 20-22mm of clearance, which is on the tighter side but workable. Velcro straps are included at several points along the tray, which is genuinely useful. I've built in cases that provide zero cable management aids and expect you to bring your own zip ties, so having Velcro straps pre-installed is a small but meaningful touch. The cable routing holes are well-positioned as mentioned earlier, and the grommets keep things looking tidy from the glass side.

The 24-pin ATX cable is the usual challenge in any case. The routing path on the Gungnir takes it behind the tray and back through a grommet near the right edge of the motherboard. With a modular PSU and a reasonably short 24-pin cable, this looks clean. With a non-modular PSU and a long cable, you'll be doing some creative folding behind the tray. The rear panel clearance of 20-22mm means you can get away with it, but it's not effortless. I'd recommend a modular PSU with this case if your budget allows.

The four included ARGB fans are 120mm units. They're not the quietest fans I've heard, and they're not the most powerful either. At full speed they're audible, particularly the front three which are doing most of the intake work. In a positive pressure configuration (more intake than exhaust) with the front three pushing air in and the rear one exhausting, temperatures were reasonable. During a gaming session with an RTX 4070 and a Ryzen 7 7700X, GPU temperatures sat in the low 70s Celsius and CPU temperatures were in the mid-60s under load. Not class-leading, but perfectly acceptable for a mesh-front mid-tower.

The top panel has a mesh section as well, which helps with exhaust. If you're not running a top radiator, adding one or two 120mm fans up top as exhaust would improve thermals further. The rear 120mm exhaust is a single fan, which is standard. The overall airflow path is sensible: front intake, top and rear exhaust. There's no weird panel geometry forcing air in strange directions. It's a straightforward design that works as intended, and sometimes that's exactly what you want.

Two USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-A ports and one USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-C port is a good spread for this price bracket. The Type-C port requires a USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-C header on your motherboard, which most modern ATX boards have. If you're using an older board that only has a USB 3.0 header, you'll need an adapter or you'll lose the Type-C functionality. Worth checking your motherboard spec sheet before assuming it'll work out of the box. The audio jack is a combined headphone and microphone port, which is fine for most users, though audiophiles who want separate jacks will need to use the rear panel outputs.

The ARGB and fan hub built into the case is a genuinely useful inclusion. It connects to a single ARGB header and a single fan header on your motherboard and controls all four included fans plus the ARGB lighting. If your motherboard has limited fan headers (some budget boards only have three or four), this hub means you're not immediately maxed out just from the case fans. The hub supports daisy-chaining additional ARGB accessories too, which is handy if you're planning to add more lighting later. The hub itself is mounted inside the case on the back of the PSU shroud, out of the way but accessible if you need to adjust connections.

The tempered glass panel is 4mm thick, which is the standard for this price bracket. It's clear and scratch-resistant in normal use. The hinge mechanism I mentioned earlier holds up well. After three weeks of regular opening and closing during testing, there's no sign of wear or loosening. The thumbscrews throughout the case are a reasonable quality, not the soft aluminium ones that strip after a few uses. I didn't encounter any sharp edges during the build, which is worth noting because some cases in this bracket have panel edges that will catch your hand if you're not careful. MSI has done a reasonable job of rolling or finishing the edges.

The plastic components, mainly the front panel frame and the I/O surround, feel solid enough. The front panel's magnetic attachment is secure without being difficult to remove. I did notice that the mesh panel has a slight flex to it when you press the centre, but it snaps back without any lasting deformation. The overall finish is a matte black that doesn't show fingerprints too badly, which is a practical consideration that gets overlooked in a lot of reviews. Nobody wants to be wiping down their case every time they touch it.

Where the Gungnir 110R has an advantage is the included fans. Four ARGB fans in the box versus the two non-ARGB fans in the 4000D Airflow is a meaningful difference if you care about lighting. You're essentially getting a more complete out-of-box experience. The Fractal Pop Air ships with two fans as well. If you're planning to add ARGB fans anyway, the Gungnir's bundle saves you money. If you don't care about RGB and just want the best airflow, the 4000D Airflow's larger front intake area and generally better fan quality gives it an edge in raw thermal performance.

The Fractal Pop Air wins on build quality feel. Fractal's steel is noticeably thicker and the overall construction feels more premium. The Pop Air's tool-free panel system is also more refined than the Gungnir's. But the Gungnir 110R punches back with better front I/O (that Type-C port) and the ARGB hub, which the Pop Air doesn't include. It's genuinely a case of picking your priorities rather than one option being clearly better across the board.

The 330mm GPU clearance is the main practical limitation to be aware of. If you're pairing this with a long flagship GPU and a front 360mm AIO, you'll need to plan carefully. For the more common scenario of a mid-range GPU and either air cooling or a front AIO, it works well. The cable management is better than average for this price bracket, the front I/O is well-specified, and the hinge-open glass panel is a small quality-of-life improvement that I appreciated during the build process.

Who should buy this? Builders putting together a gaming PC in the mid-range bracket who want ARGB lighting without spending extra on fans, and who are pairing it with a GPU under 300mm or planning to skip the front radiator. It's also a good pick if you're on a tighter overall budget and want to save money on fans by getting them included with the case. Who should skip it? Anyone running a very long GPU, anyone who prioritises absolute thermal performance over aesthetics, or anyone who wants the most refined build quality in this price range. For those builders, the Corsair 4000D Airflow or Fractal Pop Air are better fits.

At its current mid-range price point, the Gungnir 110R represents fair value. It's not the outright best case in this bracket, but it's a well-rounded option that covers the bases most builders actually care about. I'd give it a 7.5 out of 10. Good, not perfect, but genuinely worth considering.