The AP21 case: A Review of its Functionality and Design

Everything is working as is I replaced the fan at the back for that black and white aesthetic plus the yellow, I really love how everything looks. There's still plenty of room underneath the GPU if I wanted to mount 210 mil fans on the bottom for additional GPU cooling. I'm not doing that because I find them too loud but there's clearly space for it.

I do find this whole front area to be slightly less optimized, for example, I don't understand why this ventilation pattern is here. This would be great if it was open so you can have access for your power supply on/off switch or additional cabling over here or whatever. And also with a power supply in the lowest position, the SSD and hard drive area over here is completely blocked, so not fully optimized properly.

Keeping my system totally fine, I had to bunch up my fan cables because they do not daisy chain that's unfortunate but everything is running in their own channels. There's plenty of room at least for my 150 mil unit under the power supply. Bunching up your cables there's this main channel over here that has plenty of space from the side panel, and there's a velcro strap at the very top here that is useless it's way too high and the other velcro straps they are not the good kind that do not allow you to give you that good tension.

Otherwise, it's perfectly fine for the system. System and everything closes without any issues. Noise I will say I do not like the location of the power plug at the top, it doesn't follow the rest of the cabl so it's way too bulky coming from there and there's actually room at the bottom if you want to experiment with some modding to for you to reroute this thing.

As for temperatures, do not even worry about the CPU side because we have all that space for a CPU tower heat sink and all that room above for an AIO. Not a problem there as you can see temperatures with my 2 40m AO are perfectly fine and even removing the side panels do not contribute that much additional cooling.

So that's a good thing that means the perforations here are doing a good job, and also adding an additional fan at the bottom does give me slightly cooler CPU temps. But what impressed me the most is actually GPU side of things. Normally when you don't have a lot of exhaust or intake for the GPU that makes things a bit hotter in that bottom chamber but clearly all the mesh on the exterior actually helps to deliver enough air flow in there.

That's more passive air flow that's being intak by all the exhaust fans and as you can see the GPU is perfectly fine removing the side panels does help a little bit but also adding an additional fan at the bottom only a single fan here gives me a 4-degree drop on the GPU side at load, and I would say that's a win. Alto it is very loud because it's right against the mesh plus we have a dust filter there so I would definitely recommend keeping that uh bottom fan at low RPM.

Seriously really impressed with the performance on here with a single stock rear exhaust fan that's unheard of now. I do have a few reservations with the AP21, number one is that we don't have a TG version, I feel like this case lands itself beautifully to be showcased on your desk because it is fairly Compact and having no TG is kind of weird but I understand why.

And also having that side mesh and not being able to mount any fans on it, it's also perhaps a missed opportunity there but again because the mesh is fairly confined if you put any fan in there it's going to introduce a lot of that turbulent noise like we heard with the bottom intake fan. Secondly I would love to have more mounting options for the power supply bracket just because in the lowest position, it's still a little bit too close to my uh AIO and all the tubes that are coming out.

And also plus the I/O cables there too and if I'm not using that bottom area for cables I might as well lower it. Of course, storage is absolutely Limited in here, definitely stick to MP2 drives on your motherboard directly or that single SSD or you can move SSDs on the bottom floor but man those things are just so inaccessible to access and are a little bit difficult to route.

And finally, I would like to see some simplification with the side PSU cover, way too difficult to install and remove. It should be simplified but overall, I feel like the AP21 case itself is really affordable, compact feature good compatibility hardware enclosure that should definitely be on your radar if you're looking for something a bit more sleek.

You know not too flashy even with RGB components installed inside they do peek through the ventilation patterns makes itself for a pretty enclosure on any surface. I'm to make sure thanks much for watching, I'll talk to you in next video

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enwell good people I think I found the most perfect case that's been flying under the radar wait a second this isn't it nope nope ah there it is the new Prime in all its Glory this thing concept-wise is basically just a larger nr200p enclosure from Cooler Master but now this thing supports a microatx motherboard so that's a big win you may be wondering what's this whole obsession with microatx both in hardware and enclosures you know it's not as featur rich as ATX motherboards it's not as compact as ITX but it's got a few things going for it so first of all Micro ATX and the motherboard side is definitely cheaper than the same line ATX version and sure you do lose some functionality for example this micr TX board from Prime doesn't even have Wi-Fi how is it possible is a z790 motherboard I didn't even know that was possible and also this micro exent closure can do everything your standard mid Tower can do but in a much smaller footprint except storage this thing doesn't have much storage okay so this is the new prime ap21 a weird name enclosure but it's getting a lot of traction in the modern Community people love to water cooling this thing and I can see why and this case is also really affordable around $80 for both black or the white models there is no TG it is all mesh to satisfy that airflow Enthusiast inside of you and inside there too exterior is full ventilated mesh that is both good for air flow and for some dust uh ventilation but the entire experience of like removing all these side panels is absolutely seamless for example you can see this tab at the top that helps you remove it uh but the side panels have a little indentations inside the frame itself so it helps to keep the side panels clean and still give you nice little area to grab onto nice now even though this is probably the most poorest ventilation mesh you can find on enclosure right now I do appreciate that it is consistent so this is square and so is every other ventilation pattern on this case including the PCI slots nice attention to detail and also we have a large dust filter at the bottom the io is also nicely and easily accessible right at the front with dual USB Ace and a full 10 GB per second USBC as for the interior I feel like Asus has done a good job to try and optimize its space for the 33 L volume you know it's not as compact as ITX but the main thing is not as tall as your standard mid Tower but it has enough length to support all your needed components so cooling wise you can do a 360 at the top or a 280 mil radiator at the top as well so having support for 140s at the top is very welcoming we can do dual 120s at the bottom for additional support for GPU cooling a rear exhaust fan is included which is 120 mil fan and uh CPU tower heat sinks are 170 mm which is plenty wide I would say for this level of enclosure and this rear fan has a little bit of that vertical mobility because of these strips just in case you need additional clearance at the top or the bottom so a total of six fans can fit inside this microatx enclosure the power supply goes at the front below this cover that is fully compatible with ATX units up to 180 mm which is plenty but so here behind the front panel you can see we have three locations for our power supply the power supply bracket is nice and sturdy it's supported with two screws at the bottom and this like a little hinge system at the top so it's very easy to work with and that means that you can move it slightly down if you need additional height clearance for your fans or radiators or whatever and for example if you don't necessarily require all the space at the bottom for cables but the more you go down with this bracket the less area you create for those really long graphics cards and so you have 328 mm until this bracket if you could move this all the way up to clear out some of that space for really long GPU then you can fit it no problem and especially if you're going for something really short like 40 mm power supply that will just like stop right here then this is great but otherwise it's a little bit limiting for those really you know massive 480s the single most annoying thing on this entire case is this power supply cover so the good thing is it hides the cables it has some branding and for screws later you would just think you'd be able to just simply pull this out right but because it has the tabs here in the bottom it's actually very difficult to take this out when you have stuff installed when the power supply is installed here too so it's a little bit annoying especially in trying to put this back and you have to do it at exactly right angle because otherwise it's just going to catch a lot of the panels inside and yeah this whole thing of like reinstalling this panel back in place is just a nightmare woohoo I would say this case is still quite friendly for ITX users you know given all the cooling compa ability massive gpus still an ATX power supply up there the only thing you have to keep in mind is that the ITX motherboard is still fairly small so we do have that exposed CPU cutout at the back but it's still good for K management and otherwise this was a really simple and easy uh a system to assemble my only hesitation of like keeping an ITX motherboard in here is that most small motherboards don't have that many fan headers and even though you can install a hub I'd like to avoid that so a microx motherboard in here would definitely be a little bit more compatible with all the cooling that you can fit in here and now looking at the microatx system so definitely it fills the space a little bit more the 24 pin cable exits in the right place for example this is the power supply bracket that it's in the lowest position and with my 360 AIO with cables on the front I'm still bumping in those cables so it's not ideal but it's not an issue it's not like blocking or kinking here's what the above PSU area looks like so easy access for our onoff switch we do have an extension cord over here that uh I had no issues routing either this way or facing the front so that's not a problem uh the only thing is that of course all this area is kind of tight with the tubes from the AO but nothing is poking each other uh to prevent functionality everything is working as is I replaced the fan the back for that black and white aesthetic plus the yellow I really love how everything looks and basically everything was Flawless there's still plenty of room underneath the GPU if I wanted to mount uh 210 mil fans the bottom for additional GPU cooling I'm not doing that because I find them too loud but there's clearly space for I do find this whole front area to be slightly less optimized for example I don't understand why this ventilation pattern is here this would be great if it was open so you can have access for your power supply onoff switch maybe additional cabling over here or whatever and also with a power supply in the slowest position the SSD and the hard drive area over here is completely blocked so not fully optimized properly keep manag is totally fine I had to Bunch up my fan cables because they do not daisy chain that's unfortunate but everything is running in their own channels uh there's plenty of room at least for my 150 mil unit uh for the power supply underneath to Bunch up your cables there's this main Channel over here that has plenty of space from the side panel there's a velcro strap at the very top here that is useless it's way too high and the other velcro straps they are not the good kind that do not allow you to give you that good tension uh but otherwise it's perfectly fine for the system system and everything closes without any issues noise I will say I do not like the location of the power plug at the top it doesn't follow the rest of the cabl so it's way too bulky coming from there and there's actually room at the bottom if you want to experiment with some modding to for you to reroute this thing so yeah as for temperatures do not even worry about the CPU side because we have all that space for a CPU tower heat sink and all that room above for an aiio not a problem there as you can see temperatures with my 2 40 m AO are perfectly fine and even removing the side panels do not contribute that much additional cooling so that's a good thing that means the perforations here are doing a good job and also adding an additional fan at the bottom does give me slightly cooler CPU temps but what impressed me the most is actually GPU side of things because normally when you don't have a a lot of exhaust or intake for the GPU that makes things a bit hotter in that bottom chamber but clearly all the mesh on the exterior actually helps to deliver enough air flow in there that's more passive air flow that's being intak by all the exhaust fans and as you can see the GPU is perfectly fine removing the side panels does help a little bit but also adding an additional fan at the bottom only a single fan here gives me a 4 degree drop on the GPU side at load and I would say that's a win Alto it is very loud because it's right against the mesh plus we have a dust filter there so I would definitely recommend keeping that uh bottom fan at at low RPM but seriously really impressed with the performance on here with a single stock rear exhaust fan that's unheard of now I do have a few reservations with the ap21 number one is that we don't have a TG version I feel like this case lands itself beautifully to be showcased on your desk because that is fairly Compact and having no TG is kind of weird but I understand why and also having that side mesh and not being able to mount any fans on it it's also perhaps a missed opportunity there but again because the mesh is fairly confined if you put any fan in there it's going to introduce a lot of that turbulent noise like we heard with the bottom intake fan secondly I would love to have more mounting options for the power supply bracket just because in the lowest position it's still a little bit too close to my uh AIO and all the tubes that's coming out and plus the I/O cables there too and if I'm not using that bottom area for cables I might as well lower it and of course storage is absolutely Limited in here definitely stick to mp2 drives on your motherboard directly or that single SSD or you can move ssds on the bottom floor but man those things are just so inaccessible to access and are a little bit difficult to route and you already know my complaint about that side uh PSU cover way too difficult to install and remove should be simplified but overall I feel like the ap21 lens itself a really affordable compact featur good compatibility Hardware enclosure that should definitely be on your radar if you're looking for something a bit more Sleek you know not too flashy and even to with RGB components installed inside they do Peak through the ventilation patterns makes itself for a pretty enclosure on any surface I'm to make sure thanks much for watching I'll talk to you in next videowell good people I think I found the most perfect case that's been flying under the radar wait a second this isn't it nope nope ah there it is the new Prime in all its Glory this thing concept-wise is basically just a larger nr200p enclosure from Cooler Master but now this thing supports a microatx motherboard so that's a big win you may be wondering what's this whole obsession with microatx both in hardware and enclosures you know it's not as featur rich as ATX motherboards it's not as compact as ITX but it's got a few things going for it so first of all Micro ATX and the motherboard side is definitely cheaper than the same line ATX version and sure you do lose some functionality for example this micr TX board from Prime doesn't even have Wi-Fi how is it possible is a z790 motherboard I didn't even know that was possible and also this micro exent closure can do everything your standard mid Tower can do but in a much smaller footprint except storage this thing doesn't have much storage okay so this is the new prime ap21 a weird name enclosure but it's getting a lot of traction in the modern Community people love to water cooling this thing and I can see why and this case is also really affordable around $80 for both black or the white models there is no TG it is all mesh to satisfy that airflow Enthusiast inside of you and inside there too exterior is full ventilated mesh that is both good for air flow and for some dust uh ventilation but the entire experience of like removing all these side panels is absolutely seamless for example you can see this tab at the top that helps you remove it uh but the side panels have a little indentations inside the frame itself so it helps to keep the side panels clean and still give you nice little area to grab onto nice now even though this is probably the most poorest ventilation mesh you can find on enclosure right now I do appreciate that it is consistent so this is square and so is every other ventilation pattern on this case including the PCI slots nice attention to detail and also we have a large dust filter at the bottom the io is also nicely and easily accessible right at the front with dual USB Ace and a full 10 GB per second USBC as for the interior I feel like Asus has done a good job to try and optimize its space for the 33 L volume you know it's not as compact as ITX but the main thing is not as tall as your standard mid Tower but it has enough length to support all your needed components so cooling wise you can do a 360 at the top or a 280 mil radiator at the top as well so having support for 140s at the top is very welcoming we can do dual 120s at the bottom for additional support for GPU cooling a rear exhaust fan is included which is 120 mil fan and uh CPU tower heat sinks are 170 mm which is plenty wide I would say for this level of enclosure and this rear fan has a little bit of that vertical mobility because of these strips just in case you need additional clearance at the top or the bottom so a total of six fans can fit inside this microatx enclosure the power supply goes at the front below this cover that is fully compatible with ATX units up to 180 mm which is plenty but so here behind the front panel you can see we have three locations for our power supply the power supply bracket is nice and sturdy it's supported with two screws at the bottom and this like a little hinge system at the top so it's very easy to work with and that means that you can move it slightly down if you need additional height clearance for your fans or radiators or whatever and for example if you don't necessarily require all the space at the bottom for cables but the more you go down with this bracket the less area you create for those really long graphics cards and so you have 328 mm until this bracket if you could move this all the way up to clear out some of that space for really long GPU then you can fit it no problem and especially if you're going for something really short like 40 mm power supply that will just like stop right here then this is great but otherwise it's a little bit limiting for those really you know massive 480s the single most annoying thing on this entire case is this power supply cover so the good thing is it hides the cables it has some branding and for screws later you would just think you'd be able to just simply pull this out right but because it has the tabs here in the bottom it's actually very difficult to take this out when you have stuff installed when the power supply is installed here too so it's a little bit annoying especially in trying to put this back and you have to do it at exactly right angle because otherwise it's just going to catch a lot of the panels inside and yeah this whole thing of like reinstalling this panel back in place is just a nightmare woohoo I would say this case is still quite friendly for ITX users you know given all the cooling compa ability massive gpus still an ATX power supply up there the only thing you have to keep in mind is that the ITX motherboard is still fairly small so we do have that exposed CPU cutout at the back but it's still good for K management and otherwise this was a really simple and easy uh a system to assemble my only hesitation of like keeping an ITX motherboard in here is that most small motherboards don't have that many fan headers and even though you can install a hub I'd like to avoid that so a microx motherboard in here would definitely be a little bit more compatible with all the cooling that you can fit in here and now looking at the microatx system so definitely it fills the space a little bit more the 24 pin cable exits in the right place for example this is the power supply bracket that it's in the lowest position and with my 360 AIO with cables on the front I'm still bumping in those cables so it's not ideal but it's not an issue it's not like blocking or kinking here's what the above PSU area looks like so easy access for our onoff switch we do have an extension cord over here that uh I had no issues routing either this way or facing the front so that's not a problem uh the only thing is that of course all this area is kind of tight with the tubes from the AO but nothing is poking each other uh to prevent functionality everything is working as is I replaced the fan the back for that black and white aesthetic plus the yellow I really love how everything looks and basically everything was Flawless there's still plenty of room underneath the GPU if I wanted to mount uh 210 mil fans the bottom for additional GPU cooling I'm not doing that because I find them too loud but there's clearly space for I do find this whole front area to be slightly less optimized for example I don't understand why this ventilation pattern is here this would be great if it was open so you can have access for your power supply onoff switch maybe additional cabling over here or whatever and also with a power supply in the slowest position the SSD and the hard drive area over here is completely blocked so not fully optimized properly keep manag is totally fine I had to Bunch up my fan cables because they do not daisy chain that's unfortunate but everything is running in their own channels uh there's plenty of room at least for my 150 mil unit uh for the power supply underneath to Bunch up your cables there's this main Channel over here that has plenty of space from the side panel there's a velcro strap at the very top here that is useless it's way too high and the other velcro straps they are not the good kind that do not allow you to give you that good tension uh but otherwise it's perfectly fine for the system system and everything closes without any issues noise I will say I do not like the location of the power plug at the top it doesn't follow the rest of the cabl so it's way too bulky coming from there and there's actually room at the bottom if you want to experiment with some modding to for you to reroute this thing so yeah as for temperatures do not even worry about the CPU side because we have all that space for a CPU tower heat sink and all that room above for an aiio not a problem there as you can see temperatures with my 2 40 m AO are perfectly fine and even removing the side panels do not contribute that much additional cooling so that's a good thing that means the perforations here are doing a good job and also adding an additional fan at the bottom does give me slightly cooler CPU temps but what impressed me the most is actually GPU side of things because normally when you don't have a a lot of exhaust or intake for the GPU that makes things a bit hotter in that bottom chamber but clearly all the mesh on the exterior actually helps to deliver enough air flow in there that's more passive air flow that's being intak by all the exhaust fans and as you can see the GPU is perfectly fine removing the side panels does help a little bit but also adding an additional fan at the bottom only a single fan here gives me a 4 degree drop on the GPU side at load and I would say that's a win Alto it is very loud because it's right against the mesh plus we have a dust filter there so I would definitely recommend keeping that uh bottom fan at at low RPM but seriously really impressed with the performance on here with a single stock rear exhaust fan that's unheard of now I do have a few reservations with the ap21 number one is that we don't have a TG version I feel like this case lands itself beautifully to be showcased on your desk because that is fairly Compact and having no TG is kind of weird but I understand why and also having that side mesh and not being able to mount any fans on it it's also perhaps a missed opportunity there but again because the mesh is fairly confined if you put any fan in there it's going to introduce a lot of that turbulent noise like we heard with the bottom intake fan secondly I would love to have more mounting options for the power supply bracket just because in the lowest position it's still a little bit too close to my uh AIO and all the tubes that's coming out and plus the I/O cables there too and if I'm not using that bottom area for cables I might as well lower it and of course storage is absolutely Limited in here definitely stick to mp2 drives on your motherboard directly or that single SSD or you can move ssds on the bottom floor but man those things are just so inaccessible to access and are a little bit difficult to route and you already know my complaint about that side uh PSU cover way too difficult to install and remove should be simplified but overall I feel like the ap21 lens itself a really affordable compact featur good compatibility Hardware enclosure that should definitely be on your radar if you're looking for something a bit more Sleek you know not too flashy and even to with RGB components installed inside they do Peak through the ventilation patterns makes itself for a pretty enclosure on any surface I'm to make sure thanks much for watching I'll talk to you in next video\n"