Review System

Assembly

Installing the motherboard is done by tried and tested means, using spacers and screws. The motherboard "tray" is spacious on all three planes, as expected. Even below the board, ASUS has designed the AP201 to have some room, so any installed storage or fans would not interfere with your board or block access to connectors along the bottom edge.


While you may install 2.5" drives on the floor or the front of the chassis, we opted to place the drive out of view, to keep things as clean as possible. Simply screw down the drive unto the tray and put it back unto the motherboard tray. The thumb screw will hold the whole contraption in place securely and the drives ports face towards the front of the chassis correctly.


To install a drive on the floor of the chassis, you do unfortunately have to tip it over and pull off the dust filter. This could have been avoided if Asus had holes that offered a larger opening, and then utilized rubber ringed screws to slide it into a narrower end - this is something many competing cases offer. That said, placement options of the 2.5/3.5" drives are great, essentially allowing you to hide up to two of them in your build.


To insert your PSU, you first have to remove the cage from the front of the chassis. Once filled, pick one of the three mounting positions and use the two screws to secure it in place. As the front is perforated just like the rest of the AP201, you are meant to install the power supply with its fan facing forward so that it may pull in fresh air and push it out the top of the chassis.


Even with all the hardware installed, adding a 360 mm AIO with a bulky inline pump was a breeze, with space to spare. There is also plenty of space between the motherboard and fans, so you should easily be able to connect components.


Lastly, installing your GPU is straight forward with excess room to spare. ASUS advertises up to 338 mm in compatible GPU length, more than enough for the vast majority of choices on the market. However, if ASUS redesigned the PSU cage with less metal, then users could even install an SFX unit to eek out more room for GPUs, storage and cooling hardware.


With everything installed, the Asus PRIME AP201 manages to be very clean and tidy within the interior as we were able to hide all the cable mess behind the motherboard tray. Doing so, with the ARGB leads and fan wiring took a little work, but there is plenty of clearance and ample hooks to use for a useful final result.

Finished Looks

Turning the Asus PRIME AP201 on, the chassis doesn't really let you know the system is turned on, besides a subtle white glow around the power button, easily overpowered by the studio lights.


In the front, no glow from the components is visible as the PSU is located here. Should your PSU have an ARGB fan, the AP201 is one of the few cases on the market that would allow you to feast your eyes on that lighting element, usually hidden under normal circumstances. In the rear, you can see some of the lighting from the AIO shine through and, with the exception of the power plug, everything is where you would expect it to be.


The main side panel with its fine perforation also allows you to glimpse the lighting elements of the hardware even with limited illumination. This bodes well for air flow and thermals. Similarly on the opposite side, the SSD and even the CPU mounting bracket are visible through the panel.