A Closer Look - Inside

Both side panels also have a dense soundproofing lining on them. The overall coverage is great, as the lining covers the whole surface area of the panel. It does add a bit of weight to the case, but that is to be expected.


The interior of the Apex Q provides the expected layout of a modern ATX chassis with a metal shroud at the bottom to cover the PSU as well as 3.5" HDD areas. Chieftec has placed a 120 mm fan in the center of the shroud to blow air up against the GPU. Several other brands have tried to offer a similar setup, but most have ended up abandoning this default placement in favor of putting the fan in the front or the top of the case, due to the lack of a tangible difference in performance, so it will be interesting to see how the Apex Q holds up in that regard. The shroud also have several openings for cable routing but lacks grommets here - all this is fine, as there is no window to show things off anyway. The GPU power cable opening is towards the front of the case, which feels a little dated with most modern GPUs having connections much closer towards the center of the case interior.


The motherboard tray does come with two grommets on four the openings and Chieftec has placed two 2.5" mounting plates here which are held in place by thumb screws as well.


Underneath the shroud, the HDD cage is pretty simple, requiring you to remove it to install any drives in or on top of it. Combined with the fact that it itself is secured on the underside of the chassis, this results in more labor than should be necessary if you want to change up your configuration. On the upside, there are two mounting locations to pick from, so that you may move the cage to allow for a large front radiator to fit without issue. Speaking of which, thanks to the width of the Apex Q, the front can not only hold either three fans of up to 140 mm in size, but also a radiator of a whooping 420 mm in dimensions. On the side, there is a mounting possibility for two 120 mm fans as well. That is great in theory, but due to the closed off nature of the side panel on the Apex Q, any active cooling here won't have any tangible benefits. In contrast, the classic Apex does have a vent on the side panel for this purpose, so it is odd that Chieftec keeps communicating this as a cooling possibility in their spec sheet for the Apex Q.


In the rear, the PSU bay is straightforward but functional. There is plenty of space for potent units with up to 220 mm in clearance. Above that are the aforementioned expansion slots. Chieftec is using compact thumb screws which make it easier to grab in this confined space, allowing you to quickly and easily change your system configuration regarding expansion or graphics cards. Above that, there is the 140 mm fan which is set to pull air into the case rather than being an exhaust fan, interestingly enough.


The Apex Q also allows you to rotate the expansion slots by 90° so that you can install your GPU vertically with an optional bracket. This is a nice touch for the non-Q variants of the Apex and Apex Air, as those have glass side panels, but serves little purpose for the Apex Q. Nonetheless, it is a feature you should be appraised of.


All the wires inside the Chieftec Apex Q are of the usual variety with black sleeving. All the fans are PWM and come with passthrough connectivity, so you may daisy-chain your fans and use a single motherboard header. Our sample was actually pre-wired in a loop, which we naturally fixed to power the fans up in the final build.