Asus ProArt Case PA401 review

The ProArt range is designed for professional creators, not PC gamers, and I take that to mean Asus thinks PC gamers have no class. I can already hear the Asus representative tapping out an email to me now, so, let me clarify. This is a classy case, and, whether it's aimed at pro creators or pro gamers, one that many should consider for their next build—but not without some caveats.

The initial draw of the PA401? Real wood. You know you've made it when your PC case was once alive. Each of the slats over the front intake on the PA401 is made from (sustainably sourced) ash with a glossy finish. So glossy, in fact, the grain is far less noticeable compared to the Fractal Design Terra or North. It's almost indistinguishable from plastic unless you're right up to it. Personally, I like it. The understated wood effect fits with the diminutive design across the rest of the case. But other members of the PC Gamer team thought it needed a little more pizazz.

Altogether a simple case to build into, the ProArt stands out for the smaller details. The ProArt logo on the PSU shroud that peeks out from under the tinted tempered glass, or the line scrawled on the upper edge of the case, "Power Up Your Imagination". Yes, it's pretentious, but I grew up in the Tumblr hipster era, I've a high cringe threshold.

With room for an ATX motherboard, there's no need to downscale your build to fit it into the PA401's timber-framed hull. Though it's not too large. That's good news if you want to keep it atop of your desk, rather than under it. At 412 x 225 x 503 mm, you needn't worry about whether it will fit atop of your desk or neatly under it, as it should be fine in most spaces, but not so much if you want to stuff it with the most powerful components.

There's limited space in the front and top of this chassis. With two 160 mm fans provided and preinstalled in the front, there's little room leftover for anything larger than a 240 mm radiator in the top. With a Ryzen 7 9800X3D in my test build, that's not a problem, but you might struggle to keep a 13/14th Gen Intel chip at a reasonable temperature without beefier cooling. Still, for the sensible builder with sensible aspirations, it's more than capable—just know you're giving up some upgrade potential down the line.

If you're a fan of mechanical switches and often chastise modern car manufacturers for ditching tactile buttons, I've great news. The PA410 is covered in wonderfully tactile buttons for a variety of purposes. On the front, a switch to lock the power button. There's a flip-switch to change between max and auto (curve) presets on the integrated fan controller. The side panels on either side pop out by pressing a button on the rear, and even better, the tempered glass side panel button is lockable to prevent the panel falling out by accident when moving the case around. I like the tactile buttons a lot.

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What's more, on pressing the button to release either side panel, the panel won't come crashing to the ground, it only falls open by a smidge. From there, you can lift and remove. Reinstallation is as easy as slotting the bottom of the panel and pushing the top into place until you hear a click. You can remove the tempered glass side panel with enough force even without unlocking it. As for how I know… I didn't realise there was a lock and ripped it off before disengaging it. Good news, it's fine, lock still works.

Despite a fairly straightforward design in the rear of the case, there's ample cable management options. For starters, there are cable management hooks on the outside rear of the case, which you can use to tuck away any unruly cables. Though inside, they're of a more basic variety than we've seen on some cases lately, notably the clever Havn HS 420 or generous Arctic Xtender. There's no gulley or channel to run cables through. Instead, three extremely large velcro straps to keep everything in place. A bit of a miss on the right-hand side of the case for the lack of velcro straps for the CPU power cable and any rear fans, but a few zip-ties get the job done.

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A fan controller is conveniently placed at the top of the case, above the three straps, which makes connecting to a motherboard's topmost fan headers easy. It has room for five PWM fans total and requires a single SATA connection. That's controlled by the aforementioned fan speed control on the front panel.

It's a bit of a squeeze to cram all the power supply cables in between the PSU and HDD cage, but no more so than many other cases, and you could remove the cage for a lot more room. There are a couple of spots for 2.5-inch drives on the rear of the motherboard tray if you need 'em, anyways. One thing to be wary of is the 315 mm maximum GPU length here. It's doable with some large modern cards (I tested with the Asus Prime Radeon RX 9070 XT OC Edition 16GB GDDR6), though many RTX 5080/RTX 5090 models are too large. I've checked quite a few and the only obvious option is the ProArt RTX 5080 from Asus. Funny that.

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For cooling, Asus provides three fans in the case as standard: 2x 160 mm intakes in the front, and 1x 120 mm exhaust in the rear. These are ProArt-branded, DF1603212RFMN and DF1202812RFLN, and run at 1400 rpm and 1600 rpm, respectively. They reach a reasonably high volume at full whack; I measured them at around 63 decibels on my sound meter. Though one issue I ran into in testing the fans is how huge an impact the front panel/dust filter has on the airflow from those front two fans. I measured an airflow of 2 m/s with my anemometer inside the case and the front panel completely removed. That dropped to just 0.7 m/s with the front panel in place. That's one of the largest drops I've ever tested.

On completing my test build in the PA401, I took a step back and thought to myself, 'this is the best build I've done all year.' Admittedly, I might've been distracted by the dark, moody appearance of the PA401 filled with gold and orange components. In my subsequent time with the case since I've slightly changed my tune—in as much as other cases do the core functionality better with fewer restrictions. Though the PA401 isn't style over substance. It's stylish, sure, but it's also very easy to build into. It lacks options for cooling to be wary of before purchasing, especially if you're planning a high-end build, to which it's probably a no-go. But if that's no biggie, this is a proper good-looking chassis.

You can grab the ProArt Case PA401 for $130/£120. That's not a bad price for a good-looking case, especially considering the three fans, fan controller, and clever design. Though you could spend less on a more complete chassis in the Phanteks Eclipse G400A with room overhead for future upgrades—it just depends how much the PA401's devilish good looks are worth to you.

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