ProArt PA401 - The Perfect Creator Focused PC Case?

Sam Thwaytes
May 12
7 min read

ASUS ProArt PA401 Wood Edition Noctua NH-D15 Mr Matt Lee

We cover a lot of builds aimed more at gaming here at Mr. Matt Lee. On occasion we straddle the line between a creative and gaming PC, which is always refreshing. Then ever so often we decide, do you know what, let’s focus on the creative side, make something mature, powerful, but yet productivity focused. We don’t really need an excuse to do this, just time between product releases, well, we’ve found a window to explore something we’ve been looking at for a while. The ProArt line from ASUS have for a long time been producing some of the highest quality, creator focused hardware on the market. If you’re an artist, editor, film maker, music producer or one in one of the thousands of other creative roles you probably already know what they offer. One thing we have been hoping to see from ProArt is a smaller case, the PA602 is an amazing option, but it is one of the heaftiest cases available. Enter the ProArt PA401, a much smaller, yet still ATX younger sibling of the PA602. On the surface it is exactly what we’re after, let's take a closer look.

Case Overview

There are 6 variants of this case, all of which are black! The easiest way to describe them is we have 2 available front panels, either wood or plastic. The wood variant is quite dark, in keeping with the rest of the case.

Beyond that there are 3 available styles for the side panel, solid metal, metal mesh or tempered glass. It is worth noting there is a difference in design between the wood front panel and the plastic, with the wood fanning out around the curves and the plastic keeping a more linear, straight profile Of all of them I like the wood + glass variant, the wood is very dark, but our unit has a nice subtle grain and I always prefer a glass side (just personal preference). Internally all variants are the same (luckily). There is aesthetic commonality between the versions, they all follow the same design language, a sort of mature, muted tone.

Inside we have what appears to be a fairly complete cooling set-up. On the front are 2 x 160mm fans, which, like last week's build, is an uncommon size, but should work well to intake a large amount of air. On the rear is a 120mm exhaust fan which should help to get the hot air out, though if you're air cooling, we’d probably advise supplementing it with an additional fan.

As for hardware support, here are the headlines:

Motherboard support: ATX/mATM/ITX

Graphics card length: 315mm (max)

Radiator Support: 120mm/140mm/240mm

Air cooler height: 160mm (max)

Drive bays: 2 x 2.5" Internal & 2 x 2.5"/ 3.5" Internal

Dimensions: 412 x 225 x 503 mm (D*W *H)

Quirks and Features

This is where the case really comes into its own, there is a lot to talk about, so lets start small.

The I/O panel on the top of the case has a couple of the ProArt signature tricks. Firstly there is a slider which stops the power button being pressed. It can then be set so it cannot be accidentally switched off (or on). Useful if you’re waiting on a render to finish and nip off for a coffee while you wait - no one can switch it off thinking it’s not being used. There is also a switch to set all fans connected to the fan hub to max speed, which if you’re working on an intense task it might be better to have max airflow than keep hearing the fans ramp up and down.

Towards the top, on the rear of the motherboard tray, there is a fan hub (fans only not RGB), which have the included fans pre-routed to. Off it comes a SATA at a single fan header for the motherboard.

On the rear are a set of cable clips so you can keep your power, display and other cables tidy and all running to one place. Which should make routing them out of the way seamless.

The side panels have a release button each on the back, which makes removing them smoother. There is also a reassuring clunk when they’re slotted back into place.

In the box there is an adapter for vertical mounting the graphics card. Though there is no riser cable included, we wouldn’t expect one at its price point (~£120) as a good quality riser can cost as much as the case. Still it’s nice to have the bracket included for those that want it.

Overall, there are a lot of small features included here! When you factor in the included fans it's a pretty all encompassing package.

Build Notes

From a PC builders perspective the ProArt PA401 ticks the right boxes. Everything comes apart easily; the build quality is very high; the order in which the build is expected is straightforward; and, there is a good amount of space all around to work with. With that said, though there is space to work with there are still space constraints which need to be considered. The chassis is not very long, fitting graphics cards up to 315mm, we tried a few (check out the video for details) and the most powerful we had to hand which fit was the ASUS Prime RTX 5080. Luckily the current gen cards tend to be shorter than the last so all should be well, but something to be mindful of. The other concession for choosing the PA401 is that the maximum radiator size of 240mm, which for most will be absolutely fine.

We did decide to push this case a little beyond where we thought it would be comfortable, and perhaps a little further than the maximum spec….. But we had to try. What I’m talking about is the air cooler, we chose the Noctua NH-D15 chromax.black for the job for its superior cooling capabilities. The issue was that Noctua claimed it to be 165mm in height, whereas ASUS listed the case as having a maximum clearance of 160mm. We did a little test fit before filming and it worked. It was incredibly tight but it worked! To those who wish to emulate this build do be aware that the tolerance was tight and the fan placement was low due to the lower profile of the RAM used!

Cable management in the PA401 was perhaps the simplest we’ve had yet, there is a wide cable channel down the middle and plenty of anchor points. The included fans were already pre-managed to the hub and the air cooler routed straight to the motherboard. The only thing I would perhaps change, given the choice, is to have a wider open channel to get the F-Panel and HDAudio cables in, they have to kind of go through the routing hole and around, but it’s a very minor thing.

Airflow

Airflow is very simple with this build. The PA401 has massive powerful 160mm fans at the front, channelling air to an aircooler with 140mm fans and out through a 120mm exhaust which was supplemented by a 140mm exhaust on the top. Positive air pressure is the name of the game, which should make sure all air is filtered before entering the case, keeping it nice and clean. In practice it turned out exactly as we had hoped. The intake fans evenly distributed air to both the air cooler and graphics card before it was then removed out of the back. One thing to consider though is there was a little leakage out of the edges of the side panels, which is a largely unavoidable consequence of positive air pressure and not something to be concerned about.

Thermal Performance

Each week we put our build through some basic performance tests. The intention is to gauge how it would fare in real world scenarios as well as to see how it performs at a safe thermal limit in standard configuration. Our results:

Ambient Temp 21.0°C

Cyberpunk 2077

2560x1440

Location: Ghost Town

Quick Preset: Raytracing Overdrive

Frame Generation: Off

65-85 FPS

63°C CPU

54°C GPU

System Power Draw: ~430w

Marvel Rivals

2560 x 1440

Anti Aliasing and Super Resolution Type: Nvidia DLSS

Super Resolution Mode: Quality

Super Resolution Sharpening: 80

Frame Generation Mode: off

Graphics Quality: Ultra

118-147 FPS

59°C CPU

64°C GPU

System Power Draw: ~421w

Furmark 2

2560 x 1440

257 FPS

68°C GPU Temp

86°C Hotspot

CPU-Z

Max Temp 63°C

Fan Speed ~1000 rpm

Performance was exactly as expected for the airflow on offer, everything stayed nice and cool under stress.

Noise Testing

As we're testing the full build the results are indicative of that, changing out components would alter results. We use a decibel meter at a distance of 50cm from the PC - which is approx normal seating position in a set-up where the PC is on the desk. The lowest reading available from the device is 30db.

Ambient noise: <30db

Fans at idle: <30db

Fans at 50% GPU Fans 50%: 34.5db (AVG)

Fans at 100% GPU Fans 80%: 47db (AVG)

Roundup

This build has been a blast to put together. We love the more mature and muted projects and this one scratches an itch, after all we are creators, so this one is right up our alley. Performance was fantastic, not only down to power, but also cooling, everything just worked!

As for the case the ProArt PA401 is something a bit special. It’s got a huge array of little creator features and some serious cooling power. We’re very happy to see a wood and standard version straight out of the gate too, they look similar on the surface, but to our eye wood is the way to go. The wood may be very dark, but in all lights you can tell that it is wood, and it brings a touch of something different.

Check out the full build video below.

Blog post written by Sam Thwaytes

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