Overall, I was very surprised by the building experience with the Antec AX61 Elite.
The case feels great, and installing components felt pretty good.
Some points for the conclusion:
✅Positive:
👉1. The removable hard drive cage makes life easy since the case is pretty narrow, but by removing the HDD cover, you have much more room for cable management.
👉2. Talking about cable management - part of the side panel is embedded a couple of millimeters towards the inside of the case in order to fit more room for cables, which makes cable management easy and hustle-free.
👉3. The build quality of the case is pretty good for the price. I never felt like I had to fight with certain parts such as the motherboard tray or the cutout for the I/O shield.
❌Negative:
❗NOTE: Most of my negative points are around the 360mm radiator installation in the front, so if that’s not your case, you can just ignore it.
👉1. Installation of a 360mm radiator at the front was a bit sketchy since there is a weird bump around the screw holes which makes the fans further away from the radiator and even though the screws in my cooler were long enough to reach out the radiator - it’s still something I think we can avoid.
Also, the holes are fixed, which means you have ZERO movement freedom for the radiator.
👉2. If you mount a radiator at the front with the tubes coming from the top of the radiator - it is hard to install fans at the top (I managed to install only 1) since the tubes will likely get stuck in the blades.
👉3. Fitting a GPU that is more than 30cm in length if you install a 360 radiator in the front will be hard since the radiator occupies a couple more millimeters of space (depending on the thickness of your radiator).
In the video, you can see me installing a Asus RTX3060 TUF gaming, and I had to pass the GPU at an angle in order to get it inside the case and install it.
Other than that, everything went fine; all the fans, buttons, and USB ports worked fine - no issues there.
⚠️DISCLAIMER:
This video is NOT sponsored.
Some product links are affiliate links, which means if you buy something, we’ll receive a small commission.
It’s a good way to support the channel and helps us bring you better content!
If you would like to buy the Antec AX61 Elite, you can use these links:
Amazon➡️
Newegg➡️
If you have any questions or feedback, feel free to leave a comment down below!
I used this video to help me with the 360mm radiator installation:
Chapters:
00:00 - Preparation and parts selection
00:23 - Opening the side panels
01:02 - Installing the motherboard
03:21 - Installing the Power supply
05:18 - Installing 2.5“ SSD
07:27 - Connecting the cables
12:01 - Time for a break
12:30 - Removing the fans
14:57 - Installing a 360mm radiator
20:55 - Installing fans at the top
23:16 - Closing the front panel cable management
24:34 - Installing the GPU
26:30 - Closing the side panels
27:28 - Moment of truth - Will the system post?
29:25 - Conclusion & final thoughts