Asus Huracan G21 gaming desktop review

The Asus Huracan G21 is a powerful, compact machine with sharp angles and a hint of RGB lighting, like the ROG Strix GL12CX. Although the Huracan is closer in size to the MSI Trident X, what it lacks in stature it makes up for in performance. With small form-factor PCs continuing to grow in popularity, it's nearly impossible to judge a PC by its size. Any mini-ITX form-factor could be hiding an RTX 2080 underneath its slim case, and the Asus Huracan G21 is no exception.

It's recent refresh puts it in dead heat with other PCs of the same caliber; it can be configured with up to an Intel Core i9-9900K CPU and GeForce RTX 2080 GPU, which is the model we received for review. If you're looking for a small PC that can handle the most demanding games, the Huracan G21 stands with the competition.

The all-black design gives this tiny tower of terror a minimalist look—but with a multi-functional twist. A flap on the right side panel folds up to expose the hardware inside, but it's not just there for show. The space in between the geometrical design is empty to allow extra hot air to escape. (Just keep your fingers and hands outside the case at all times. If you need to get inside, both side panels slide right off.) With the flap closed, the PC still stays cool thanks to how efficiently the Huracan G21 dumps hot air out the back. It's noisier than its small form counterparts, at least you won't have to worry about it overheating.

There are nine USB ports in total, six on the back and three on the front, one of which is a USB-C port, so enough room for all your peripherals. There's also a door on top of the case that lifts up for easy access to a hot-swap 2.5-inch SSD drive bay, and an artifact from ancient times called an optical drive nestled into the groves of the left side of the case (or a CD drive, as it was known around the cul de sac back in the day). Optical drives are basically obsolete, as the majority of modern cases don't include a bay for them, but this one blends in with the rest of the case, so it still looks nice.

However, if cable management outside your PC is a priority, you might be annoyed by the adapters that are used to power this PC instead of the usual PSU. Like Asus' higher-end monitors, the Huracan G21 comes with two chunky 280W power bricks. One of the appeals of small form factor PCs is that they are light and mobile; the Huracan G21 is definitely light, but being tethered by two power adapters does make this PC a little bit more of a headache to move around and tuck those cords nearly under your desk. 

Putting the Huracan G21 through our usual benchmark suite proved this is a tough little machine. The Core i9-9900K averaged a multi-core score of 2,000 (200 single core) in Cinebench R15 at a boost clock of 4.6Ghz—and the RTX 2080 did some work in 3DMark, averaging 22,330 (1080p), 11,900 (1440p), and 6,210 (4K).

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But it's in the in-game benchmarks where the real performance shines. The RTX 2080 averaged 106 fps in The Division 2, 104 fps in Total War: Warhammer II (battle mode), and 78 fps in Metro Exodus with the settings set to ultra. It performs admirably at 1440p on ultra as well, averaging in the mid-70s for Division 2 and Total War: Warhammer 2, and in the mid-60s for Metro Exodus. The Huracan G21 struggled at 4K, but there's good news for ray tracing fans: you can average just above 60 fps at 1440p with ray tracing set to high.

The only let down hardware-wise is the 1TB SSD speed, which spat out average sequential read/write speeds of 1,535Mb/s and 1,767Mb/s respectively, which is still fast compared to SATA SSDs, but not the fastest thing out there. But at least the components are easily accessible so you can swap that out for something faster, and it does come with 32GB DDR4 2660 RAM, so you're future-proofed there.

Like other small form-factor prebuilts, though, the Asus Huracan G21 does not come cheap—$2,800 for this fully decked-out configuration. That's cheaper than the likes of Corsair's One i165 (which retails for $3,500, but comes with a secondary 2TB HDD), but more expensive than MSI's Trident X (which is now retailing for under $2,000 and also comes with secondary storage and is quieter).

When you weigh the cost versus the components in the Huracan G21, you're paying for all those extras: the cool magnetic flap, the aggressive angles, the hot swap SSD bay, the warranty, and all the time saved from not having to squeeze your hands into a mini-ITX case yourself.