ANY MINI-ITX FORM FACTOR could be hiding
an RTX 2080 beneath its slim case, and
the Asus Huracan G21 is no exception.
Its recent refresh puts it in a 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 have here. If you’re
looking for a small PC that can handle
the most demanding games, the Huracan
G21 stands tall with the competition.
The all-black design gives this tiny
tower of terror a minimalist look—but
with a multifunctional 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 within the geometrical
design is empty, to allow extra hot air to
escape. With the flap closed, the PC still
stays cool, thanks to the efficiency with
which the Huracan G21 dumps hot air out
the back. It’s noisier than its small-form
counterparts, but you don’t have to worry
about it overheating.
There are nine USB ports: six on the
back and three on the front, one of which
is a USB-C port, so enough for all your
peripherals. There’s also a door on top
that lifts up for easy access to a hot-swap
2.5-inch SSD drive bay, and something
from ancient times called an optical driveA subdued, tiny powerhouse
that can go toe-to-toe with any
“normal-sized,” high-end rig
Asus Huracan G21
8
VERDICT Asus Huracan G21CATEGORY 5 Good airflow and
cooling; stylish; small form
factor; impressive spec.
BREEZY Single 1TB SSD; uses two power
bricks; pricey.
$2,800, http://www.asus.comSPECIFICATIONSProcessor Intel Core i9-9900KGraphics Nvidia GeForce RTX 2080 8GBRAM 32GB DDR4-2666Motherboard Z390 chipsetStorage 1TB SSDCooling Solution AirPSU 2x 280W power adaptersCase Huracan G21Warranty Three yearsnestled into the grooves of the left side
of the case. Optical drives are basically
obsolete, and the majority of modern
cases don’t include a bay for them, but
this one blends in with the rest of the
chassis, so it still looks nice.
If cable management outside your PC
is a priority, you might be annoyed by the
adapters used to power this PC instead
of the usual PSU. Like Asus’s higher-
end monitors, the Huracan G21 comes
with two chunky bricks for 280W power
adapters. One of the appeals of small-
form-factor PCs is that they are light and
mobile; the Huracan G21 is light, but being
tethered by two power adapters makes it
more of a headache to move around.
Putting the Huracan G21 through our
usual benchmark suite proved it to be a
tough little machine. The Core i9-9900K
averaged a multicore 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 3D Mark, averaging 22,330
(1080p), 11,900 (1440p), and 6,210 (4K).
But in-game benchmarks are where the
real performance is at. The RTX 2080
averaged 106fps in The Division 2, 104fps
in Total War: Warhammer II, and 78fps in
Metro Exodus with graphics set to ultra.
It performs well at 1440p on ultra, too,averaging in the mid-70s for Division 2
and Total War: Warhammer 2, and the
mid-60s for Metro Exodus. It struggled at
4K, but there’s good news for ray-tracing
fans: You can average just above 60fps at
1440p with ray tracing on high.
The sole let-down hardware-wise is
the 1TB SSD, which only spat out average
sequential read/write speeds of 1.5Gb/s
and 1.7Gb/s—still fast compared to
SATA SSDs, but not the fastest thing out
there. At least the components are easily
accessible, so you can swap that out
for something faster, and it does come
with 32GB of DDR4 2666 RAM, so you’re
future-proofed there.
Like other small-form-factor pre-
builts, 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
at $3,500), 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. –JOANNA NELIUSOur desktop zero-point consists of an Intel Core i9-7900X, 32GB of G. Skill Ripjaws V @ 3,000, an MSI GeForce GTX 1080 Ti
Gaming X, and a 512GB Samsung 960 Pro M.2 PCIe SSD. All tests were performed at 4K at the highest graphical profile.BENCHMARKS
ZERO-
POINT
Cinebench R15 Multi (Index) 2,178 2,000 (-8%)
CrystalDisk QD32
Sequential Read (MB/s) 3,136 1,535 (-51%)
CrystalDisk QD32
Sequential Write (MB/s) 2,126 1,767 (-17%)
3DMark: Fire Strike Ultra
(Index) 6,988 6,210 (-11%)
Total War: Warhammer II (fps) 42 43 (2%)
Tom Clancy’s The Division 2 (fps) 38 40 (5%)
Metro Exodus (fps) 37 38 (3%)
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%in the lab
64 MAXIMUMPC MAY 2020 maximumpc.com