CUBEOR ASKI Review

Introduction

CUBEOR is one of those companies that try to innovate by creating the most obscure, and well-designed cases. But the main challenge does not stop here. These things are made out of wood. Let's find out how their Bookshelf PC turned out!

What's in the Box?

Although the Cubeor ASKI is a very special case, it does still come in the same type of brownish carton box as most other cases.

Once the carton box is opened up we will find the ASKI Case itself accompanied by a little bag containing the PSU and Motherboard screws (use them, the length is different than usual) and a little sheet of wood containing the test "ASKI Stand".

Said piece of wood has a bunch of weird shapes engraved, which are meant to be broken out and pieced together. The final product of this would be the stand on which the Case can stand after building the PC, in order to -not- scratch the metal on the bottom of the case.

However, if you're planning to lay the case flat, we can use the included gluable rubber feed that can be placed on the bottom side of the case.

Specs

Due to the ASKI being a very special type of case, kind of a Bookshelf PC, the spec sheet is rather small and comes with a lot of restrictions. Down below we added a short summary:

Compatibility

Mainboard

As the ASKI is an absolute mini-PC, all of its components are bound to be sized accordingly.

The first example of this minimalization would be the Mainboard which requires it to be of ITX size.

PSU

On the PSU side, it doesn't get much bigger, but we get a choise. Inside the ASKI, we can go either with an SFX, or SFX-L power supply.

GPU

One of the biggest restrictions, however, comes in form of a GPU. Due to the ASKI being absolutely focused on raw size, its potential GPU support was completely stripped.

Therefore, it's crucial to go with a CPU with integrated graphics, such as an AMD Ryzen 5600G.

CPU Cooler

For CPU Coolers, we can use up to 57mm high coolers. But we would like to point out that a Scythe Shuriken 2 comes down to exactly 57mm once the rubber pieces on top of the fan are removed.

Fans

The Fan support had to witness the same fate as the GPU support. No Fans inside the ASKI.

Cable Management

Similar to the Lazer3D LZX-8, the ASKI does come with the unique cable management feature called: stuffing.

Fortunately, due to there being no GPU, there are just 2 cables that need to be stuffed.

IO

- Nope -

Cooling

One of the most surprising aspects of the Cubeor ASKI is its excellent cooling capability.

Although there is not a single fan present inside the ASKI, nor can one be installed, Cubeor made sure to include a ridiculous amount of triangle-like shaped cutouts which allow the CPU cooler to basically breathe free air.

Therefore, the whole cooling power of the ASKI will entirely rely on the cooling power of the used cooler, +2-3°C due to it still being inside a closed chamber.

Design

Surely the most important aspect of the Cubeor ASKI is the design. In the end, to accommodate for a 5.15L volume and a Book-like structure, we had to give up on essential features like a GPU, or non m.2 Storage.

But the result is absolutely stunning.

With actual wood used on both sides of the case, the dark brownish color of our Cognac option mixed perfectly with the Aluminum Strip in the center that actually acts as the main chassis.

The triangle-like cutouts on each side even allow having a sneak peek at the hardware inside.

At the Bottom of said chassis, we will find a big start button made out of the same wooden material.

Overall, having built multiple builds inside the ASKI, we can say that we have yet to find such a beautiful and well-executed design.

Installation

Well, ignoring the CPU cooler as that will be a model-specific thing, there are a total of 8 screws to finish a build inside the ASKI. 4x for the Mainboard, 4x for the PSU, and 2x cables, the 24-pin and EPS 8-pin. That's it.

Unsurprisingly, there is also not much more to say. An installation process is a ridiculously easy thing and takes sometimes less than a minute depending on your screwdriver.

However, we do want to point out that there is a bit of space in between the Motherboard and the metal used in the front. This space can perfectly be used to stuff all of the PSU cables in, making the process quite enjoyable.

Conclusion

To conclude our journey with Cubeor's ASKI case in a short sentence, we love it!.

We found that the build quality was excellent, while we absolutely fell in love with its design.

But, as you may have noticed, the review portion itself ended up significantly shorter than usual for our takes on cases. This is mainly due to there not being anything to review.

In the end, the Cubeor ASKI is an -ultra- Small Form Factor case coming in at only 5.15l. This ridiculously small size comes with a lot of restrictions such as no GPU, HDD, SSD, Fan support.

Therefore, the only way to use a case like the ASKi would be with a build-in iGPU.

Thankfully, with the recent release of AMD's 5600G and 5700G, the integrated graphics made a huge advancement and we can even use a build inside the ASKI for some light gaming.

However, this will not be for everybody. Somebody who is looking forward to longer gaming sessions, playing at high settings, playing at high resolution, or intensive workflows, should be looking for a case that allows you to use an actual GPU as the iGPU inside any CPU will never be enough for such a task.

The ASKI on the other hand is a pure designer case meant to be used for lighter workflows. Media Center, Office Work (Word, Excel,...), Browsing, YouTube, Facebook...

Sure a 5700G will be able to handle some light gaming. And assuming that the work is done in 1080P, there might even be some editing possible. However, when going for an ASKI, the lack of GPU and requirement of a max 57mm high cooler should be kept in mind.

Although we absolutely love the ASKI for what it is, we do want to give its recommendation with the requirement, that the case should only be used for light- to medium workflows, and actual Gaming should be left for the Gaming machines out there.

But for people who are looking for an Ultra-SFF case for their Workflow, we can absolutely recommend the ASKI.