Cooler Master MasterCase H500M ARGB Airflow ATX Mid-Tower with Quad Tempered Glass Panels, Dual 200mm Customizable ARGB Lighting Fans, Type-C I/O Panel, and Vertical GPU Slots (MCM-H500M-IHNN-S00)

Im a fan girl of NZXTs towers and was planning another NZXT-based build. I decided, however, to try something new, something that would be different from my regular builds. Cue in this Cooler Master H500. It has been nothing short of amazing. If youd like the short and sweet bulleted points, then just read this part, otherwise Ive written a lot of information. - a total of up to x6 (if solely using) 120mm fans, x4 (if solely using) 140mm fans, or x3 (if solely using) 200mm fans - a front mesh panel that captures dust; there is also an optional acrylic panel that can be used instead if preferred (more on this later) - tempered glass panel that has two screws that cannot be taken off (so its no longer easy to misplace). The glass panel also has hinges at the bottom so it wont accidentally fall and shatter, etc - supports ATX, mATX, or miniATX builds - has x2 M.2 slots, x2 3.5 hard drive bays (an additional mount can be purchased to support 4 more), and x4 2.5 SSD bays. 2 SSDs can be mounted on the right side of the case with little plugs, therefore offering a tool-less assembly). The HDD drive bay can also be removed if you just plan on only using the 2 SSD mounts - in regards to cable management, there is a vertical bar with rubberized routing holes. This is removable if you prefer a more spacious build - x2 200mm CoolerMaster MasterFan 200R RGB fans installed in the front panel and 1 generic 120mm fan - a removable PSU cover - 3 dust filter covers (for the top, front and bottom of the case) - a vertical GPU mount (riser cable not included) - multiple zip ties in order to manage the cables inside (among other small things) So, I wont be able to touch on everything, as I dont use the vertical GPU mount for starters, but I can give insight on other aspects. First off, this case comes with many fan placement options. For reference, I have x2 120mm fans up top, x1 120mm fan in the back, and x2 200mm fans up front. I currently have Corsair SP LL120 RGBs and they work great paired with the CoolerMaster fans. Side note, if you are in the market for the Corsair SP LL120 RGBs and would like it to pulse, breath, or mimic the 200mm fans, then youll need to purchase the CORSAIR iCUE Commander PRO Controller. Anyway, the case does come with a handy magnetic dust filter for the top of the case (fan area). 1 month later and I can tell that it is definitely doing its job. The front of the case has another mesh like structure and this allows for better airflow throughout the case. My build has been averaging 25-30C on idle with a max of 50C on high detailed games. Now, I have tried the acrylic panel and found that my temperatures, unsurprisingly, do go up: 30-45C on idle and 50-65C on load. Its not terrible temps but, while the acrylic does look cleaner, keep in mind that youre swapping temperatures for aesthetics. The side tempered glass panel is another nice aspect of the H500. Its not clear like NZXTs line, but I would say its around 40-50% tint, perhaps even 30%. Its definitely on the dark side. I didnt realise how tinted it would be, but it honestly looks amazing. Due to the heavier tint, the cables inside are pretty much invisible and the RGB/lightning looks like its coming through the darkness. Honestly, it looks great and is definitely something I didnt know I wanted for my build. The x2 200mm fan does deserve a mention as well, but this ones not as positive. It could be the lack of experience with RGB fans, but the cables were confusing as heck to pair with respective wires. Ive didnt even spend as much time on the rest of the build combined compared to the fan wires themselves. Im not going to lie when I say I cried a little out of frustration. The instructions arent very helpful. If I remember correctly, the RGB cables were pinned into cables that were unnecessary towards the whole build. Figuring out that cable was not necessary took an amazingly stupid amount of time. After taking out the unnecessary cables and then figuring out the appropriate ones, it was smooth sailing after that. Im not sure why its become the new standard, but pictorial instructions are ridiculous. I can only imagine how difficult it would be for someone just starting out. Cable management wise, theres really not much to say. Its superb and theres nothing difficult about it. Youll definitely need more zip ties than provided if you want a cleaner look. Also, the provided ties are surprisingly very thin so may snap easily if you stress it enough. There are notches on the cable side of the tower that allow you to zip tie cables on. Make sure to not zip tie in the panel grooves though. The rubberized routing holes and removable vertical bar is also appreciated. Some small thing that dont really detract but should be mentioned: if youre not going to fill the inside of this case, then be prepared to hear A LOT of air being pushed around. I have a lot of open space and it does sound cavernous. Also, this case is very much on the heavy side. It weighs a whopping 23.2lbs, maybe 30lbs+ after all the components are installed, compared to NZXTs 17.9lbs. If youve stuck it out and read through my long speech, then in short I highly recommend this case. Ive been very pleased with it and Im glad I took a chance. Like a lot of people have been saying, dont go for any other H500 (for example, H500P or H500M). Just stick with the H500-NO SUFFIX. It is Cooler Masters best - as of right now - and pretty much offers everything required for a high end build. This is a great starter case, offering excellent airflow and enough space to experiment around with. You wont be disappointed.

First thing I did was trash the trashy fans and replace them w/ nocuta everything. Not the easiest to atatch the front 200mm w/ the rubber mounts and was able to get it done with tweezers and floss. Besides that, case is super easy to build. The gpu mount has a flippable switch and you can remove the guards by lifting them up. Due to the mechanism bulk, it makes installing big gpu like 4090 strix a bit tricky since it borders obtructing installation due to the size of the gpu heatsink.

Pros: - the glass sides allow for a great view inside the PC - I like that it comes with both mesh and acrylic screens for the front of the case - comes with 2 200mm aRGB fans and a 150mm exhaust fan - lots of holes and ports for routing cables - there are “shields” that cover the PSU and HDD/SSD store for a cleaner look - there’s also shields to cover the cables on the backside - no SSD mount needed as there are tons of places to simply screw them in all over the case. - aRGB chip for front fans already installed, in case you don’t have a controller. Haven’t figured out how (or if) you can control it. - there’s a little arm to support the GPU and prevent sag. Cool idea. Cons: - the mobo mounts don’t totally fit into the case? I had issues with the holes for the mounts being too small to screw them in. I’d get them to stick the best I could, but several times they just fell out while I was trying to get the motherboard in. Right now, my motherboard isn’t supported everywhere it should be. - the cable shields on the reverse side of the case are a little small. It’s really difficult to jam all of the cables in there, though it is doable.

The Case is actually really nice. I was skeptical as i worry when i buy things. The material is a good portion plastic but it is sturdy plastic and dosnt bend. The glass panel is nice and easy to remove to do some work inside and the rear has good space for cable management or if your like we, just zip tie the cables. The front Fans are amazing and are good, careful with the led cables for them as i fried one of mine. The noise is my only issue, it can be annoying at times HOWEVER it isnt anything bad when you game or watch youtube. Honestly amazing buy and i do recommend

I did a lot of research for this build and I wasnt disappointed with this case. Easy unboxing, simple directions, lots of room for tall brick coolers like the Nactua or Be Quiet Dark Rock (dry fit pic for brick cooler. 6 mm to spare before glass ). So many options for fan sizes, liquid coolers and locations. Did I say this thing looks great?! This was more like a gift from the hearts of the Cooler Master designers than a purchase. It breathes big and thats why I went with it. If youre thinking of over clocking, please Youtube for the stats and reviews. youll see very good numbers just with the stock fan set up. There are so many features to talk about that are great and you really should check out the reviews but, I do have one issue. This cant be blamed on Cooler Master, after all, the price is so well worth it. The fans are RGB but they arent PWM 4pin, meaning, they do not regulate speed like the CPU coolers do. Your mother board more than likely supports PWM fan regulation so, maybe that is something you would think about as an upgrade. 200 mm RGB PWM 4pin fans are more expensive and wouldnt easily pushed the price up for this case. Regardless, its still pretty quite as it is. Im so pleased with this choice and already thinking of a new build around another one of these cases. Do your research, find out for yourself and enjoy.

Just completed a Ryzen 5 1600 build in this case. I didnt add a water cooler as this is for my wife and she wont be doing any real overclocking. The fan cable for the rear fan can be linked to the front fans which made life a little easier when doing my cable management. The rear fan cable was not long enough to reach the fan header on my motherboard (Asus Crosshair VI Hero) that would allow me to hide the cable. Having the splitter there made it very easy to link the fans and make the build clean like I like it. The space to manage the cables on the back was sufficient for all the cables needed with extensions on the 24 pin power cable and the graphics card (Asus ROG Strix Radeon RX 580). The Power supply shroud is plastic, but thats not a big deal to me. There is only one screw holding it in,but it locks in with four tabs so that screw isnt really necessary. So much so that, while I was writing this,I realized that I didnt put the screw back after completing my build. It hasnt moved. That shroud lets me hide a bunch of extra cabling in the system without having to tie it down in the back. Again, this case makes it very easy to manage cables if youre into that sort of thing. My only complaint with the case is it doesnt come with preinstalled Velcro straps like my old Cooler Master Master Case 5 did (I dont like using zip ties). I have plenty so that isnt really a negative, just an FYI. I ended up running a lot of the case/front panel cables under the HDD/SSD cage since it was easier that trying to fit it into the relatively small access point just above the power supply shroud. Speaking of the power supply, I used a EVGA G2 which is a little longer than the EVGA G3. Ive used the G3 in my main build and the 30mm difference is nice when you are hiding cables. The G2 was fine in this case, but I will definitely use a G3 in the future. The fans are pretty and work with Asus Aura to coordinate all the case colors. They also quietly move a lot of air.

Pros: -Good quality for the price -Mesh/Acrylic front for preference options -back and front fans run decently quiet, I was very impressed -RGB controller and fan splitters included allow expansion for more fans, some cases dont have this by default -Side mount GPU slot if needed -Magnetic mesh mat on top Cons: -No tooless design to remove the glass side, this is kind of a petty point, but just noting it -Lack of support for 200mm fans outside of Cooler Master Propriety fans - granted there is not a 200mm standard, but this cases large selling point is the 200mm fan option so the fact that Noctuas 200mm fan thickness wasnt considered during construction is a let down for customers, more details on this below to make it fit in the top Overall the case is quite good with sturdy construction and 200mm fan options allow excellent airflow even at low RPMs for quiet operation. RGB works with the included controller. It didnt work straight forward with mystic light, but Ill figure that out later. Didnt buy it for the RGB so no proper review for that part, but the included RGB fans look quite good if you were going to go for that aspect. The switch controller works, and has a third connector for daisy chaining more rgb fans together. The same goes for the power connector so everything can be in sync. The side panel, PSU shroud, drive bay in the bottom, and cable management bar(? thats what Im calling it) are all easily removable as needed. I had no reason to remove the front panel, so no feedback on that. Im using the Rosewill 1600 watt Hercules PSU which is quite large, but the shroud covers the exact length of the PSU casing. So there is plenty of room between the PSU and the front of the case. You will still need to unmount the drive bay for a PSU of this size since itll be in the way of the cables. A normal size PSU would not have this issue obviously. My mobo supports multiple m.2 for boot and storage so no issues on my end. The drive bay still fits between PSU and case front even with this PSU. Its just that it cant mount securely where it normally would. So if you absolutely need the storage, the drive bay will indeed still fit there as needed in worst case scenario. The case itself is very nice to build in. I love the space. There are plenty of slots around the motherboard section that allow for slipping cables through from the back at the top and bottom to make for neater cabling in hard to reach places. I normally dont care about it too much, but it really was pretty easy to cable manage without much effort. The plastic handle space on the top is for moving an empty case, but for a fully loaded case its not practical. Unless you want to have your wrist twisted backward while trying to carry this two handed, then the handle section on top has no purpose other than to house the front USBs and power switches. They likely did this to make sure no inside space was taken up by USB/Switches portions, and they just dual purposed the external housing with a handle on the backside. This is why I dont consider this a con. Im just noting that this handle isnt practical for assisting with moving a loaded computer since its too awkward for lifting two handed, and its not metal making one handed carrying a little risky in case the plastic fractures or breaks. Last point is concerning Noctuas 200mm fans. I got one in the top, but didnt try the front. Ive heard they dont fit without modding the front a little though. For the top portion, remove the rubber corners to prevent them from getting damaged during the next part. Then, before forcing it into the 200mm slot, ensure that you have the fan lined up with the holes on top where youll screw it in, then push it in until stuck then give it a good shove. If need be, you can push on the top metal mesh a bit to give it more wiggle room until its forced in. Once its in, with some careful force you can line it up to the holes. You wont break the fan nor the case, both are very sturdy. No this didnt deform the top metal mesh portion of the case. To save yourself some hassle, just use the included screws instead of the silicon options. Since the top section has a magnetic mesh mat as well that goes on top, you wont notice the screws even when glancing over it.

This is a good case, even better when you consider the price. The image I induced is with an additional single strip of RGB lights attached along the top of case on the glass side of the top fan mounts. If it were perfect, I would like the top magnetic filter to be a smooth piece of plastic to cover the top to aide forcing the air out the back, but its a only a 100-120 dollar case. I would like it to have ARGB fans in the front, again it is only a 100-120 dollar case. I would like a nicer latching system than the system used to hold the glass side panel on, again its a 100-120 dollar case. The rear fan is not ARGB or RGB, again it is a 100-120 dollar case. All of complaints are really things that would make it perfect for me and are unreasonable for case at this price. Many of those things are features of the more expensive version. This case even comes with the an option clear acrylic front panel! This is case was nice to build in, cable management was very easy. You would really need to intentionally make mess of your wires to have a rats nest with this case. I can name a half dozen nitpicks, but that is what they are. Im really impressed because there are more expensive cases that are not this nice. This is legitimately a nice case that cools well with the included fans. The included fans are quiet and move a decent amount of air. Things that may be useful to know. The included RGB controller was not connected when the case arrived and I did not use it. The included controller connect to a SATA power cable and has a place for connecting the reset or power switch for changing modes. It is tiny and uses standardized connections so Im going to use it in an older computer. I connected the included fans to my Gigabyte Z370 Gaming motherboard using the 12v 5pin RGB header using an adapter cable and a 4 pin fan header for the spinning part. The motherboard fully controls the fans. To do this you will need a cable that goes between the Gigabyte style header and the stanardardized 4pin RGB that fans use. The cables for the spinning function of the fans is industry standard and even comes with a splitter already connected. I configured the motherboard to use voltage control to ramp the fans up and down. The power supply shroud comes out with only a single thumbscrew, there are also two sets of hols to mount the power supply either way. In my build the only drive is NVMe on the motherboard so the PS shroud going all the way would have been nicer I think, but the 2x3.5 HD cages comes out with a single thumbscrew. There are plenty of places for zip ties and moderate room behind the motherboard. The magnetic filter for the top is, functional. Its not substantial enough and so looks goofy since it is wavy and not a smooth even surface as a result of a thin piece of plastic with a magnetic frame. With the fans in the front blowing in there should not be dust entering from the top anyway. I had an issue with what sounded like coil whine, it was from running the back case fan too slow and it sitting there rocking, so I had to change my custom fan settings and now it spins all the time, it is pretty quiet anyway. Some positives are that the PS shroud is so easy that you can easily remove it to work on the headers at the bottom of the motherboard. There is good room at the top for working with headers by the CPU power header. So to sum it together, it is a good airflow case with nice looks and uses industry standard conoectors for the fans so you can connect to your motherboard or third party controllers if you want. That is a big bonus because my friend who bought smaller and less expensive case is looking at replacing his included fans because they dont have standard connectors and so run at full speed all the time, which means he will end up spending more money than I did. I really like there is nothing goofy or weird, its all industry standard.

And the plastic is great quality anyway. I especially appreciate the more stealthy matte look so smudges and dust arent as noticeable. Id been wanting to replace the cheap AIO cooler in my pre-built for a while. I decided to go with a high end Noctua (NH-D15S), and since it wouldnt fit in the Cyberpower case, it was the perfect excuse to move into a new one. The cheaper ones I was looking at, like the Fractal Design Meshify C, seemed great but would need some additions to get the best performance. The nicer ones I liked such as Phanteks were usually in the $130+ range, and I didnt really want to go over $100. I decided that the H500 would be best for my first build, with more room to work in than the Meshify C and better out of the box performance comparable to more expensive cases thanks to those huge fans that also add some color. Dont really care if its not all metal, Im not sticking a bunch of magnets to it. Its easy to work with and does its job well. My cat even chewed up the extension cord for the fans and they still work fine, although I should probably replace that. The only problem Ive had is that the PSU shroud wont seem to get back in place to line up with the screw hole on the back. Its still clicked in and not going anywhere, its just not secured by the screw. I think it might be my fault due to some poor cable management, but either way its really a non-issue.

I, like many others, am on the search for a case that is both functional and has the right amount of RGB. I have gone through all the phases with my PC - mini itx cases (Coolermaster NR200P, Jonsbo D31 mesh, Lian Li Q58), Mid Towers (Corsair 4000D, NXZT H510), Open Air Cases (Thermaltake P1 & P3). Recently, I have decided to go down the route of a full tower PC case that can house all of my fans, hubs, and RGB accessories with ease. This case caught my eye as its sister case 700 EVO is out of my price range. This case was designed for one thing, airflow. There is no shortage of fan configurations in this case. I currently have 2 (200mm front fans), 3 (140mm Noctua bottom fans), 3 (140 Noctua side fans), 2 (120mm back fan), 1 (200mm top fan) & 3 (120mm LLs top). Needless to say, my PC stays cool under any load placed upon it. My CPU ( Ryzen 9 5900x) @ idle stays around 35C-40C. Under load, it stays below 60C, which is impressive for that specific CPU as it runs hot. My GPU (EVGA 3090 FTW) @ idle stays around 35C. Under load, it doesnt go past 72C. I do not have any overclocking/underclocking enabled. All stock. The case is massive, compared to what I am used to. However, this is by design. The building was seamless. For the most part, this is a toolless case. I liked the locking mechanism that Coolermaster has designed to be used for most of the pieces. Specifically, the back panel is used to hide or rather, keep all the cables/hubs in one place without having them protrude and prevent the back cover from being snapped on. This stood out as I have 4 hubs (2x corsair Commander XT, 1 Commander core & 1 Node lighting). The front mesh panel of the case allows for adequate airflow. If fans are set at an appropriate fan curve, the case is silent. Coolermaster included two fan hubs. One that allows for the RGB/fan speed and another to accommodate additional fans for the case. All of these will be controlled via the motherboard, but a nice must-have. The RGB is standard if thats your thing. The Coolermaster software is bland compared to icue (corsairs version). For my case, I have cables that convert basically any manufacturer 3-pin RGB to be compatible with icue (thank you PirateDog.com). Overall, I am satisfied with this case and if the full tower setup is what youre looking for, include this case as one of your options. Keep in mind that its LARGE. So, if you are limited in space, this may not be the right choice. Happy building!