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)

Picked this up to compile a second build out of spare parts from other former builds. The TG side panel isnt as heavy as other TG cases Ive worked with so thats a plus. Its also a fit seal TG side panel (no gap). I switched the front panel from the mesh to the solid plastic cover for my build because it doesnt get hot enough to need the extra airflow from a fully mesh front panel like some other builds might. I fully recommend to anyone that is going to build a beast in this thing to use the mesh front panel for better thermals in that situation. Other stuff. Its light even with the one TG side panel, so easy to move around. PB placement is nice and up front on the top part of the front panel along with 4 USB ports and the 3.5mm jacks. For a smaller build, its an aesthetically pleasing case to look at no matter where it is on your desktop or other places.

In Summary, Good: - Looks great, better in person than in photos - Plenty of room for cable management & part clearance - Solid front IO selection with 2 USB 3.0, 2 USB 2.0, headphone 3.5mm in, mic 3.5mm in, power & reset buttons - Fantastic design for airflow, Im air-cooling a 3950x in this case, albeit with an absolute monster of an air-cooler Bad: - Case itself is a bit wobbly due to (relatively) low weight, poor weight distribution, and narrow feet - Half length PSU shroud feels a bit outdated at this point, though that only really affects aesthetics. This is a very solid case with some really nice spots, but I wouldnt call it perfect. For the price (being ~$120 for the H500 ARGB), its on the lower end of where you start getting into serious cases, and I think it delivers a fantastic amount of value at that price. First, if youre interested in this case but worried about aesthetics, dont be. This case looks so, so, SO much better in person than it does in photos, and it already looks pretty nice in the photos. The RGB fans look a bit cheap in the photos, but they look great in person. I think they look best if you just pick a solid color and set both the fans up to it, but they do support a variety of non-static lighting effects if youre into that. Next, talkin bout the build experience. It was mostly great, its a wide open case, both side panels come off and you have plenty of room for cable management. It comes with a removable drive cage, I went all M.2s so I removed it for some more cable room and cleaner airflow to my PSU. Really the only negative I experienced while building was trying to get the CPU power pins on the top left, and thats on me for not doing that before installing the motherboard into the case and also using a massive heatsink on my CPU that blocked most of the access. (That heatsink is the Scythe Ninja 5, its massive and I bought this case just to have enough clearance to fit it. It does fit it.) Finally, the biggest thing I dont like about this case is the weight. Not that its too heavy, rather if anything it is too light. This isnt too much of a concern, and Im sure its nice on the package handlers (thank you package handlers), but it is compounded by the cases feet. Its nice to have some airflow under the case, certainly, and they do include a bottom facing dust filter for your PSU, so you can mount it drawing in fresh air from under the case, but ultimately just look at the size of the feet. Youre resting an entire large case on really quite a small surface area, and theyre angled in such a way that this thing looks like it was built to roll along the ground. Combined with how light the case is, and how the weight of your components is distributed throughout the case, it brings the center of gravity up quite high. I think it actually sits above the center of the case in my build. This makes the tower wobbly! That doesnt feel good! I can just tap the tower with my finger and I can see the entire thing shake a little bit, its concerning. My heart skips a beat if I ever swivel in my chair and accidentally bump it. All-in-all, if youre looking for a huge case at this price point, this is a very strong contender. It wasnt my first choice, I was looking at an ASUS TUF Gaming GT501, but of course my first choice was out of stock. Even so, I am not at all disappointed with this as my second option, its even got a better front IO selection.

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.

All I can say is that this case is a beast! The oversized 120mm fans in the front (preinstalled) move so much air at low RPM! The top panel can also hold a 120mm fan. Awesome! I installed a water cooler at the top and it fits and works great. Be sure to pay attention to the measurements. It holds a 2 fan radiator, not a 3 fan. The design of the case allows it to run cool and super quiet. It looks more amazing when I added RGB components to the inside. Cooler Master has done it again with this one. You wont be disappointed.

I liked the cable management, had holes and tie down points in good places. The way to mount the SSD to the back of the Mobo tray is interesting, the bag of screws came with some adaptors that screw into the bottom of the SSD and then can just plop the drive into the chassis behind the Mobo. Wasnt too crazy about bright LED fans and you cant turn off with the included wire harness, but without the included harness can just plug in power and its all good. To do that I removed the little black button/box thing, thats the brains that control the LED parts, then I taped off the connections so they wouldnt short something out by accident. Then plugged the remaining wires into power from the mobo or a sata to fan adapter. The fans spin and were really quiet. I bought this case for the airflow, and it doesnt feel like it has a ton of flow but will do some testing with the side panels on and see if I am still having trouble with 3080 GPU temps. Might have to leave the glass side panel off to provide good airflow. One thing is that there is really not a lot of room on the backside for cables, had to put pressure on the side panel to get it back on the case. Also, not a ton of room down below for power supply cables, really had to bend them over at an angle to get them to exit the cable management holes. This might depend on your Mobo, but I am not using the PSU shroud as it is right up against my bottom GPU. If I had a different Mobo that might work better and I would be able to use it.

This case i used to build a workstation strictly for work. The primary thing the case needed to accommodate was radiators and you guessed it more radiators. This case delivered on that as well as a digital display smack dab in the front so your hardware monitoring can be done with ease. The biggest surprise of all had to be the master plus software that controls the lighting and iris display (which I personally use to monitor hardware temps). This is the only lighting software that Ive come across that doesnt tax your CPU. Hats off to cooler master for this. Honestly all the other companies should come to them in this arena because it is damn near perfect software as far as I am concerned. The build quality and materials used to manufacture this case you will find are very high quality and justify its top tier pricing. There is not one area I can pick out and call flimsy or cheap. Now for the one major con I found with this case. There are absolutely zero knockouts for fill ports or drain ports. I dont know anyone who spends this much money on a case and doesnt plan on a water-cooled build. And I found even after stuffing 3-360mm radiators and 1-280mm radiator in this beast there was plenty of room at both ends of the case to implement this feature. So unfortunately for that reason I cant say this case is perfect. But if you dont mind drilling into a 650-dollar case then more power to you. But all in all, for throwing some scrap pumps I had laying around as well as some scrap pipe I am very happy with its ability to keep everything frosty and for that this case got 5 stars. if I could though I would have given it 4.5 due to the lack of knockouts for draining and filling ports.

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.

So I went from a cooler master master box to this beast, as you can tell, the master case is quite a bit bigger than the master box. The only gripe I have about the master case H500p is they didnt make the front universal with replacing different brands of fans. So I had to shoehorn it with zip ties so I could get my thermaltake 200mm fans on the H500p. I would definitely recommend getting this case even though its a few years or so on the market. Its got plenty of room for fan placements, I know people are big fans of water cooling, unfortunately this doesnt have a slot in the tower for a cooler. But, if your enthusiastic enough, you can put 9 fans in this thing, the options are only for the front. You could do 2 200mm fans, and 3 120mm fans behind the 200mm, or bring it down to 8 fans and put 2 140mm fans behind the 200mm fans in the front. The top can hold 3 120mm fans, or 2 140mm fans, the back is 1 120mm fan, or a 140mm fan. Overall with 9 fans total I have in my build. Its not to excessive with the fan noise, but keeps everything nice and cool in the 40s to lower 60s degree celsius.

Pros: Very easy to build in, everything fit in nicely. Plenty or airflow 200mm front fans are very quiet and move plenty of air. Great filters (specially like the one at the top with magnets). Great space for longer GPUs Space behind motherboard is broad enough for decent cable management. Many water cooling and fan configurations available. They kept support for older chunkier HDDs with a very organized removable tray (in case you dont want to use it). Tempered glass is great quality and really like it sits on the lip at the bottom when you unscrew it. Cons: The 2x200mm ARGB fans are 3 pin, whereas my motherboard only has 4 pin rgb headers. I thought, no biggie, Ill use the included controller. But to my surprise the controller didnt work either. It only lights up a very small portion of the fans, and the button doesnt work to cycle trough the modes. I tried everything that came to mind with no results. Front fans stay the same color (top one with a little red spot, bottom one with a little blue spot). So I just decided to disconnect the ARGB controller from the front fans, and just leave them off (theyre facing the wall anyway). Manual and online PDFs from CoolerMaster are horrible. They just assume you know what youre doing, and if you run into a problem, just figure it out by yourself. Overall: Very happy with the purchase and quality. Almost perfect.

The disk holders for my Corsair mini case literally disintegrated. It was far too small a case in the end. Too little space above the MB for a radiator, too little space behind it for cabling, and I found myself opening it and closing it so often that I started to lose case parts I could not replace. The front fans of this model are true ARGB, which worked directly with my MSI motherboard. I used the enclosed ARGB controller to cheat and create a second ARGB zone, instead of for the front fans. PC is dead silent except for GPU fan noises, which is not the fault of the case. In the pic above you see 3 additional Cooler Master 120 mm ARGB fans, the two on top are attached to an EK radiator. The CPU block is Phantek and the green inner light is coming from 2 LED strips from Airgoo