be quiet! Pure Base 500 Case Review

1. Introduction2. be quiet! Pure Base 500: Exterior3. Pure Base 500: Interior4. System Installation5. Testing Methodology: Acoustics/Thermals6. Performance and Comparisons: Acoustics7. Performance and Comparisons: Thermals8. Closing Thoughts9. View All Pages

Acoustic Testing

Being a be quiet! product, there is a focus on near-silent operation with the Pure Base 500. Therefore, we have devised a simple series of tests to compare the acoustic performance with the case set up in various configurations.

These tests will involve taking sound level readings with our sound meter from approximately 300mm from the front of the case, at idle, under 100% CPU load and under 100% GPU load.

Sound levels will be measured in dBA after 5 minutes at idle in Windows. CPU load noise levels will be measured by running AIDA64 stressing CPU, FPU and cache for 10 minutes. GPU load noise levels will be measured by running AIDA64 GPU stress test for 10 minutes.

CPU and case fan profiles will be set to their silent operating mode in the Gigabyte Z390 Aorus Master’s bios and GPU fans set to their default fan curve. The CPU cooler used in acoustic testing will be a be quiet! Dark Rock Pro 4 for air cooling and a Thermaltake Floe DX 360 for AIO liquid cooling comparisons. Case fans are the two pre-installed be quiet! Pure Wings 2 140mm fans.

The ambient noise level (noise floor) in our test room is measured at 37.4 dBA.

Thermal Performance Testing

As with every case we review, thermal performance is important, therefore, we shall test this by running another series of tests to measure temperatures both at idle and under load.

To fully stress test the system, we will run AIDA64 for 10 minutes stressing CPU, FPU, Cache and GPU with the case in various configurations. With this data, we can compare how each scenario affects thermal performance.

We will also compare the system’s thermal capabilities with both air cooled and AIO liquid cooled solutions for the CPU. For air cooling, we will be using a be quiet! Dark Rock Pro 4 and for liquid we will use the Thermaltake Floe DX 360mm AIO.

During thermal testing, only stock case fans will be used. All fans and pumps (where applicable) will be set to 100% to test raw cooling performance.

All temperature measurements are presented as deltas – the ambient temperature has been deducted from the CPU/GPU temperature giving us a delta.

The following configurations will be used to test the affect they have on thermal and acoustic performance:

• Tempered glass side panel installed with insulated top panel;
• Tempered glass panel installed with mesh top panel.
• Tempered glass panel removed with silent top panel installed;

Test System

• Processor: intel Core i9 9900k @ stock frequency and voltage
• Motherboard: Gigabyte Z390 Aorus Master
• CPU Cooler: (Air) be quiet! Dark Rock Pro 4, (AIO) Thermaltake Floe DX 360
• Memory: 16GB G.SKILL Trident Z RGB 3200MHz DDR4
• Graphics: Gigabyte RTX 2070 Super Gaming OC 8GB
• Power Supply: Seasonic Focus platinum 850PX
• Storage Drive: Corsair Force LE 120
• OS: Windows 10 version 1903

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