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Taken as a whole, the be quiet! Pure Base 500 is a good budget ATX case. While still maintaining the minimalistic look we have come to expect in 2019, the aesthetic design features, such as the angled front corners and mesh panel accents provide an alternative to the plain box shape we often see.
The metallic silver may not be to everyone's taste – in certain light it can look a little off brown colour, so it may not fit in with most systems when placed next to other black peripherals. We guess it will be a love or hate thing.
In terms of acoustic performance, we were mostly pleased. The insulated panels be quiet! have designed into the Pure Base 500 seem to work, although not to an extreme extent. Noise levels were not impacted a great deal when changing the configuration of the top panel. Overall, Acoustics were not too distracting. With a quiet, large air cooler installed, acoustics were just a few dBA above ambient levels in the room.
One thing which really impressed us about the Pure Base 500 was the excellent options for cooling. be quiet! have created the possibility to install multiple radiators, which is often only found in cases of a higher cost. We applaud them for this, as it offers us scope for cooling more than one component with liquid.
It is also nice to see the case is wide enough to fit a high-end air cooler, such as the Dark Rock Pro 4 we installed in this review. Other cases in this price range suffer with width, which makes installing high end air coolers a problem, especially with tall ram modules which can increase the height of the front fan on an air cooler.
Thermal performance of the Pure Base 500 seems to be at a very acceptable level for a case in this price range. With a front mounted AIO liquid cooler, temperature of our i9 9900k was kept well under control. Using a high-end air cooler will achieve good results on a stock CPU too in the Pure Base 500.
During system installation, we did encounter some issues. The full ATX size motherboard we used was a tight squeeze – fans and panels had to be removed for installation. Considerable pressure was required to line up all the motherboard stand offs to enable the motherboard to be fixed in place.
be quiet! have given us plenty of cable management cut outs and eyelets in the Pure Base 500. We were a little disappointed with the lack of rubber grommets around the cut outs – the minimal extra cost to implement these would have outweighed the benefit in our opinion. The SSD panel next to the motherboard did create a long cable management cut out, however the width caused us problems with the orientation of the 24 pin power cables.
The Pure Base 500 uses a semi-modular design and removable SSD and HDD mounting panels aid installation, which is a great feature. The installation of the PSU from the rear is also nice to see and makes PSU installation easier than from the side.
A full cover PSU shroud is designed to hide away untidy looking cables. Unfortunately in this instance, be quiet! have cut out a grille on the top of the PSU cover. We would have preferred this to have been blocked off as you can still see the PSU and cabling which detracts from the otherwise clean looks of the interior.
Overall, when taking price into consideration. the be quiet! Pure Base 500 offers excellent performance. The features implemented are often seen only on cases in a higher price range. Therefore, we would be happy to recommend this case to enthusiasts on a budget. With the excellent range of cooling options, the Pure Base 500 would be capable of housing a mid-range gaming PC and shouldn't look out of place in a home office scenario.
The Pure Base 500 (grey, with tempered glass side panel) is currently up for pre-order for £84.95 from Overclockers UK HERE. You can find other colours, with solid panel or glass, HERE.
Pros:
- Excellent options for cooling.
- Smart semi-modular design.
- Clear tempered glass give a good view of internals.
- Sound insulated panels.
- Good acoustic and thermal performance.
- Many areas for cable management.
Cons:
- ATX motherboard installation was tight.
- Lack of grommets on cable cut outs.
- PSU shroud grille design looks untidy.
KitGuru says: With many great features to set the Pure Base 500 aside from other cases in this price range, it is a worthwhile option for budget system builders and mid-tier gaming builds.
