be quiet! Pure Base 500 FX PC Case Review @bequietofficial
Summary: Neat insides and a vibrant beauty on the outside.
4.5
Vibrant!
The last time I upgraded my case I was sad to see the absence of storage media drive bays (I still like the ability to play movies via disc… yes I’m old). While those bays haven’t made a return… the compensation for that loss is pretty decent with the be quiet! Pure Base 500 FX case. To start with there are the beautiful LEDs. My previous case had two large LED fans in the front and after a while they would start looking a bit dim because of the accumulation of dust (it’s easy to forget how vibrant they are between dust removals)… be quiet! Pure Base 500 FX features 3 LED fans and two central LED strips… the benefit here is that even after dust begins building up and dimming the visual vibrancy of the LED fans, the two strips aren’t part of the airflow passage and will remain vibrant (which should serve as a good visual aid that it’s time to clean the dust covers when the fans are looking a bit dim). In addition to the three front LED fans there is also one LED fan in the rear of the case which adds further visual punch and assists with the overall cooling. Presumably living up to the company name, these fans don’t make much more than a gentle thrum in the background.
Speaking of the airflow/dust filters, there are front, top and bottom filter panels. The top filter is actually connected by what I presume are neodymium magnets, it creates a good solid connection that helps the filter snap into place and not shift around but is simple enough to remove when required for cleaning.
But, as usual, I’ve jumped ahead of myself. The case comes in a simple brown box (nothing fancy, which I take to mean it is more easily recyclable as there are no waxy covers on the outside of the box). Inside the case is protected by two main blocks of foam one on top and one on the bottom. Sliding the case out reveals what is arguably a fairly simple manual… it’s not too detailed and it might have been nice to have a code or something with the screws to know which are being used for which section as the diagrams are small and non descript enough to make it hard to discern which screws are being used for what… fortunately it doesn’t really make a big difference for the most part. On that note though… upon opening the case I found a box inside with the word accessories printed on it, opening it revealed three sets of screws, zip ties and a little adapter to enable a phillips head screw driver to remove hex head bolts, certainly a nice little collection of items to help with set up.
Following the order shown in the manual I was able to install all my components relatively easily, though I did end up back tracking and taking my GPU out to make some of the cable attaching easier (this will vary from motherboard to motherboard… my SATA connectors begin basically under where the GPU is slotted in and it was tricky to attach the hard drives while the GPU was in place. The case has some designated locations for various hard drives, SSDs can be mounted on the back, more traditional hard drives can be secured in the cage on the bottom of the case.
When it comes time to connect everything, be quiet! have provided a number of options (not to mention three velcro cable management straps). At various points around the frame there are openings for feeding cables from the back of the case to the front, there are also anchor points for the velcro (or zip tie) cable management straps to be fastened to.
With plenty of room in height and length, the Pure Base 500 FX is a great option for people who want to cram as much into their system as possible. I’m still only using an RTX 2060 Super so my GPU form factor isn’t too bulky… but there’s still quite a lot of room around my card which would suggest that even the more sizable modern cards should have no trouble fitting in this case with room to spare for good air flow.
The front IO panel has the usual headphone, microphone jacks, power on and USB connection, but as well as the 3.0 USB connector there is also a USB C connector for more modern connectivity. But to some extent it all comes back to the other little button on that panel… the RGB control button. Pressing that button will cycle through the colour presets, “regular”, “breath”, “comet” and “trail”. For me I set it to rainbow and love the way the colours change in a waterfall type manner from top to bottom on the center strips as the colours on the fans (front and back) gently shift from one colour to the next.
Final Thoughts?
Overall, I’m really happy with the case. It’s a solid build, beautiful light displays (nice bright vibrant colours). Plenty of space inside and good airflow with helpful cable management options. be quiet! have produced what is indeed a quiet case that is packed with features to make the most of your PC build.
Highly recommended.
About the Author
Chris O'Connor Father of four, husband of one and all round oddity. Gaming at home since about 1982 with a Sinclair ZX Spectrum. Moving on to the more traditional PC genre in the years that followed with the classic Jump Joe and Alley Cat. CGA, EGA, VGA and beyond PC's have been central to my gaming but I've also enjoyed consoles and hand helds along the way (who remembers the Atari Lynx?). Would have been actor/film maker, jack of many trades master of none.
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