Final Words & Conclusion

Final Words & Conclusion

Admittedly, the new Pure Base 500 is a chassis series that appeals to me very much, purely from an aesthetic point of view to be honest. the features are plenty for any decent build, and with the demise of the HDD, I am also fine with the two HDD slots. The amount of airflow the chassis offers can, however, be a bit tricky, the pure  Wings 2 fans do not offer heaps of flow, and the chassis is pretty restricted. There are bottom and front side intakes though, so for most setups, it will not be a problem. If it is, you'll need to take of the top cover and replace it with the airflow optimized mesh, yes be quiet! did think of that. Despite the compact format, this chassis does offer space enough for up-to ATX motherboards, you can really build a spicy and feature-rich DIY PC. Bein be quiet! stuff like cable routing and management is done right and for a chassis of this size, I'd label it good even. The build quality is also quite lovely, the bezels, however, do have a bit of a plastic feel to them and, in this price range, more exclusive materials would have had my preference. The design is intricate with the tempered glass left side panel. Now, you have seen that in our acoustic test the fans are silent but do not offer massive amounts of airflow, we think it's enough though even for a pretty spicy PC. The main color interior and cables will complement your components anything LED RGB activated. Side note, this chassis does not have a reset button and is lacking an HDD LED indicator, personally, I don't like that.

Aesthetics

The looks then; hey, I already spilled the beans in the first paragraph, I really like the new Pure Base 500 with its gun-metal color and see-through finish, you can't argue about taste as it is the most subjective thing and does not make the job of reviewer any easier. Some will dislike it, and others will love this chassis for its looks. Each and every little aspect of the chassis has been thought through really well. The design of the chassis has been made to make your life a little easier while combining the best features an enthusiast crowd seeks in a chassis. The tempered glass will make you look inside the PC. Nice to see is that everything is color matching. be quiet! also kept thing subtle with the logos an all. 

Features

The internals are pretty decent as well, a normal-sized ATX form factor motherboard will fit, the more lengthy graphics card will fit as well and there is even good space for liquid cooling on the front side and topside, the drive bay has sufficient space for two HDDs and two to five SSDs. The chassis has nice motherboard cut-outs (albeit partly blocked by the SSD storage bay (but removable)) and there's mucho enough space left for cable routing through the grommet holes, all in the interior. The nice touch is the ability to hide cables behind the cover at the backside in that separate compartment as well as the usage of velcro straps.

The Verdict

The Pure Base 500 will become a successful addition to the Pure Base series. It looks nice, offers a very decent feature set and does what is advertised, that is remaining silent. With a normal DIY PC build you should not run into any airflow options, the airflow from the two included fans is a bit on the low side though. There are meshes and air intake/exhausts to play around with. In a worst-case scenario, you might need to replace two fans, though we doubt that will be needed. The replaceable top cover helps here as a viable alternative as well of course. Overall the chassis is easy to use and fairly maintenance free, with the easy to clean magnet-based dust-filters where applied. You have decent storage options alongside proper cable routing options. The one (nitpicking) gripe might be that you cannot mount a 360 mm rad at the top, but then again there is space (ample) for that at the front side. Depending on your color options and whether or not you like the tempered glass windows you are looking at a chassis in that 75 to 85 EUR/USD range. For its compact size and no smart features that price is on the reasonable side, as it has sound dampening materials applied. Despite the looks, the outside front panel is plastic, it's however done in such a fashion that your eyes will be fooled, looking at it you think it's the real 'gunmetal' thing. Overall, we're certainly not disappointed with the Pure Base 500, and can certainly recommend it.

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