Page 3 - Physical Look - Inside
The front panel of the be quiet! Pure Base 500DX can be removed easily by pulling from the bottom. Plastic pegs hold the front panel in place. One really neat thing here is the fact that, despite the presence of lighting strips on the front panel, there are no cables connected to it. On the right side of the front, you can see there are contact pads that provide electricity to the front lights. This is a pretty neat implementation, as users can quickly pop off the front without worrying about accidentally yanking at any cables. Behind the front panel is yet another plastic frame with a mesh filter attached to it. This covers the full ventilation slot of the opening, including the single 140mm Pure Wings 2 fan underneath. Behind there, you can see the rest of the case is very free flowing with no real blockage by anything. The only division in the be quiet! Pure Base 500DX is the power supply shroud, though it is not a solid panel and air can freely flow between the two sections. As mentioned on the previous page, the other two side panels can be removed with thumbscrews on the side or the back. The tempered glass side panel is 4mm thick and is quite solid. Meanwhile, the steel panel utilizes hooks that are bent out from the side panel and slides smoothly for easy removal.
Starting at the back-top corner, the top shows off two more 140mm Pure Wings 2 fans. All of these fans are 3-pin voltage-controlled fans with a maximum speed of 900RPM, airflow rating of 55.8 CFM, and noise output of 17.1dBA. I personally would have liked to see PWM-controlled fans here, but this is understandable considering the price point of the Pure Base 500DX. Interestingly, the way be quiet! has installed their fans creates a negative airflow pressure, since there are more fans pushing air out than pulling air in. As such, air may come through from unintended places. This further increases the need for filtration in all of the major places. Overall, the top has spacing to install one 140mm fan, two 120mm fans, or one 240mm radiator. If you do go with the radiator route however, you may run into clearance issues with the motherboard, as there does not seem to be a lot of room between top mounted cooling options and the motherboard. Otherwise, you can see on the back is the large motherboard hole where users can access the back of the motherboard. This helps with installation of third-party coolers, as one can swap the backplate without needing to remove the motherboard. There are standoffs pre-installed for the standard ATX motherboard, but you can also install the smaller micro ATX or mini ITX form factors too. One thing you will not see at the top is the addressable RGB light strip that is mounted to the top of the case. It is hidden behind the top lip of the case and the ten LEDs shine brightly.
At the bottom of the be quiet! Pure Base 500DX, you can get a better look at the perforations in the power supply shroud to allow air to pass through. Near the bottom back side of the case, you can see we have three openings to pass cables through to the bottom of the motherboard. None of these routing paths have rubber grommets, though this is not too surprising. Finally, at the back, you can get a better look at the seven removable expansion slot covers that are held on by thumbscrews.
At the front of the Pure Base 500DX, you can first see the front options for cooling. By default, this comes with a single front intake fan, but there is spacing for up to three 120mm fans, two 140mm fans, and radiators as large as 280mm or 360mm. At the bottom, we have an opening so the larger radiator sizes can dip below the shroud. You will need to move the drive cage underneath, or possibly remove it altogether, if you do go this route. Moving inwards, we have another metal bracket with some mounting points. This is actually a drive caddy to place two 2.5" drives. The drives would face towards the middle, so that the cables can be routed behind the be quiet! marked plastic piece and hidden from view. This also has a raised lip on the edge closer to the motherboard so users can hide the routed cables on at these holes. This does mean we do not have any rubber grommets, but I actually like this implementation. We will see how well it hides cables later on during our installation.
On the back side of our case, you can see all of the cables routed down the middle of the be quiet! Pure Base 500DX. These cables are the front I/O cables, and they include the standard headers for the power button and LED, a single USB 3.1 Type-A, a USB 3.1 Gen 2 Type-C, audio, and a SATA power cable for the addressable RGB. There is also a 5V ARGB header if you want to plug it into your motherboard and control the case lighting via software. Four Velcro straps are included and strapped in to hold all of these front I/O cables together. There are also quite a few cable ties points for excess cabling. In terms of cabling space, there is approximately 22mm minimum between the back of the motherboard area and the side panel, which is adequate. I would have liked to possibly see a fan controller here, especially with the three fans included, but it is not too much of an omission.
Behind the motherboard opening is another metal bracket with slots for two more 2.5" drives. In the power supply shroud, we have one more drive cage with a capacity for holding two 3.5" drives or a single 2.5" drive. This means up to a maximum of five 2.5" and two 3.5" drives can be held in the be quiet! Pure Base 500DX, which is quite impressive for a case of this size. What I also like is that all of these caddies and cages are held with thumbscrews and can be easily removed if you find them getting in the way. Finally, we have the area for the power supply. This has ventilation at the bottom and has four rubber pads to prevent vibration noises between the power supply and the case.
Page Index
1. Introduction, Packaging, Specifications
2. Physical Look - Outside
3. Physical Look - Inside
4. Installation and Conclusion
