Cooler Master H500M Review

Conclusion 

You should already know that we loved Cooler Master’s H500P chassis, so much so that we are willing to look at it day-in and day-out as we crunch through videos and conduct our daily business.

With the H500M Cooler Master planned to 1-up H500P, building upon its foundations to create something that is simultaneously similar and remarkably different. The H500P is already a high-end case, but what happens when Cooler Master cranks things up to 11? 

The H500M is more than a mere refresh, offering full ARGB lighting with a wide range of redesigned parts, offering new functions, extended water cooling support and a better builder and user experience. 

First off, the H500P is about consumer options, offering both a tempered glass front panel and a full mesh front panel in the box, allowing users to switch between both options at will. The case’s side wents have also been modified to enable the tempered glass front to offer increased airflow when compared to the H500P, making both the glass and mesh options more airflow friendly.

On the inside of the case, we can see a lot of small, yet profound, changes, solidifying the H500M’s claim as a high-end PC enclosure. Here we can see that Cooler Master has integrated a GPU support into their design, allowing chunky GPUs to sit straight and true within the H500M. The H500M also features dedicated pump/reservoir mounting positions for water cooling and four extra mounts for 2.5-inch HDDs and SSDs, facilitating a lot of extra system storage. 

Water coolers will rejoice when there hear that this chassis can support two 360mm or 280mm radiators (or a 200mm radiator in the front), providing users with enough cooling potential for even the most power hungry of modern systems. This radiator support makes Cooler Master’s addition of pump/reservoir mounts a masterstroke for the H500M, removing the need to get your drill out when creating a new water cooling setup. 
  
If the inclusion of two ARGB 200mm fans didn’t already tip you off, the Cooler Master H500M is designed to act as a showpiece. The enclosure offers users tempered glass top, side and front (optional) panels, replacing the plastic top window of the H500P with glass to providing a clear view inside the case from almost all angles. 

With such visual access into the case, many of us would no doubt worry about our lacklustre cable management skills, though with the H500M this shouldn’t be a concern. Cooler Master has provided users with removable PSU shrouds on both sides of the H500M, alongside several other cable management plates, allowing cable clutter to be well hidden. Creating a tidy PC has never been this easy. 

Now it’s time to talk pricing, with Cooler Master quoting an MSRP of £199.99 in the UK (including VAT), placing this case on the expensive side of the spectrum.

This price is around £65-80 more than the H500P, though it is easy exactly how Cooler Master has spent the extra money. We now have tempered glass on both side panels and the top of the case, the two 200mm fans now support ARGB illumination, extra cable cover plates, and additional mounting positions for both SSDs and water cooling components. The H500M is a straight-up better case than the H500P; you can’t argue otherwise. 

As for an award, Cooler Master’s H500M deserves nothing less than the title of Enthusiast Grade, offering everything that high-end PC builders could ever want in a case. The only question is whether you can afford the enclosure’s high price tag and whether or not the case matches your stylistic preferences. 
 

You can discuss our Cooler Master H500M on the OC3D Forums. 

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