Corsair Carbide 500R review

The Corsair Carbide 500R midi tower is available in black, but if you want your PC case to stand out then this ice white version will certainly do the job. Colour apart it’s not flashy, with sharp angular edges which look sleek and understated.

It’s also a builder’s dream, thanks to the ample space inside, as well as its six internal 3.5in disk drives and four external 5.25in drive bays. Each tool-free disk caddy has mounting holes for 2.5in disks as well as 3.5in ones, so you won’t have trouble fitting an SSD. A huge motherboard cut-out makes the replacement of a CPU cooler’s backing plate much easier.

You should have no trouble cooling the components inside, thanks to its three 120mm fans (two front intakes and one rear exhaust) and a huge 200mm fan on the side panel, but if you need more cooling there are a further two 120mm fan mounts in the roof of the case, plus two sets of rubber grommets for a water cooling setup.

The two USB3 ports on the front I/O panel connect to a USB3 motherboard header. Unfortunately, not every board has one of these, but thankfully Corsair includes a regular USB header adaptor in the box. You also get 3.5mm headphone and microphone jacks, a single FireWire port, an integrated fan controller and a switch with which you can control the fan LEDs.

There’s room for future upgrades and its build quality is second to none. For £87, the 500R is a fantastic case. Indeed, not only can it keep a high-performance PC cool without making a massive racket, it also looks great while doing it.