Corsair Carbide 500R Review

The matte black interior looks smart, and on offer here are even more useful features including numerous cable routing holes and a large CPU area cut-out, which should mean that whatever motherboard you use, you should be able to get at the CPU socket mounting holes without having to remove the motherboard, making cooler replacement much easier. The space at the rear of the motherboard tray is deep enough to allow large cables to be routed/hidden here.


The roof of the case is perhaps the most interesting, certainly from a water-cooling perspective. The roof panel pops off, revealing two 120/140mm fan mounts with 15mm spacing, which support dual 120mm or dual 140mm radiators.


Sadly, the space between the motherboard tray and fan mounts won't be enough to allow full-height radiators to be used with all motherboards due to VRM heatsink placement; instead you'll probably be limited to half-height models, including that supplied with Corsair's H100 all-in-one liquid cooler.


The latter can be installed with the radiator or fans in the roof section, meaning the 500R is pretty flexible depending on whether you want to use this area as an exhaust or intake, or use the fans in push or pull mode. The final pieces of cooling gubbins include a large 200mm side panel fan and rear 120mm fan - its rare to see such air cooling prowess on a case that costs less than £90.