Corsair Carbide 500R Mid-Tower Case Review
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Inside the Corsair Carbide 500R
While the outside is a nice blend of black and white the inside, like all Corsair cases, is all flat black. Only the inside of the side panels are actually white. In our opinion this is a much nicer look than the old bare steel days and happy to see this treatment being carried throughout Corsairs case lineup.
Notice the same black rubber grommets from their other cases to hold and hide wires allowing you to get great airflow and a professional looking build. There is also a large cutout behind the CPU making it much easier to mount the cooling solution of choice after the motherboard is installed. In this shot you will notice the rear 120mm included fan and if you look closely infront of the hard drive cage you can see the dual included white LED fans. Corsair continues the use of tooless mounting for the four 5.25″ bays that are simple to use with just a squeeze and snap. Another item to note for this case is that the motherboard standoffs are pre-mounted for a standard ATX motherboard layout. The motherboard tray is recessed giving it a unique look inside the case.
The back of the Corsair Carbide 500R has several zip tie attachment loops to help with cable management and while the back panel is flared out as we noted above the motherboard tray is pushed back so there is less room than it appears from the outside of the case. This leaves just under 3/4″ of room to run cables which should be plenty for all but the most complicated builds.
This is the inside of the left side panel to give you a better view of the 200mm fan which is the fourth included fan with this case. You can see this fan has no dust filter unlike the front two intake fans or the bottom panel of the case. Seems a little odd they would go to the trouble on the other fans but neglect it here. I assume they felt the mesh panel would work well enough for this fan.
Here is a shot looking up at the top of the case from inside. You can see the rubber grommets to mount two 120mm fans and you can just barely see the 15mm spaced holes to mount a 240mm radiator. If you see where the motherboard stand off mounts are relative to this top panel it did make us wonder if a water cooled solution would actually fit between the motherboard chips and this part of the case. More on that later.
A close up of the six bay hard drive rack. You can see the thumb screws between them which is one of the major upgrades from the 500R’s little brother the 400R. You can remove one or both hard drive trays if required to accommodate extra long graphic cards or other gear.
If you are considering removing one or both of these HDD racks be aware that both of the front mounted 120mm intake fans actually mount to the side of these racks so you will lose one or both fans too. On the other hand they also have holes to mount additional 120mm fans on the inside of the racks assuming you have a short enough GPU to fit.
Corsair includes six of these hard drive trays that do not require screws for standard mechanical hard drives. You simply push the pins with included rubber dampeners back and let them snap into where the side screws would normally go. Then slide it into one of the six slots until you hear it click. The nice thing about this design is that all six trays will also support a SSD drive with the four bottom screw holes. This does require using screws but makes it simple to drop up to six SSD’s into this case.
Here are all of the included parts that come with the Corsair Carbide 500R. A USB 3.0 to 2.0 conversion cable in case your motherboard does not support USB 3.0. Long fan / radiator screws, motherboard mounting screws, a few standoffs for mATX motherboards since the ATX ones are already mounted. Small screws to mount SSD or lock in items in the 5.25″ bays. Few zip ties and zip tie adhesive mounts to clean up those cables.
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