Cooler Master Launches N300 and N500 ATX Mid-Tower Cases

btarunr · May 1, 2013

Cooler Master, an industry leading PC component manufacturer today announces the N series, a brand new series of compact mainstream cases. The N series brings liquid cooling support up to 240mm radiators and improved air cooling performance wrapped in subtle and simplistic designs.

N series cases were designed with cooling performance in mind, especially liquid cooling. The full mesh front panels and a large amount of vents all over let air stream through the case with ease. The N300 supports up to 8 fans, including a 120mm vent on the all important side panel to keep high-end VGAs fed with fresh air, and support for two 120mm fans or one 240mm radiator on top of the case. The N500 supports up to 9 fans, adding a second 120mm slot to the side panel, and extends to top mounted vents to dual 140mm vents, including support for 240mm radiators.

Despite the compact designs, there's plenty of room to install extra long graphics cards, several ODDs, HDDs and SSDs, and still have space to route and hide cables. The N300 supports up to 320mm long VGAs and has a maximum capacity of 2 ODDs, 8 HDDs and an additional SSD slot. Thanks to its height the N500 supports 3 ODDs. It makes away with half the HDD slots to provide a direct stream of fresh air from the front panel to the VGAs. This also allows it supports over 400mm long VGAs and makes room for a dedicated tool-less SSD cage for 3 SSDs.

Both the N300 and N500 are available in 4 configurations - with or without a windowed side panel, and with two USB 3.0 ports (N2 edition) or with a single USB 3.0 port and two USB 2.0 ports (N1 edition). USB 3.0 Super Speed enables up to 10x faster file transfers and full speed charging of mobile phones (~1A).

N300/N500 will be available in EU in May . Price and availability may vary by region.

View at TechPowerUp Main Site

Octavean · May 1, 2013

I kind of like it. It reminds me a little of the old Antec 300 but with a better design,.....

Vancha · May 1, 2013

Did we ever find out how to route cables in the N300 with those two fans in the way?

Madn3ss795 · May 1, 2013

Vancha said:
Did we ever find out how to route cables in the N300 with those two fans in the way?

lol, can't. Cable routing doesn't mean much with the N300 anyway. Only 1 hole and the motherboard tray is extremely close to the side panel.

The N300 just arrived in my country - Vietnam - with its price tag 5$ lower than Corsair 300R Windowed version. Not sure how will it survive here :laugh:

The N200 also arrived with the same price tag as the N300, about 75$. Niche mini tower.

Mif · May 1, 2013

3.5" bay... What is this, 1996?

brian111 · May 1, 2013

Mif said:
3.5" bay... What is this, 1996?

I don't think you had to go back quite that far, but point taken.

Krnt · May 1, 2013

Looking good!, and the amount of fan intakes is pretty nice, if it has a good price its going to be in my next build.
And the 3.5 bay is going to be useful for some memory card reader, and maybe more USB's on the front

blibba · May 1, 2013

Mif said:
3.5" bay... What is this, 1996?

Krnt said:
Looking good!, and the amount of fan intakes is pretty nice, if it has a good price its going to be in my next build.
And the 3.5 bay is going to be useful for some memory card reader, and maybe more USB's on the front

Do you mean the 5.25" bay?

Most desktop-class hard drives still use the 3.5" format, and cases like this are definitely not in the SSD-only price bracket (if there is such a thing).

TRWOV · May 1, 2013

blibba said:
Do you mean the 5.25" bay?

Most desktop-class hard drives still use the 3.5" format, and cases like this are definitely not in the SSD-only price bracket (if there is such a thing).

There's an external 3.5" bay.

I don't like the blank slots on the front panel I/O, they could add a couple of USB2.0 slots there. I actually like this one a lot, I was considering a 200R or 300R for my next case but this looks pretty good too.

blibba · May 1, 2013

TRWOV said:
There's an external 3.5" bay.

I don't like the blank slots on the front panel I/O, they could add a couple of USB2.0 slots there. I actually like this one a lot, I was considering a 200R or 300R for my next case but this looks pretty good too.

Oh I see. There's quite a lot of stuff for those external 3.5" bays still, and indeed you can just use them for a hard drive.

I wouldn't recommend a low-end C'M' case to anyone, by the way. They're flimsy and poorly thought out.

dwade · May 1, 2013

I still don't understand why 90% of PC cases are still so archaic and ugly looking. Do 3rd world consumers gobble this up or what.

Vancha · May 1, 2013

dwade said:
I still don't understand why 90% of PC cases are still so archaic and ugly looking. Do 3rd world consumers gobble this up or what.

What do you consider to be a good-looking PC case?

Animalpak · May 2, 2013

That radiator integration is freakin amazing !!! Hope more case manufactures do the same !

TRWOV · May 2, 2013

blibba said:
Oh I see. There's quite a lot of stuff for those external 3.5" bays still, and indeed you can just use them for a hard drive.

I wouldn't recommend a low-end C'M' case to anyone, by the way. They're flimsy and poorly thought out.

poorly thought? such is the nature of low end cases but flimsy? I've used CM cases for a long time and I couldn't described any of them as flimsy... well, there are the Thermal Master cases, I suppose those are indeed flimsy.

The N300 seems to be the not so long ago released CM Force 500 with a different front panel (meh) and the N500's layout actually resembles the 200R/300R. :clap:

What I don't get is the USB slot configurations, why not 2x2.0+2x3.0? :wtf:

It's either 2x3.0 or 2x2.0+1x3.0. :shadedshu

renz496 · May 2, 2013

agreed about the front panel USB ports. why not 2 x USB 2.0 + 2 x USB 3.0? also wondering how much spacing does N500 has behind the motherboard tray. about N300 and Force 500 just change the PSU placement (plus new front mesh) then you got a whole new product

. well maybe N300 is for user with much longer/heavy PSU.

Nortrop · May 3, 2013

Vancha said:
Did we ever find out how to route cables in the N300 with those two fans in the way?

Routing, if you could call it that, is appalling. Too bad, kinda liked the simplistic design.

TurdFergasun · May 4, 2013

Looks better than my 1st gen cm690 and i had to put in some effort to get it to that point, but I'm not that anal about it, and it doesn't impede airflow in any meaningful way. Figure if I was I'd opt for a more expensive unit in the first place like the corsair 600T or c70's that has plentiful routing options.

TRWOV · May 4, 2013

renz496 said:
also wondering how much spacing does N500 has behind the motherboard tray.

Looks to be quite enough to route the PSU cables.

System Name	RBMK-1000
Processor	AMD Ryzen 7 5700G
Motherboard	ASUS ROG Strix B450-E Gaming
Cooling	DeepCool Gammax L240 V2
Memory	2x 8GB G.Skill Sniper X
Video Card(s)	Palit GeForce RTX 2080 SUPER GameRock
Storage	Western Digital Black NVMe 512GB
Display(s)	BenQ 1440p 60 Hz 27-inch
Case	Corsair Carbide 100R
Audio Device(s)	ASUS SupremeFX S1220A
Power Supply	Cooler Master MWE Gold 650W
Mouse	ASUS ROG Strix Impact
Keyboard	Gamdias Hermes E2
Software	Windows 11 Pro

Processor	RyZen R9 3950X
Motherboard	ASRock X570 Taichi
Cooling	Coolermaster Master Liquid ML240L RGB
Memory	64GB DDR4 3200 (4x16GB)
Video Card(s)	RTX 3050
Storage	Samsung 2TB SSD
Display(s)	Asus VE276Q, VE278Q and VK278Q triple 27” 1920x1080
Case	Zulman MS800
Audio Device(s)	On Board
Power Supply	Seasonic 650W
VR HMD	Oculus Rift, Oculus Quest V1, Oculus Quest 2
Software	Windows 11 64bit

System Name	No name (Originally Radeoncyclone)
Processor	AMD Phenom II X4 980BE @3.94GHz, NB2865MHz
Motherboard	ASUS M5A97evo
Cooling	Cooler Master Hyper 212+
Memory	2x8Gb Mushkin Blackline -19200 @1926 10-11-10-28
Video Card(s)	ASUS GTX970OC DCuII4GB @ 1260MHz core, 1445MHz Boost, 2000MHz memory
Storage	Western Digital RE4 1TB, Western Digital RE3 250GB, Western Digital Red 2TB, Western Digital Red 3TB
Display(s)	ASUS VE228 21" 1080p
Case	Cooler Master Elite 335 + CM 4-in-3 Device Module
Audio Device(s)	Realtek HD Audio
Power Supply	Cooler Master V700
Mouse	Logitech M570 Wireless Trackball
Keyboard	Logitech G100
Software	Windows 7 64 bit
Benchmark Scores	3DMark 11 - 10829 3DMark Fire Strike - 9366 3DMark Sky Diver - 19156

System Name	The one under the desk / Media Centre
Processor	Xeon X3730@3.6GHZ / Phenom II X4 805E
Motherboard	Gigabyte P55M-UD4 / Asus Crosshair III
Cooling	Corsair H70 + 2*PWM fan / Arctic Alpine 11
Memory	16GB DRR3-1333 9-9-9-27 / 4GB Crucial DDR3-1333
Video Card(s)	Asus DirectCU GTX 680 / Gigabyte 560TI
Storage	Kingston V200 128GB, WD6400AAKS, 1TB Seagate 7.2kRPM SSHD / Kingston V200 128GB
Display(s)	Samsung 2343BW + Dell Ultrasharp 1600*1200 / 32" TV
Case	C'M' Silencio 550 / Some ancient SilverStone brushed aluminium media centre
Audio Device(s)	No.
Power Supply	Thermaltake Toughpower XT 675W / EVGA 430W
Mouse	Mionix Naos 3200 / Generic PS2
Keyboard	Roccat Ryos TKL Pro / Evoluent Mouse Friendly Keyboard (Logitech OEM)
Software	Windows 7 Ult x64
Benchmark Scores	Nah.

System Name	Dell-y Driver
Processor	Core i5-10400
Motherboard	Asrock H410M-HVS
Cooling	Intel 95w stock cooler
Memory	2x8 A-DATA 2999Mhz DDR4
Video Card(s)	UHD 630
Storage	1TB WD Green M.2 - 4TB Seagate Barracuda
Display(s)	Asus PA248 1920x1200 IPS
Case	Dell Vostro 270S case
Audio Device(s)	Onboard
Power Supply	Dell 220w
Software	Windows 10 64bit

Cooler Master Launches N300 and N500 ATX Mid-Tower Cases

btarunr

Editor & Senior Moderator

Octavean

Vancha

Madn3ss795

Mif

New Member

brian111

Krnt

blibba

TRWOV

blibba

dwade

Vancha

Animalpak

TRWOV

renz496

Nortrop

TurdFergasun

New Member

TRWOV

System Name	Off-Brand PC System
Processor	2990WX
Motherboard	X399
Cooling	Wraithripper
Video Card(s)	Vega 64
Benchmark Scores	Less than Intel and Nvidia

Processor	i9 9900KS ( 5 Ghz all the time )
Motherboard	Asus Maximus XI Hero Z390
Cooling	EK Velocity + EK D5 pump + Alphacool full copper silver 360mm radiator
Memory	16GB Corsair Dominator GT ROG Edition 3333 Mhz
Video Card(s)	ASUS TUF RTX 3080 Ti 12GB OC
Storage	M.2 Samsung NVMe 970 Evo Plus 250 GB + 1TB 970 Evo Plus
Display(s)	Asus PG279 IPS 1440p 165Hz G-sync
Case	Cooler Master H500
Power Supply	Asus ROG Thor 850W
Mouse	Razer Deathadder Chroma
Keyboard	Rapoo
Software	Win 10 64 Bit

System Name	fred
Processor	3570k @ 4.5ghz
Motherboard	Z77-UD5H
Cooling	noctua nh-c14
Memory	8gb crucial ddr3 1866
Video Card(s)	xfx 6950
Storage	crucial m4 256gb
Display(s)	benq ew2420
Audio Device(s)	onboard
Power Supply	PCPC silencer 750w v.1