The Cooler Master HAF 500 comes with an updated front design and very good liquid-cooling support in the ceiling; both make sense for a case that has just been released. In this iteration, you will also find an extra-fine front mesh protecting the fans while giving you as much airflow as possible, updated I/O with USB-C, and a built-in ARGB controller. Cooler Master has also done well by engineering a clean window that snaps into place nicely. All those are the bare minimum these days for a $170 chassis to stay competitive.

As with previous HAF enclosures, you will find the signature dual 200 mm fan setup in the front; those are in fact the same fans as in the three-year old variants of the chassis, which brings us to the most obvious drawback of the chassis: the frame, or tooling. In essence, the HAF 500 does well in many regards even with that aging tooling. There is that very good cable-management, or the tool-less HDD and SSD mounting possibilities. You also get a clean interior because of the metal cover and are provided plenty of room for even big air coolers, but the plastic shroud that has to be removed whenever you want to get to the PSU, gap between the motherboard tray and front of the case, and exposed 3.5" HDD cage aren't what we would expect to see in a modern chassis. The same goes for the very simple rear with no thumb screws for expansion slots, no vertical GPU mounting, and no adjustable 120 mm exhaust-fan mounting. No matter how hard the HAF 500 tries, these are elements that feel a bit dated. The fact that the front fans are still RPM, but connected to a PWM hub, while the two remaining, newer 120 mm fans come with PWM instead is a great example of the old clashing with the new within the enclosure.

Funnily enough, the aspect of the Cooler Master HAF 500 that feels modern and functional is the ceiling. This is also the part that has been added to the original case. You may remove the whole ceiling cover, which gives you a very comfortable way of assembling the whole system while allowing for easy liquid-cooling prep work outside the confines of the case. With that raised top compared to the original, you also have plenty of room for something like this without any interference to your motherboard or tall memory. The cosmetic downside is that Cooler Master has kept the older tooling unchanged and simply added a cap to the chassis top, which looks a bit out of place when viewed from certain sides.

The result is that the Cooler Master HAF 500 is a functional case where the past and present sometimes clash. At its price point, it should have really used proper, new tooling, which would have allowed Cooler Master to improve and tweak various areas of the chassis as well as update the fans to properly take advantage of the modern fan hub. That friction and resulting lack of modernization is in essence what cost this case our recommendation.