A Closer Look - Inside

To gain access to the interior, simply turn the silver screw to allow for the glass panel to be removed and loosen the thumbscrews of the solid panel to take it off the chassis. Looking into the Mastercase H500P, it becomes apparent that Cooler Master has spent some time ensuring you can hide and route all the cables.


The backside of the motherboard comes with two individual covers. One for the CPU cooler's area - which could be an unsightly view for some - and a larger metal variant in the front of the case to allow you to hide all the usual power and data cables of a fully built system. Removing the latter reveals that there is another cover in the interior of the case that fits right over the large opening through which to route your cables. This mechanism is used instead of the smaller, grommet-equipped openings in the motherboard tray found inside most other cases on the market.


The space behind the motherboard tray varies between 20 and 25 mm, while the interior cover essentially gives you another 20 mm to work with to route your cables and have the chassis looking clean.


There is a two-part, all-metal shroud on the bottom of chassis. The division allows you to reveal the front or rear, or to remove everything altogether. On top of that, by having two pieces, you are able to move the front cover towards the rear by about an inch to allow for a 360 mm radiator to be installed into the front. Removing all the shroud panels - a requirement to install parts underneath - reveals the PSU bay in the rear and two 2.5/3.5" hard-drive trays in the front. While having the fairly sophisticated covers is great, it is a shame that you will have to remove them to gain access to these parts of the system. Having the PSU slide in through the rear with a frame and the HDD bay engineered to allow for the drives to slide in through the motherboard's side would have been perfect instead.


Cooler Master has placed two SSD brackets on the rear half of the shroud, which brings the total drive bay count to four - enough for most, but not quite the number one would expect from a case of this size.


Looking at the drive bays in the front, you can clearly see that the HDD cage is meant to be utilized through the main side as the rear of the trays face towards the opening underneath the shroud. Above that is not much else besides the ability to install a large radiator with its appropriate fans. Out of the box, the two massive 200 mm fans, which rotate at a mere 800 RPM, will push plenty of cool air across the interior of the chassis. The element of note is the metal opening cover that is held in place by a few screws. You may remove it during assembly. It would have been nice had Cooler Master utilized the surface area of the cover in some fashion - be it for additional drive space or the possibility to place a reservoir or pump here. All this could have been achieved with some small mounting holes and openings.


In the rear, looking at the PSU bay from the backside of the motherboard tray, you can clearly see the foam-covered stands on which the power supply will rest. Above that, once again, above the Shroud, the 7+2 expansion slots utilize standard screws on all the covers. While this is just fine, thumbscrews would have been a nice touch, especially as they are usually found in most cases these days.


Looking at the ceiling of the Mastercase H500P, you can clearly see the metal bracket for the fans and/or radiator underneath the clear ceiling. There is plenty of space above the motherboard, so you won't have to worry about any such cooling units interfering with your board.


All the I/O cables are pretty standard, but there are a few nice surprises. Firstly, Cooler Master includes a 3-to-1 adapter for the fans, allowing you to connect all three included cooling units to a single header. On top of that, you will find an RGB cable adapter, which allows for up to three 4-pin RGB elements to be connected to a controller or the motherboard. The adapter cable is of very high quality and is brand agnostic so that you may use any motherboard or controller board as long as it offers the 4-pin header. Another advantage of the generic connection is the ability to expand the number of lighting elements within the H500P.