be quiet! Pure Base 500DX Case Review: Mesh Thermals, Noise, & Quality
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Date: 2020-05-06
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Comments and reviews: 10
Santy
I have an overly hot running laptop running 70+ C at idle with just the desktop screen splash up. My PC box is dead, age and dust and an old graphics card (I replaced x3 times in last 4 years. The last thing my PC did was install Win 10 Pro and move the hdd volume with newe OS onto a new ssd before I attempted to update its GPU driver. The GPU never forgave me. It was the cheapest, fastest (I thought) most generic noname brand on eBay. The PC mobo was old, the cpu was a gen 2 x86 i7, so everything was at least 10 years old. But I had never stopped to appreciate its retirement date. You might say, I just started it every day for over 10 years, ran it all day, every day, and I eventually went into sleepwalk mode - starting the comp was purely a motor reflex. In its absence, a huge chunk of my daily routine has gone awol. I became a senior citizen in its working lifetime. It was a significant stretch of time, the world outside my bubble of reality had changed greatly over the course of its passing. The PC ran my tv (tv encoder onboard, it ran my games, my Office suite, MS Project, SPSS Statistical Package for Social Sciences: Naturally I really miss the sleepwalk, it didn't remind me constantly that the bubble was fraught with realities of a greater externality in the immediate physical surrounds. What did I do? I went cheap, to keep my laptop alive and keep me in the game, I bought a cooling pad from Amazon at almost 100 (delivered. When that arrived, somebody had tampered with the box and it was DOA. A nasty, flimsy, low quality thing that wasn't really a heatsink or even a big cooler fan on a pad either. With the cheapest, flimsiest On/Off crap pwr button you would'nt expect to find on a child's toy. I wasn't surprised, but I was irritated and it stang. Its cost represented what I had money to afford and I had got a box of rubbish, which cost 100. This was my first encounter with the road back onto a desktop, the value for money here does not bode well for the path now set before us.
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I have an overly hot running laptop running 70+ C at idle with just the desktop screen splash up. My PC box is dead, age and dust and an old graphics card (I replaced x3 times in last 4 years. The last thing my PC did was install Win 10 Pro and move the hdd volume with newe OS onto a new ssd before I attempted to update its GPU driver. The GPU never forgave me. It was the cheapest, fastest (I thought) most generic noname brand on eBay. The PC mobo was old, the cpu was a gen 2 x86 i7, so everything was at least 10 years old. But I had never stopped to appreciate its retirement date. You might say, I just started it every day for over 10 years, ran it all day, every day, and I eventually went into sleepwalk mode - starting the comp was purely a motor reflex. In its absence, a huge chunk of my daily routine has gone awol. I became a senior citizen in its working lifetime. It was a significant stretch of time, the world outside my bubble of reality had changed greatly over the course of its passing. The PC ran my tv (tv encoder onboard, it ran my games, my Office suite, MS Project, SPSS Statistical Package for Social Sciences: Naturally I really miss the sleepwalk, it didn't remind me constantly that the bubble was fraught with realities of a greater externality in the immediate physical surrounds. What did I do? I went cheap, to keep my laptop alive and keep me in the game, I bought a cooling pad from Amazon at almost 100 (delivered. When that arrived, somebody had tampered with the box and it was DOA. A nasty, flimsy, low quality thing that wasn't really a heatsink or even a big cooler fan on a pad either. With the cheapest, flimsiest On/Off crap pwr button you would'nt expect to find on a child's toy. I wasn't surprised, but I was irritated and it stang. Its cost represented what I had money to afford and I had got a box of rubbish, which cost 100. This was my first encounter with the road back onto a desktop, the value for money here does not bode well for the path now set before us.
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Brian
I think the open vs. noise damping approach fundamentally comes down to a simple question: how low noise are you trying to go. Noise damping handles tremendously with coil whine, and coil whine is essentially unavoidable with modern mid-range or high-end GPUs (though some GPUs are vastly worse than others. It also helps a lot with pump noise on CLCs or open-loop cooling. However, for most people, in most situations, your fans are going to be way louder than the coil whine or pump noise anyway. I want my PC to be inaudible over the background noise even while gaming. To do that without extreme overkill water-cooling, you need to underclock/undervolt the GPU. I have an Asus Strix 1080 running at 1450MHz core at 0. 7V, which cuts the board power from 180W stock to around 100W (it also cuts performance by about 25%. When you take a card designed to cool 180W and run it at 100W, you can run the fans on the card really slow. You can run the case fans slow, too. At that noise level, coil whine and the tonality of the sound are the major factors.
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I think the open vs. noise damping approach fundamentally comes down to a simple question: how low noise are you trying to go. Noise damping handles tremendously with coil whine, and coil whine is essentially unavoidable with modern mid-range or high-end GPUs (though some GPUs are vastly worse than others. It also helps a lot with pump noise on CLCs or open-loop cooling. However, for most people, in most situations, your fans are going to be way louder than the coil whine or pump noise anyway. I want my PC to be inaudible over the background noise even while gaming. To do that without extreme overkill water-cooling, you need to underclock/undervolt the GPU. I have an Asus Strix 1080 running at 1450MHz core at 0. 7V, which cuts the board power from 180W stock to around 100W (it also cuts performance by about 25%. When you take a card designed to cool 180W and run it at 100W, you can run the fans on the card really slow. You can run the case fans slow, too. At that noise level, coil whine and the tonality of the sound are the major factors.
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Alex
I got the original pure base 500 instead of waiting for the 500dx because it's a really good looking case. Most of the mesh cases are either plain ugly or overly gamery. I like the pure base 500 is a great aesthetic design that you could have in an office and no one would bat an eye. Bring that ugly lancool 2 knockoff and no one will take you seriously. Thermals beyond good enough matter for such a small percentage of people that it shouldn't be your main concern. Get something you like the look of and that is built well. If you're running a baller system or a high-end work station that has the components to really push the thermals during regular work, then you're likely getting a much more expensive case and going with liquid cooling. An all-mesh front panel just can't compare to how nice a solid panel can look. And, like all GN videos, this one was another snoozefest that was twice as long as it needed to be.
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I got the original pure base 500 instead of waiting for the 500dx because it's a really good looking case. Most of the mesh cases are either plain ugly or overly gamery. I like the pure base 500 is a great aesthetic design that you could have in an office and no one would bat an eye. Bring that ugly lancool 2 knockoff and no one will take you seriously. Thermals beyond good enough matter for such a small percentage of people that it shouldn't be your main concern. Get something you like the look of and that is built well. If you're running a baller system or a high-end work station that has the components to really push the thermals during regular work, then you're likely getting a much more expensive case and going with liquid cooling. An all-mesh front panel just can't compare to how nice a solid panel can look. And, like all GN videos, this one was another snoozefest that was twice as long as it needed to be.
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Ma
IMO the Pure Base 500 non dX is far better than presented here. Yes, the thermals may not be on top, but besides that it's the best case I've ever build a PC in. Cutouts, general alignment of mounting holes, vibrations, noise - all is top notch. And mine did cost only 60 Euros at Black Friday. Had a H440i V2 before, that was basically crap compared to the PB 500. Also build PCs in Silent Base 601, Silent Base 800, H700 and several sub 100 cases. It fits a NH-D15 with no problems whatsoever. I've got mine configured with 3 Noctua NF-A12X25 as intake in the front, 1 NF-A12X25 as exhaust at the back and the two stock case fans as exhaust at the top (at zero RPM Mode, they only spin if the VRM temps are too high. On the power supply shroud I've mounted a NF-F12 blowing straight onto the GPU.
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IMO the Pure Base 500 non dX is far better than presented here. Yes, the thermals may not be on top, but besides that it's the best case I've ever build a PC in. Cutouts, general alignment of mounting holes, vibrations, noise - all is top notch. And mine did cost only 60 Euros at Black Friday. Had a H440i V2 before, that was basically crap compared to the PB 500. Also build PCs in Silent Base 601, Silent Base 800, H700 and several sub 100 cases. It fits a NH-D15 with no problems whatsoever. I've got mine configured with 3 Noctua NF-A12X25 as intake in the front, 1 NF-A12X25 as exhaust at the back and the two stock case fans as exhaust at the top (at zero RPM Mode, they only spin if the VRM temps are too high. On the power supply shroud I've mounted a NF-F12 blowing straight onto the GPU.
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Blacklotu5
Just got a BeQuiet fan for my radiator along with others for air flow but was wondering what would be best for my fan setup with two 120mm fans front, two 120mm fans top & two on front & back of the CPU radiator at rear. Also just got WD Blue SN550 M. 2 I use for gaming atm CoD MW & soon GTA5 noticing it hits high temps of +50c while next to / above my Gigabyte 1080ti oc GPU was wondering if it'd be better to direct the top 2 fans to pull air out or to direct the top 2 fans to blow air in onto the M. 2 & GPU? what would help cool them better. Also if getting a heatsink for my M. 2 would be a good idea since I use it for gaming.
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Just got a BeQuiet fan for my radiator along with others for air flow but was wondering what would be best for my fan setup with two 120mm fans front, two 120mm fans top & two on front & back of the CPU radiator at rear. Also just got WD Blue SN550 M. 2 I use for gaming atm CoD MW & soon GTA5 noticing it hits high temps of +50c while next to / above my Gigabyte 1080ti oc GPU was wondering if it'd be better to direct the top 2 fans to pull air out or to direct the top 2 fans to blow air in onto the M. 2 & GPU? what would help cool them better. Also if getting a heatsink for my M. 2 would be a good idea since I use it for gaming.
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TrumpWinner
WOW! GN Actually said something is good and you should buy it! When i watched his video showing this case in white at CES i loved the case, a quiet case, with airflow and nice design with simple LED's. PERFECT! However he mentioned that he was sceptical about thermal performance, so i held of my excitement until the full review. I'm so glad that BeQuiet knocked it out the park with this case, its everything i wanted in a case aesthetically and noise level wise, and now with the GN backing of thermal performance there is no other case for my new build other than this! WooHoo i love it when a plan comes together!
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WOW! GN Actually said something is good and you should buy it! When i watched his video showing this case in white at CES i loved the case, a quiet case, with airflow and nice design with simple LED's. PERFECT! However he mentioned that he was sceptical about thermal performance, so i held of my excitement until the full review. I'm so glad that BeQuiet knocked it out the park with this case, its everything i wanted in a case aesthetically and noise level wise, and now with the GN backing of thermal performance there is no other case for my new build other than this! WooHoo i love it when a plan comes together!
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Neil
I won a free original 500 from Scan a few months back. So been using it as it was free & a significant upgrade in tooling quality to my old case. All I could find online was glowing reviews, I was longing for a GN review but sadly there wasn't 1 at the time. I wish that the mesh front was something that could be purchased as an upgrade. I already stuck 2x Arctic 140mm fans in the front of mine that I already had & removed the dust filters to give it some more room to breath. Generally been pretty happy with it but I'm also only running a R5 3600 so CPU thermals are never going to be at the levels of the tests here.
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I won a free original 500 from Scan a few months back. So been using it as it was free & a significant upgrade in tooling quality to my old case. All I could find online was glowing reviews, I was longing for a GN review but sadly there wasn't 1 at the time. I wish that the mesh front was something that could be purchased as an upgrade. I already stuck 2x Arctic 140mm fans in the front of mine that I already had & removed the dust filters to give it some more room to breath. Generally been pretty happy with it but I'm also only running a R5 3600 so CPU thermals are never going to be at the levels of the tests here.
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Gareth
End of the road for quiet cases? Mesh sucks for those who still use hard drives (zero sound insulation. What I find strange is the case manufactories don't enclose the PSU shroud to contain the noise of drives (at least 4, 6 would be nice) and it wouldn't even need any fans as the PSU exhaust should be ample. Noise bugs the hell out of me (ADHD. I became close to murder Whilst working in a co-working space a while back (some people have no concept of an indoor voice, but that's another issue. Still using a Fractal Design XL from January 2011 (w/ 3950x & 5700XT.
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End of the road for quiet cases? Mesh sucks for those who still use hard drives (zero sound insulation. What I find strange is the case manufactories don't enclose the PSU shroud to contain the noise of drives (at least 4, 6 would be nice) and it wouldn't even need any fans as the PSU exhaust should be ample. Noise bugs the hell out of me (ADHD. I became close to murder Whilst working in a co-working space a while back (some people have no concept of an indoor voice, but that's another issue. Still using a Fractal Design XL from January 2011 (w/ 3950x & 5700XT.
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Arda
I am afraid this constant complaining about not enough airflow from you will ruin the silent pc cases which I love and would prefer any day over a high airflow case. Should people have more options? Yes. Should we disregard anything with non optimal airflow? No. I have used a couple of cases with silence focus instead airflow and I have been very happy with them. I recently built a PC in a more airflow focused Phanteks and I am very disappointed with the noise. I have my pc working 10+ hours a day most of the time and silence beats airflow imo.
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I am afraid this constant complaining about not enough airflow from you will ruin the silent pc cases which I love and would prefer any day over a high airflow case. Should people have more options? Yes. Should we disregard anything with non optimal airflow? No. I have used a couple of cases with silence focus instead airflow and I have been very happy with them. I recently built a PC in a more airflow focused Phanteks and I am very disappointed with the noise. I have my pc working 10+ hours a day most of the time and silence beats airflow imo.
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el
Do you think you could add HDD tests (noise, and possibly temps) too? Some can be quite loud. HDD noise is why I got BQ (801; it works pretty well) and I came across other people who were considering/have gotten BQ for the same reason. I didn't see any other option, as there really isn't much information on this. Another thing that is relevant to this is that noise can differ significantly depending on your position (front/side/rear. Typically you'd sit slightly to the side, possible above, rather than right in front of the case.
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Do you think you could add HDD tests (noise, and possibly temps) too? Some can be quite loud. HDD noise is why I got BQ (801; it works pretty well) and I came across other people who were considering/have gotten BQ for the same reason. I didn't see any other option, as there really isn't much information on this. Another thing that is relevant to this is that noise can differ significantly depending on your position (front/side/rear. Typically you'd sit slightly to the side, possible above, rather than right in front of the case.
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