Cooler Master Sileo 500 Case Review

[nextpage title=”Introduction”]

Cooler Master Sileo 500 is a mid-tower case with aluminum front panel designed to provide a very quiet computer. It has several noise-absorbing pads in its interior and its two 120 mm fans rotate at a very low speed (800 rpm) and thus producing almost no noise. You also have the option to buy this case with a Cooler Master eXtreme Power Plus 500 W power supply already installed. Let’s see what you should expect from this case.

The model without the power supply is called RC-500-KKN1-GP, while the model with the power supply is called RC-500-KKR3-GP. The price difference between them is of USD 30. Black is the only available color.

We’ve just reviewed Cooler Master eXtreme Power Plus 500 W power supply, so you may want to read this other review as well.

Figure 1: Cooler Master Sileo 500 case.

Figure 2: Cooler Master Sileo 500 case.

This is a steel case with an aluminum front panel, giving it a very sober looks. As you can see in Figure 3, Sileo 500 has five 5.25” and two 3.5” external bays, with the bottom one used to hold two USB ports, one eSATA port and microphone and headphones jacks. The addition of an eSATA port was really nice, although it is too close to the right USB port and maybe you won’t be able to install an eSATA cable if you have a “fat” USB device installed on this port. On the other hand the left USB port is located far away, so you will be able to install two “fat” USB devices at the same time. The standby and reset buttons available on the front panel are transparent and glow blue when the system is turned on.

Figure 3: Front panel.

There is a 120 mm fan behind the front case. The air intake is made through holes available on the junction between the front panel and the side panels (see Figures 1 and 2). The two fans available rotate at a low speed (800 rpm) – so they are quiet – and they use a three-pin connector, so you can install them directly on the motherboard in order to monitor their speed. The case comes with adapters if you want to attach them directly to the power supply.

In Figure 4, you can see the rear panel, which has the traditional ATX configuration, with the power supply on the top and seven expansion slots. This case has a mesh above the expansion slots, which surely helps improving airflow. As mentioned, this case has a 120 mm fan on the rear panel. There are no holes for water coolers.

Figure 4: Rear panel.

Now let’s take a look inside Sileo 500.

[nextpage title=”Inside Sileo 500″]

The right panel is attached to the chassis using thumbscrews, however the left panel uses regular screws. This is not a problem as since the motherboard tray is permanently attached to the chassis, this case doesn’t have holes for routing cables behind the motherboard tray and it has screwless mechanisms for holding disk drives, you will need to remove the left panel almost never.

Both panels come with a somewhat thick anti-static foam to reduce the noise produced by the computer. Foam is available also on the inner top and bottom panels, for the same purpose.

Figure 5: Side panels come with noise-absorbing foams attached.

Figure 6: Inside Sileo 500.

Figure 7: Foam on the inner top panel (the power supply was removed).

Figure 8: Foam on the inner bottom panel.

Daughter boards are attached to the case using individual screwless mechanisms, which are made of plastic.

Figure 9: Screwless mechanism.

[nextpage title=”The Disk Drive Bays”]

This case has five external 5.25” bays, two external 3.5” bays and three internal 3.5” hard disk drive bays. Even thought the bottom external 3.5” bay is used to hold the connectors found on the front panel (so you can’t install a second external 3.5” device like memory card reader, unless you don’t mind removing these connectors), this bay can be used to install a hard disk drive. We tested and the two 3.5” external bays have enough space for installing a floppy disk drive and a hard disk drive at the same time and still pass the cables from the those connectors. So you can have up to four or five (if you don’t use an external 3.5” device like a floppy disk drive or a memory card reader) hard disk drives installed in this case.

All bays use screwless mechanisms to hold disk drives. The 5.25” and external 3.5” bays use a very good mechanism where you only need to slide a ruler to lock the drive in place (see Figure 10). For install hard drives in the hard disk drive cage, however, you need to install two rulers to each hard drive and then slide the drive into its bay. This mechanism works great.

But since the main goal from this case is to have a quiet PC, we think that it should have some sort of vibration-absorbing mechanisms for the hard disk drives.

Figure 10: Screwless mechanisms
.

Figure 11: Hard disk drive cage.

The front fan is located in front of the hard disk drive cage, cooling down the hard drives located there.

[nextpage title=”Main Specifications”]

Cooler Master Sileo 500 case main specs include:

• Style: Mid-tower
• Application: ATX and smaller form factors derived from this one.
• Material: Zinc-coated steel (SECC) with aluminum front panel.
• Power supply required: eXtreme Power Plus 500 W (optional).
• Available colors: black.
• Side panel: solid.
• Dimensions: 17” x 7 7/8” x 18 57/64” (43.2 cm x 20.0 cm x 48.0 cm) (H x W x D).
• Net Weight: 17.6 lbs (8 Kg)
• Bays: Five external 5.25” bays, two external 3.5” bays and three internal 3.5” bays.
• Expansion slots: Seven.
• Fans: One 120 mm on the front and one 120 mm on the rear, both rotating at 800 rpm.
• Optional fans: None.
• Extra features: Anti-static foams for noise reduction.
• More Information: https://www.coolermaster-usa.com
• Average Price in the US*: USD 80.00 (without the power supply) or USD 110.00 (with the power supply).

* Researched at Newegg.com on the day we published this review.

[nextpage title=”Conclusions”]

Cooler Master Sileo 500 is a mid-tower case targeted to the user that wants a nice and affordable case. Here is a summary of what we thought about it:

Strong Points

• Anti-static foams for reducing noise installed on all panels.
• Screwless mechanisms for all disk drives and daughterboards.
• Aluminum front panel.
• eSATA port.
• No live edges where you could cut yourself while building your PC.
• Excellent cost/benefit ratio for the average user.

Weak Points

• The power supply that comes with it isn’t good.
• No anti-vibration mechanisms for the hard disk drives.

In summary, we liked Sileo 500, as we think it provides a good cost/benefit ratio for the average user looking for a sober-looking mid-tower case with good construction quality for building a quiet PC. For many, having the option of installing “only” four or five hard disk drives may be seen as a drawback, but a user that has this amount of hard drives will probably be looking into more high-end models anyway.

The only real problem with this case is the eXtreme Power Plus 500 W power supply that comes with it. So our “Golden Award” seal is specifically for the case, not for the case + power supply combo.